THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY 5 0 5> S J e f' SCIENCE NEW SERIES. VOLUME XLIV JULY-DECEMBER, 1916 NEW YORK THE SCIENCE PRESS 1916 THE KEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY, 41 North Queen Street, Lancaster, Pa. »3/v n ‘ Y\,S,H' 4-j- * CONTENTS AND INDEX. NEW SERIES. VOL. XLIV.— JULY TO DECEMBER, 1916. THE NAMES OF CONTRIBUTORS ARE PRINTED IN SMALL CAPITALS Vj °0 Abb 6, Cleveland, A. W. Greely, 703 Abbot, C. G., Atmospheric Transmission, 495 Achievement, Recognition of, W. N. Clute, 892 Acree, S. F., and W. A. Gruse, Menthone, 64; and W. A. Taylor, Electrical Conductivity, 576 Agar Agar for Bacteriological Use, H. A. Noyes, 797 Agriculture, State College of, at Cornell, 711 Alexander, K., Auroral Display, 815 Alexander, H. B., Mythology, A. C. Fletcher, 644 Allard, H. A., Southern Bullfrog, 205; Song of Fowler’s Toad, 463; Flashing of Fireflies, 710 Allen, B. M., Extirpation of Glands, 755 Allen, F. S., Ambystoma, 311 Allen, W. E., Another Typical Case, 639 Ambystoma, F. S. Allen, 311; Amblystoma not Ambystoma, C. P. G. Scott, 309 American Association for the Advancement of Science, Pacific Division, 14 ; San Diego Meeting, A. L. Barrows, 581; Committee of One Hun¬ dred, Grants for Research, C. R. Cross, 50, 229; Section B, W. J. Humphreys, 474; Committee on Policy, L. O. Howard, 526; New York Meet¬ ing, 775; Convocation- week Meetings of Scien¬ tific Societies, 845, 883; Meetings of the Sec¬ tions, 885; Address of Vice-president, Section B. 899 Ami, H. M., Royal Society of Canada, 832 Amoeba proteus, A. A. Schaeffer, 468 Animal Diet of Early Man, M. W. Lyon, Jr., 426 Animals and Human Disease, D. J. Davis, 337 Antagonism, W. J. V. Osterhout, 318, 395 Anthropological Soc. of Wash., F. Densmore, 36 Apyrene Spermatozoa, R. Goldschmidt, 544 Archibald, R. C., Simon Newcomb, 871 Arey, L. B., Mammalian Erythrocyte, 392 Aristotle’s Echeneis, E. W. Gudger, 316 Astronomical, Soc., Amer., P. Fox, 722; Society of the Pacific, 398 Atmospheric, Transmission, F. W. Very, 168; C. G. Abbot, 495; Conditions, Physiological Action of, F. S. Lee, 183 Auriferous Gravels, 686 Auroral Display, C. C. Nutting, 496; L. M. Pas- sano, 568; B. MacNutt, 568; F. C. Baker, 568; J. W. Harshberger, 568; P. R. Heyl, 569; F. A. McDermott, 678; J. E. Hyde, 679; S. S. Berry, 679; W. G. Stover, 679; J. C. Hessler, 680; H. B. Latimer, 680; R. R. Hudelson, 680; C. Zapffe, 680; M. I. Goldman, 681; A. Bevan, 681; W. L. Foster, 681; R. H. Chapman, 682; M. H. Jacobs, 682; C. C. Trowbridge, 717; K. Alexander, 815; F. K. Vreeland, 815; E. Brainerd, 816; W. S. Cooper, 816; A. H. Brooks, 817; M. O. Malte, 817; G. M. Searle, 817 ; E. Thomson, 818 B., F. E., Amer. Assoc, of Variable Star Observ¬ ers, 898 Bachmann, F. M., and W. D. Frost, Double-plate Method, 433 Bacteria in Milk, R. S. Breed, 749 Bacterial Blights, L. R. Jones, and A. G. John¬ son, 432 Baird, J. W., Color Vision, J. H. Parsons, 391 Baker, C. F., Biology of the Malayan Islands, 878 Baker, F. C., Faunal Areas, 273; Auroral Display, 568 Bancroft, W. D., Chemistry, W. C. McC. Lewis, 613 Barrell, J., Origin of the Earth, T. C. Chamber¬ lin, 239; New Eng. Intercollegiate Geological Excursion, 701 Barrows, A. L., San Diego Meeting of the Pa¬ cific Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 581 Bateson, W., Mendelian Heredity, T. H. Morgan and Others, 536 Bees and Mendelism, W. E. Castle, 101 Berry, S. S., Auroral Display, 679 Bevan, A., Auroral Display, 681 Biological Soc. of Wash., M. W. Lyon, Jr., 35; 896 Biology, Appraisement of, W. E. Ritter, 819 Bird Anatomy, R. W. Shufeldt, 380 Birge, E. A., Inland Waters, J. G. Needham and J. T. Lloyd, 683 Blatchley, W. S., and C. W. Leng, Weevils, H. C. Fall, 861 Botanical, Field Excursion, V. MacCaughey, 518; Soc. of Wash., W. E. Safford, 869; H. L. Shantz, 926 Botany, Economic, A. B. Rendle, 547 Boulenger, G. A., Freshwater Fishes, T. D. A. Cockerell, 712 Bouyoucos, G. J., Measuring Biological Actions, 65 Bradley, C. B., Inflections of the Voice, 34 Bragg, W. H., and W. L., X-rays, R. A. Millikan, 137 Brain Collection of U. S. National Museum, A. Hrdlicka, 739 Brainerd, E., Auroral Display, 816 Breed, R. S., Bacteria in Milk, 749 Bristol, L. D., Asphyxiation of Cancer, 58 British, Board of Science and Industry, 266; Com¬ mittee for Scientific and Industrial Research, 570; Assoc, for Adv. of Sci., Address, of Presi¬ dent, 399, 448; Chem. Section, 453; Physiol. Section, 482; Newcastle Meeting, 490, 710; Bot. Section., Address of President, 547 ; Popular Science Lectures, 691 Brooks, A. H., Auroral Display, 817 Brooks, C. F., Notes on Meteorology and Climatol¬ ogy, 354 Brown, K. B., Plant-sucking Insects, 758 Bullfrog, Southern, H. A. Allard, 205 Burger, W. H., U. S. Coast and Geodetic Sur¬ vey, 4 Burling, L. D., Depth of Focus with the Swing- back, 497 Cain, W., Dynamics, 23 Cajori, F., Maya Number System, 714 O *?■ ° A O ' '‘OOiiu IV SCIENCE Contents and Index. Canada, Industrial Research in, 810; Royal Soc. of, H. M. Ami, 832 Canadian Stratigraphy and Paleontology, Notes on, K. P. Mather, 645 Cancer, Asphyxiation of, L. D. Bristol, 58 Carnegie Foundation, J. Jastrow, 570 Carty, J. J., Pure Science and Industrial Re- search 511 Case, E. C., Red Beds of Rio Grande, 708 Castle, W. E., Bees and Mendelism, 101 Celloidin Paraffin Method, S. I. Kornhauser, 57 Cestodes, Polyradiate, W. D. Foster, 388 Chamberlain, C. J., Plant Life, C. A. Hall, 500 Chamberlain, J. S., Agricultural Chemistry, C. W. Stoddart, 923 Chamberlin, T. C., The Origin of the Earth, J. Barrell, 239 Chapman, R. H., Auroral Display, 682 Chemical, Investigation, T. W. Richards, 37 ; In¬ dustries, Second National Exposition, 51, 303; Soc., Amer., New York Meeting, 98, 268, C. L. Parsons, 211, 249, 285, 322, Address of Presi¬ dent, 475; Industry in Great Britain, G. G. Henderson, 435; Atom, W. L. Hardin, 655 Chemistry, and Medicine, L. J. Desha, 298; in America, C. H. Herty, 475 Child, C. M., Individuality in Organisms, H. V. Neal, 684 Chitin, S. Morgulis, 866 Ciliary Activities, J. L. Kellogg, 852 Circuit Key, R. E. L. Gunning, 284 Clark, G. A., The Census of Fur Seals, 608 Clark, O. L., Nutrient Solutions, 868 Clarke, J. M., Charles Smith Prosser, 557 Cleland, H. F., Amer. State Geologists, 488 Clouds, W. J. Humphreys, 892 Clute, W. N., Recognition of Achievement, 892 Coal, Cost of, G. O. Smith and C. E. Lesher, 763 Cobb, P. W., Radiation, 283 Cockerell, T. D. A., Barnacles, H. A. Pilsbry, 573; Freshwater Fishes, G. A. Boulenger, 712 Cocks, R. S., New Orleans Acad, of Sci., 926 Cole, A. D., Amer. Physical Soc., 895 Cole, F. N., Amer. Math. Soc., 509, 762 Colloidal, Mixtures, D. T. MacDougal, 502; Chemistry, W. A. Patrick, 750; W. Ostwald, 751 Colloids and Negative Surface Tension, R. C. Tol- man, 565 Comstock, J. H., William Rane Lazenby, 912 Conn, H. J., Fungi and Mycelium, 857 Cooper, W. S., Auroral Display, 816 Cotton Plant, C. K. McClelland, 578 Couch, J. F., Neptunium, 102 Craig, W., Rythmic Activities, 784 Cross, C. R., Grants for Research, 50, 229 Cucumber Mosaic, J. A. McClintock, 786 Culture Media, R. M. Strong, 238 Curtis, J. G., Harvey and the Circulation of the Blood, P. M. Dawson, 175 Curtis, W. C., Morphology of Invertebrate Types, A. Petrunkevitch, 790 Cushney, A. R., Living Matter and Poisons, 482 Dabney, T. G., Lateral Vision and Orientation, 749 Dacqu6, E., Paleographie, B. Willis, 498 Dadourian, H. M., Mechanics, E. W. Rettger, 278 Davis, B. M., Amer. Soc. of Naturalists, 704 Davis, D. J., Animals and Human Disease, 337 Davis, W. M., “Expedite the Map,” 525 Dawson, P. M., Harvey and the Circulation of the Blood, J. G. Curtis, 175 Defence, National Council of, 741 Densmore, F., Anthrop. Soc. of Wash., 36 Desha, L. J., Chemistry and Medicine, 298 Diffusion vs. Independent Origin, A. A. Golden- WEISER, 531 Discussion and Correspondence, 18, 56, 101, 132, 168, 201, 238, 273, 309, 350, 385, 425, 463, 495, 531, 565, 608, 635, 675, 708, 747, 784, 815, 890, 919 Dodge and Benedict on Alcohol, W. H. H. Rivers, 102 Dolomite Problem, F. M. Van Tuyl, 688 Dolomitization, E. Steidtmann, 56 Double-plate Method, F. M. Bachmann and W. D. Frost, 433 Drinker, C. K., Preparation for Medicine, 676 Dunn, E. R., Song of Fowler’s Toad, 790 Dust, Library, R. R. Rees, 618 Ecological Soc. of Amer., F. Shreve, 759 Education after the War, W. S. Franklin and B. MacNutt, 841 Eight-hour Working Day, F. S. Lee, 727 Electrical Conductivity, W. A. Taylor and S. F. Acree, 576 Elliott, J. A., Sweet Potato “Soil Rot,” 709 Embryogenesis, O. C. Glaser, 505 Erythrocyte, Mammalian, L. B. Arey, 392 Evans, A., Origins of Civilization, 399, 448 Evermann, B. W., President Wilson’s Scientific Appointments, 385; Museum Building of the California Acad, of Sci., 598 “Expedite the Map,” W. M. Davis, 525 Experiment Stations, Educational, W. Kent, 275 Fall, H. C., Weevils, W. S. Blatchley and C. W. Leng, 861 Farrar, C. B., Who is Insane?, S. Smith, 59 Farrington, O. C., Meteorites, G. P. Merrill, 314 Faunal Areas, N. American, F. C. Baker, 273 Field, G. W., Fisheries Industries, 224 Fireflies flashing, E. S. Morse, 387; A. F. Mc¬ Dermott, 610; H. A. Allard, 710 Fischer, E. G., New Signal Lamp, 430 Fisher, W. J., Mechanics, 19 Fisheries Industries, G. W. Field, 224 Fleming, J. A., Radiotelegraphy, A. E. Ken- nelly, 138 Fletcher, A. C., Mythology, H. B. Alexander, 644 Flexner, S., Infantile Paralysis, 73, 259 Focus, Depth of, with Swing-back, L. D. Burling, 497 Food Control, 822 Forbes, A., Keith Lucas, 808 Force, G. S. Fulcher, 747 Forest Conservation and Forestry Education, J. W. Toumey, 327 Forestry, N. Y. State College, 127 Forsyth, C. H., Longevity at Advanced Ages, 30 Foster, W. D., Polyradiate Cestodes, 388 Foster, W. L., Auroral Display, 681 Fowl, Domestic, Growth of, R. Pearl, 687 Fox, P., Amer. Astron. Soc., 722 Fox, P., Dearborn Observatory, F. Schlesinger, 571 Franklin, W. S., Statistical Physics, 158; and B. MacNutt, Education after the War, 841 V voZxlIv9-] SCIENCE Fred, E. B., Grinding Soil, 282 Freezing-point Method of measuring Biological Ac¬ tions, G. J. Bouyoucos, 65 Frog Embryo, Hypophysis in, P. E. Smith, 280 Frost, W. D., and F. M. Bachmann, Double-plate Method, 433 Fulcher, G. S., Force, 747 Fungi and Mycelium, S. A. Waksman, 320; H. J. Conn, 857 Fur Seals, Census of, G. A. Clark, 608 |*v * Garman, H., Fresh-water Medusae, 858 Garrison, F. H., Care of the Insane, H. M. Hurd and Others, 138 Garver, M. M., Energy, 132 Gay, F. P., Typhoid Fever, 109 Geographic Cycle, Normal, C. Keyes, 238 Geological Excursion, New Eng. Collegiate, J. Barrell, 701 Geologists, Amer. State, H. F. Cleland, 488 Gile, P. L ., Chlorosis of Pineapples, 855 Gilmore, R. J., S. D. Acad, of Sci., 870 Glands, Extirpation of, B. M. Allen, 755 Glaser, O. C., Individuality in Organisms, 219; Embryogenesis, 505 Goiter among Indians, A. Hrdlicka, 203 Goldenweiser, A. A., Diffusion vs. Independent Origin, 531; Melanesian Society, W. H. H. Rivers, 824 Goldman, M. I., Auroral Display, 681 Goldschmidt, R., Apyrene Spermatozoa, 544 Grave, C,. The Oyster, 178 Gravitation, F. E. Nipher, 24 Greely, A. W., Cleveland Abb 6, 703; Weather Forecasting, A. J. Henry, 752; With Scott, G. Taylor, 860 Greenman, J. M., St. Louis Acad, of Sci., 434 Grinnell, J., and T. I. Storer, Animal Life and National Parks, 375 Grove, C. C., Theory of Errors, L. D. Weld, 316 Gruse, W. A., and S. F. Acree, Menthone, 64 Gudger, E. W., Aristotle’s Eeheneis, 316; N. C. Acad, of Sci., 359 Gulick, J. T., Inheritance, 611 Gumbotil, G. F. Kay, 637 Gunning, R. E. L., Circuit Key, 284 Haas, A. R., Respiration, 105 Hadley, F. B., The Horse, V. G. Kimball, 352 Hadley, P. B., Beat in Heart of Turtle, 312 Haldane, J. S., The New Physiology, 619 Hale, G. E., National Research Council, 264 Hall, C. A., Plant Life, C. J. Chamberlain, 500 Halsted, G. B., Sylvester and Cayley, 465 Hardin, W. L., The Chemical Atom, 655 Harshberger, J. W., Auroral Display, 568 Harvey, E. N., Light Production, 208, 652 Hassall, A., Oxyuris Yermicularis, 66 Hayes, Charles Willard, D. White, 124 Hebard, M., Nomenclatorial Facts, 172 Henderson, G. G., Chemical Industry in Great Britain, 435 Herbariums, Field Labels, E. D. Merrill, 664 Herbs, E. W. Sinnott, 291; C. Robertson, 638 Henry, A. J., Weather Forecasting, A. W. Greely, 752 Herty, C. H., Chemistry in America, 475 Hessler, J. C., Auroral Display, 680 Hewitt, C. G., Beekeeping, E. F. Phillips, 60 Heyl, P. R., Auroral Display, 569 Hoernes, M., Urgeschichte der bildenden Kunst in Europa, G. G. MacCurdy, 206 Holmes, W. H., Anthropological Essays in Honor of, 913 Hopkins, C. G., and A. L. Whiting, Soil Bacteria, 246, 649 Hormones, J. Loeb, 210 Horse Flesh, C. F. Langworthy, 638 Hoskins, L. M., Dynamics, 609 Howard, L. O., Amer. Assoc. Adv. of Sci., Com¬ mittee on Policy, 526 Howe, E. C., Relative Humidity, 396 Hrdlicka, A., Goiter, 203; Brain Collection, 739; 1916 or 1816?, 921 Hudelson, R. R., Auroral Display, 680 Hudson Bay Expedition, T. E. Savage, and F. M. Van Tuyl, 632 Human Remains, E. H. Sellards, 615 Humidity, Relative, E. C. Howe, 396 Humphreys, W. J., Amer. Assoc. Adv. of Sci., Section B, 474; Clouds, 892 Huntington, E. V., Mechanics, 350 Hurd, H. M., Care of the Insane, F. H. Garrison, 138 Hutchinson, C. T., National Research Council, 559 Hyde, J. E., Auroral Display, 679 Indians, Hidatsa, Agriculture of, A. E. Jenks, 864 Individuality in Organisms, H. V. Neal, 82; O. C. Glaser, 219 Infantile Paralysis, 234, 352; S. Flexner, 73, 259 Inheritance, J. T. Gulick, 611 Iowa Acad, of Sci., J. H. Lees, 67 Jacobs, M. H., Auroral Display, 682 Jacobson, C. A., Scientific Research and Indus¬ tries, 456 Jastrow, J., The Carnegie Foundation, 570 Jenks, A. E., Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians, 864 Jennings, A. H., Mosquitoes and Man, 201 Johnson, A. G., L. R. Jones, and C. S. Reddy, Bacterial Blights, 432 K., G. F., The American Mineralogist, 863 Karpinski, L. C., Napier Tercentenary, C. G. Knott, 427 Katz, F. J., A Moraine in N.W. New Eng., 102 Kay, G. F., Gumbotil, 637 Keen, W. W., Mitchell Memorial Building, 255 Kellogg, J. L ., Ciliary Activities, 852 Kelp, Bromide Content, H. F. Zoller, 358 Kennelly, A. E., Radiotelegraphy, J.. A. Flem¬ ing, 138 Kent, W., Educational Exper. Stations, 275 Kentucky Acad, of Sci., A. M. Peter, 71 Keyes, C., Normal Geographic Cycle, 238 Keyser, C. J., Books on Mathematics, 25 Kimball, V. G., The Horse, F. B. Hadley, 352 Knight, A. P., Lobster Mating, 828 Knott, C. G., Napier Tercentenary, L. C. Karpin¬ ski, 427 Kornhauser, S. I., Celloidin Paraffin Method, 57 Kremers, E., Research Funds for Pharmacy, 534 Kunz, G. F., The Turquoise, J. E. Pogue, 642 Lamb, G. F., Maxville Limestone, 867 Landis, E. H., and R. P. Richardson, Mathematics, G. A. Miller, 173 VI SCIENCE Contents and Index. Langworthy, C. F., Horse Flesh, 638 Latimer, H. B., Auroral Display, 680 Lazenby, William Kane, J. H. Comstock, 912 Leaf-oviposition, H. S. Smith, 925 Lee, F. S., Atmospheric Conditions, 183; Eight- hour Working Day, 727 Lees, J. S., Iowa Acad, of Sci., 67 Leng, C. W., and W. S. Blatchley, Weevils, H. C. Fall, 861 Lesher, C. E., and G. O. Smith, The Cost of Coal, 763 Lewis, E. P., Recent Progress in Spectroscopy, 899 Lewis, W. C. McC., Chemistry, W. D. Bancroft, 613 Light Production, E. N. Harvey, 208, 652 Limestone, G. F. Lamb, 867 Little, H. P., Retention of Oil by Clay, 891 Living Matter and Poisons, A. R. Cushney, 482 Lloyd, J. T., and J. G. Needham, Inland Waters, E. A. Birge, 683 Lobster Mating, A. P. Knight, 828 Loeb, J., Hormones, 210; Salt Action as a Diffu¬ sion Phenomenon, 574 Lombard, W. P., Carl Ludwig, 363 Long, J. A., and J. E. Quisno, Ovulation Period in Rats, 795; and H. P. Smith, in Mice, 796 Longevity, C. H. Forsyth, 30 Loring, F. C., Magnetic Needle, 635 Lucas, Keith, A. Forbes, 808 Ludlow, C. S., Mosquitoes and Man, 788 Ludwig, Carl, W. P. Lombard, 363 Lymphatic System, F. R. Sabin, 145 Lyon, M. W., Jr., Biol. Soc. of Wash., 35, 896; Animal Diet of Early Man, 426 Lyon, T. L., Soils, C. W. Stoddart, 922 MacCaughey, V., Botanical Excursions, 518 McClelland, C. K., The Cotton Plant, 578 McClintock, J. A., Cucumber Mosaic, 786 McClung, C. E., Biology, W. M. Smallwood, 893 MacCurdy, G. G., Urgeschichte der bildenden Kunst in Europa, M. Hoernes, 206 McDermott, F. A., Flashing of Fireflies, 610; Auroral Display, 678 MacDougal, D. T., Colloidal Mixtures, 502 Maclaurin, R. C., John Fitz Medal and Elihu Thomson, 881 MacNutt, B., Auroral Display, 568; and W. S. Franklin, Education after the War, 841 Malayan Islands, C. F. Baker, 878 Malte, M. O., Auroral Display, 817 Markham, Sir Clements, X., 351 Mason, T. E., Mathematics and Natural Sciences, 835 Mason, W. P., Sanitary Survey, 844 Mathematical, Soc., Amer., F. N. Cole, 509, 762; Journals, Foreign, D. E. Smith, 862 Mathematics, Books on, C. J. Keyser, 25; Compul¬ sory, D. Snedden, 204; and Natural Sciences, T. E. Mason, 835 Mather, K. F., Notes on Canadian Stratigraphy, 645 Maya Number System, F. Cajori, 714 Means, P. A., Pre-Columbian Amer. Civilizations, 533 Mechanics, W. J. Fisher, 19 ; W. Cain, 23 ; M. M. Garver, 132; H. B. Pulsifer, 134; E. V. Hunt¬ ington, 350; L. M. Hoskins, 609; G. S. Fulcher, 747 Medical School of Univ. of Chicago, 704, 740 Medicine, Preparation for, C. K. Drinker, 676; J. S. Moore, 890; as a Career, V. C. Vaughan, 799 Medusae, H. Garman, 858 Mendelian Characters, C. W. Metz, 431 Mendenhall, T. C., U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 45 Menthone, W. A. Gruse, and S. F. Acree, 64 Merrill, E. D., Field Labels in Herbariums, 664 Merrill, G. P., Meteorites, O. C. Farrington, 314 Metcalf, M. M., Taxonomy, 135 Meteorology and Climatology, Notes on, C. F. Brooks, 354 Metric System, 59 Metz, C. W., Mendelian Characters, 431 Mezes, S. E., Vitalism, 425 Miller, G. A., Sylvester and Cayley, 173; Mathe¬ matics, R. P. Richardson and E. H. Landis, 173 Millikan, R. A., X-rays, W. H. and W. L. Bragg, 137 Mineralogist, The American, G. F. K., 863 Mining Industry, 162 Mitchell, P. H., Biol. Station of Bur. of Fish¬ eries, 347 Mitchell Memorial Building, W. W. Keen, 255 Mite from Hawaii, P. J. O’Gara, 142 Moodie, R. L., Geschichte der Medizin, J. L. Pagel, 713 Moore, J. S., Psychology and Medical Education, 890 Moraine in N.W. New Eng., F. J. Katz, 102 Morgan, T. H., Mendelian Heredity, W. Bateson, 536 Morgulis, S., Chitin, 866 Morse, E. S., Fireflies flashing, 387 Morse, W. C., Power Chisel, 142 Mosquitoes and Man, A. H. Jennings, 201; C. S. Ludlow, 788 Museum of the Cal. Acad, of Sci., B. W. Ever- mann, 598 Museums, Amer. Assoc, of, P. M. Rea, 181 National, Acad, of Sci., Proceedings, E. B. Wil¬ son, 140, 244, 500, 543, 685; Autumn Meeting, 670; Scientific Exhibit, 774; Research Council, G. E. Hale, 264, C. T. Hutchinson, 559; Or¬ ganization, 561; Parks and Animal Life, J. Grinnell and T. I. Storer, 375 Naturalists, Amer. Soc. of, B. M. Davis, 704 Neal, II. V., Individuality in Organisms, 82; C. M. Child, 684 Needham, J. G., and J. T. Lloyd, Inland Waters, E. A. Birge, 683 Neptunium, J. F. Couch, 102 New Orleans Acad, of Sci., R. S. Cocks, 926 Newcomb, Simon, R. C. Archibald, 871 1916 or 1816, A. Hrdlicka, 921 Nipiier, F. E., Gravitation, 24 Nitrate Deposits in the U. S., 864 Nomenclatorial- Facts, M. IIebard, 172 North Carolina Acad, of Sci., E. W. Gudger, 359 Noyes, H. A., Agar Agar, 797 Nutting, C. C., Auroral Display, 496 O’Connor, J., Jr., Pittsburgh’s First Chem. Soc., 11 O ’Gara, P. J., Mite from Hawaii, 142 ; Yellow Leaf Rust of Wheat, 610 SCIENCE New Series."] Vol. XLV. J Ohio Acad, of Sci., E. L. Rice, 143 Oil, Retention by Clay, H. P. Little, 891 Olympic Peninsula, A. B. Reagan, 171 Optical, Soc. of Amer., 163; Industry in France, 612 Origins of Civilization in Europe, A. Evans, 399, 448 Osborn, H. F., Gustav Schwalbe, 97 Osterhout, W. J. V., Antagonism, 318, 395 Ostwald, W., Osmotic Pressure, 751 Ovulation, Period in Rats, J. A. Long and J. E. Quisno, 795; in Mice, J. A. Long and H. P. Smith, 796 Oxyuris Yermieularis, A. Hassall, 66 Oyster, The, C. Grave, 178 Pagel, J. L., Geschichte der Medizin, R. L. Moodie, 713 Pamphlet Collections, T. I. Storer, 735 Parkhurst, J. A., Karl Schwarzschild, 232 Parsons, C. L., Amer. Chem. Soc., 211, &49, 285, 322 Parsons, E. C., Zuni Inoculative Magic, 469 Parsons, J. H., Color Vision, J. W. Baird, 391 Passano, L. M., Auroral Display, 568 Patrick, W. A., Colloidal Chemistry, 750 Peach, Insect Enemy of, 924 Pearce, E. K., Flies, C. H. T. Townsend, 104 Pearl, R., Rate of Growth of Domestic Fowl, 687 Peter, A. M., Ky. Acad, of Sci., 71 Petrunkevitch, A., Invertebrate Types, W. C. Curtis, 790 Pharmacy, Research Funds for, E. Kremers, 534 Phillips, E. F., Beekeeping, C. G. Hewitt, 60 Physical Soc., Amer., A. D. Cole, 895 Physician of To-morrow, F. F. Wesbrook, 583 Physics, Statistical, W. S. Franklin, 158 Physiology, The New, J. S. Haldane, 619 Pilsbry, H. A., Barnacles, T. D. A. Cockerell, 574 Pittsburgh’s First Chem. Soc., J. O’Connor, Jr., 11 Plant-sucking Insects, K. B. Brown, 758 Pogue, J. E., The Turquoise, G. F. Kunz, 642 Poliomyelitis, S. Flexner, 73, 259; E. C. Rosenow, E. B. Towne and G. W. Wheeler, 614 Pomology, P. L. Ricker, 62 Popular Science Lectures, 691 Power Chisel, W. C. Morse, 142 Pre-Columbian Civilization of America, G. E. Smith, 190; P. A. Means, 533; T. W. Todd, 787 Prentiss, C. W., Embryology, R. J. T., 466 Prosser, Charles Smith, J. M. Clarke, 557 Psychology, as Contraband, H. C. Warren, 822; and Medical Education, J. S. Moore, 890 Pulse Theory of Radiation, P. W. Cobb, 283 Pulsifer, H. B., Available Energy, 134 Quisno, J. E., and J. A. Long, Ovulation Period in Rats, 795 Quotations, 59, 136, 276, 312, 352, 389, 535, 570, 612, 641, 710, 822, 921 Radium, C. H. Viol, 24 Rea, P. M., Amer. Assoc, of Museums, 181 Reagan, A. B., Olympic Peninsula, 171 Red Beds of Rio Grande, E. C. Case, 708 Reddy, C. S., L. R. Jones and A. G. Johnson, Bacterial Blights, 432 Rees, R. R., Library Dust, 618 • • Vll Rendle, A. B., Economic Botany, 547 Research, R. L. Wilbur, 1; Industrial, and Pure Science, J. J. Carty, 511 Respiration and Carbon Dioxide, A. R. Haas, 105 Rettger, E. W., Mechanics, H. M. Dadourian, 278 Rhythmic Activities, W. Craig, 764 Rice, E. L., Ohio Acad, of Sci., 143 Richards, T. W., Chemical Investigation, 37 Richardson, R. P., and E. H. Landis, Mathematics, G. A. Miller, 173 Ricker, P. L., Pomology, 62 Ritter, W. E., The Culture Value of Science, 261; Science in the Service of the Nation, 640; Ap¬ praisement of Biology, 819 Rivers, W. H. H., Dodge and Benedict on the Effects of Alcohol, 102 Rivers, W. H. H., Melanesian Society, A. A. Goldenweiser, 824 Robbins, W. J., Toxic Substances in Soil, 894 Robertson, C., The Evolution of Herbs, 638 Rosenow, E. C., E. B. Towne and G. W. Wheeler, Poliomyelitis, 614 Royce, Josiah, 772 Rural Roadsides in New York State, 97 Russell, B., Undergraduate Courses, 464 Russia, Scientific Development in, 136 Sabin, F. R., The Lymphatic System, 145 Sadtler, S. P., Chemistry, F. H. Thorp, 205 Safford, W. E., Bot. Soc. of Wash., 869 St. Louis Acad, of Sci., J. M. Greenman, 434 Salt Action as a Diffusion Phenomenon, J. Loeb, 574 Sanitary Survey, W. P. Mason, 844 Savage, T. E., and F. M. Van Tuyl, Hudson Bay Expedition, 632 Schaeffer, A. A., Amoeba proteus, 468 Schiff, Ugo, J. B. Tingle, 239 Schlesinger, F., Dearborn Observatory, P. Fox, 571 School, of Nursing and Health, 126; of Hygiene and Public Health, 302 Schwalbe, Gustav, H. F. Osborn, 97 Schwarzschild, Karl, J. A. Parkhurst, 232 Science, Value of, W. E. Ritter, 261; and the War, F. L. Wells, 275; and Commerce, 389; and Industry, 535; in Service of Nation, W. E. Ritter, 640; and Industry, 641; in Germany, 921 Scientific, Notes and News, 16, 52, 98, 129, 164, 196, 235, 269, 304, 347, 382, 420, 460, 490, 527, 562, 603, 632, 671, 705, 742, 780, 811, 848, 887, 916; Books, 25, 59, 102, 137, 173, 205, 239, 278, 314, 352, 391, 427, 466, 498, 536, 571, 613, 642, 683, 712, 752, 790, 824, 860, 893, 922; Research Grants for, C. R. Cross, 50, 229; Government Appointments, 276, A. G. Webster, 675; Presi¬ dent Wilson’s, 277, R., 569; Societies and the Government, 312; Research and Industries, C. A. Jacobson, 456; Journals and Articles, 862; Events, 913 Scott, C. P. G., Amblystoma, 309 Searle, G. M., Auroral Display, 817 Sellards, E. H., Human Remains, 615 Shantz, H. L., Bot. Soc. of Wash., 926_ Shreve, F., Ecological Soc. of Amer., 759 Shufeldt, R. W., Bird Anatomy, 380; Captain White’s Exploratory Work in Australia, 793 Sigma Xi, Yale Chapter, 793 Signal Lamp, E. G. Fischer, 430 Vlll SCIENCE Contents and Index. Silliman Lecture, Dr. Haldane, 419 Sinnott, E. W., Herbs, 291 Smallwood, W. M., Biology, C. E. McClung, 893 Smith, D. E., Foreign Mathematical Journals, 862 Smith, E. F., Tumors in Plants, 611 Smith, G. E., Pre-Columbian Civilization of Amer¬ ica, 190 Smith, G. O., and C. E. Lesher, Coal, 763 Smith, H. P., and J. A. Long, Ovulation in Mice, 796 Smith, H. S., Leaf-oviposition, 925 Smith, P. E., Hypophysis in the Frog Embryo, 280 Smith, S., Who is Insane?, C. B. Farrar, 59 Smithsonian, Regents Meeting, 915 Snapping Turtle and Heart Beat, P. B. Hadley, 312 Snedden, D., Compulsory Mathematics, 204 Societies and Academies, 35, 398, 434, 509, 762, 869, 895, 926 Soil, Bacteria and Phosphates, A. L. Whiting, and C. G. Hopkins, 246, 649; H. J. Wheeler, 919; Effect of Grinding, E. B. Fred, 282; Toxic Substances in, W. J. Robbins, 894 Soils, Lime Requirement, F. P. Veitch, 311 Solutions, Nutrient, O. L. Clark, 868 South Dakota Acad, of Sci., R. J. Gilmore, 870 Spalding, Volney M., 914 Special Articles, 34, 64, 105, 142, 178, 210, 246, 280, 318, 358, 392, 431, 470, 502, 544, 574, 618, 652, 687, 717,. 755, 795, 828, 866, 894, 925 Spectroscopy, E. P. Lewis, 899 Stanford University Arboretum, 128 Steidtmann, E., Dolomitization, 56 Stoddardt, C. W., Soils, T. L. Lyon, 922; Agricul¬ tural Chemistry, J. S. Chamberlain, 923 Storer, T. I., and J. Grinnell, Animal Life and National Parks, 375; Pamphlet Collections, 735 Stover, W. G., Auroral Display, 679 Strong, R. M., Culture Media, 238 Sweet Potato, J. A. Elliott, 709 Sylvester and Cayley, G. A. Miller, 173; G. B. Halsted, 465 T., R. J., Embryology, C. W. Prentiss, 466 Taxonomy, M. M. Metcalf, 135 Taylor, G., with Scott, A. W. Greely, 860 Taylor, W. A., and S. F. Acree, Electrical Con¬ ductivity, 576 Thomson, E., Auroras, 818 Thomson, E., and the John Fitz Medal, R. C. Mac- LAURIN, 881 Thorndike, E. L., Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes, R. M. Yerkes, 29 Thorp, F. H., Chemistry, S. P. Sadtler, 205 Thought, Organization of, A. N. Whitehead, 409 Tingle, J. B., Ugo Schiff, 239 Toad, Fowler’s, Song of, H. A. Allard, 463; E. R. Dunn, 790 Todd, T. W., Pre-Columbian America, 787 Tolman, R. C., Colloids and Surface Tension, 565 Toumey, J. W., Forest Conservation, 327 Towne, E. B., E. C. Rosenow, and G. W. Wheeler, Poliomyelitis, 614 Townsend, C. H. T., Flies, E. K. Pearce, 104 Trowbridge, C. C., Lateral Vision, 470; Focus of Auroral Streamers, 717 Tumors in Plants, E. F. Smith, 611 Tungsten, Production of, 195 Typhoid Fever, F. P. Gay, 109 Typical Case, W. E. Allen, 639 Undergraduate Courses, B. Russell, 464 U. S., Coast and Geodetic Survey, W. H Burger, 4; T. C. Mendenhall, 45; Geological Survey Maps, 923 University and Educational News, 18, 56, 101, 131, 167, 201, 237, 272, 309, 350, 384, 425, 463, 494, 530, 564, 607, 634, 674, 707, 746, 784, 814, 851, 890, 918 Van Tuyl, F. M., Dolomite Problem, 688; and T. E. Savage, Hudson Bay Expedition, 632 Variable Star Observers, Amer. Assoc, of, F. E. B., 898 Vaughan, V. C., Medicine as a Career, 799 Veitch, F. P., Lime Requirement of Soils, 311 Very, F. W., Atmospheric Transmission, 168 Viol, C. H., Radium, 24 Vision, Lateral, and Orientation, C. C. Trow¬ bridge, 470; T. G. Dabney, 749 Vitalism, S. E. Mezes, 425 Voice, Inflections of, C. B. Bradley, 34 Vreeland, F. K., Auroral Display, 815 Waksman, S. A., Fungi and Mycelium, 320 Warren, H. C., Psychology as Contraband, 822 Webster, A. G., Scientific Appointments under the Government, 675 Weld, L. L., Errors, C. C. Grove, 316 Wells, F. L., Science and War, 275 Wesbrook, F. F., The Physician of To-morrow, 583 Wheat, Yellow Leaf Rust of, P. J. O’Gara, 610 Wheeler, G. W., E. C. Rosenow, and E. B. Towne, Poliomyelitis, 614 Wheeler, H. J., Soil Bacteria, 919 White, Captain, Exploratory Work in Australia, R. W. Shufeldt, 793 White, D., Charles Willard Hayes, 124 Whitehead, A. N., Organization of Thought, 409 Whiting, A. L., and C. G. Hopkins, Soil Bacteria and Phosphates, 246, 649 Wilbur, R. L., Research, 1 Willis, B., Paleographie, E. Dacqu6, 498 Wilson, President, Scientific Appointments of, B. W. Evermann, 385 Wilson, E. B., Nat. Acad, of Sci. Proceedings, 140, 244, 500, 543, 685 Woods Hole Station of Bureau of Fisheries, P. H. Mitchell, 347 X., Sir Clements Markham, 351 Yerkes, R. M., Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes, E. L. Thorndike, 29 Zapffe, C., Auroral Display, 680 Zoller, H. F., Bromide Content of Kelp, 358 Zuni Inoculative Magic, E. C. Parsons, 469 SCIENCE Friday, July 7, 1916 CONTENTS Research: President Ray Lyman Wilbur. 1 Contributions of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey to Geodesy: Professor William H. Burger . 4 Pittsburgh’s Frist Chemical Society: John O’Connor, Jr . 11 The San Diego Meeting of the Pacific Divis¬ ion of the American Association . 14 Scientific Notes and Ncivs . 15 University and Educational News . 18 Discussion and Correspondence: — Some Fundamental Difficulties of Mechanics : Professor Willard J. Fisher. The Teach¬ ing of Elementary Dynamics : Dr. Wm. Cain. Gravitation and Electrical Action: Pro¬ fessor Francis E. Nipher. The Produc¬ tion of Radium: Charles H. Yiol . 18 Scientific Boohs: — Recent Boohs in Mathematics: Professor Casius J. Keyser. Yerlces on the Mental Life of Monheys and Apes: Professor Ed. ward L. Thorndike . 25 Retrogression in American Longevity at Ad¬ vanced Ages: C. H. Forsyth . 20 Special Articles: — A Method of Plotting the Inflections of the Voice: Professor Cornelius Beach Brad¬ ley . 34 Societies and Academies : — The Biological Society of Washington: Dr. M. W. Lyon, Jr. Anthropological Society of Washington: Frances Densmore .... 35 MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended for review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison- On-Hudson. N. Y. RESEARCH i The university is the natural home for research. The development of research institutes, except of those that have been built up around a great genius, and during the period of the active life of such a man, is apt, in the long run, to be more of a menace than help to the work of investiga¬ tion. In a way the establishment of these institutes is a measure of university ineffi¬ ciency. They mean that the universities have failed to rise to their full possibilities as centers of mental activity. Research institutes lack the current of successive generations of students from which to pick out the right minds and to draw new blood. They do not feel the in¬ ternal heave and struggle, the pressure that comes from association with the great tur¬ bulent mental forces that accompany youth. There is too much pressure for evident re¬ sults, too much discipline of research minds to achieve a big effect. Just at the period when those who have the proper training and ability and the love for investigation that must go with success in discovering new things, many of the workers in research institutes and departments are compelled to work on the problems of some one else. This is valuable and satisfactory up to a certain point, but beyond that it means sterilization of the best that is in the men; it means putting aside their own projects, perhaps permanently. It is a serious thing for any one full of expanding ideas to be made a “scientific bootblack.” The university, if manned as it should 1 Address before the Society of Sigma Xi at Stanford University, May 8, 1916. 2 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1123 be, is the ideal place for the development of fundamental research as contrasted with the more showy kind. If the tendency to forced stimulation of mediocre men, who have persistence and the leisure that may come from fellowships and scholarships, can be minimized, the universities can and eventually will become the seat of the great¬ est ferment, working out toward new dis¬ coveries. Our whole concept of education has changed. It is now one of fact and not opinion. The “theological period” of as¬ sertion has largely gone by. There is no common source of information, no palla¬ dium such as the Bible is to religion, in modern science. What Agassiz says has no final value except to those who know his record, his trained mental processes, his method of arriving at pronouncements. We ask for foundations; we want to be able to see affirmation built up stone by stone; or we want to be able to wrork backwards and tear down the separate blocks, testing each and finding out thereby the real quality of the structure of assertions and theories formed by them. Allegiance to truth, as far as we can understand or discover the truth, is the main concern of the scientific worker of to-day. He knows that he must get into harmony with facts if his work is to be effective, to endure. Along with this appreciation of truth there has been a striking development of the conscience of the expert, who can only be partisan to the truth. The rescue of the so-called ‘ ‘ expert ’ ’ from his present unsavory position seems likly to follow the great advance in knowl¬ edge which has come from careful “fact study.” We owe much of this very desir¬ able change to the important body of in¬ formation which has been brought together by those engaged in wrhat we sometimes rather glibly call “research.” Research means a point of view, a type of mind, a healthy curiosity. It results in a welling up of inspiration. Our senses be¬ come blunt, our edges dulled to the usual, the old, the stereotyped. They keep acute to the new, the unexpected, the obscure, the intangible, the will-o’-the-wisp. For the interpretation of a subject to advanced stu¬ dents, only the mind alert in research, curious for the new, can be of the best serv¬ ice. Without that open point of view the solidification that usually begins in the early thirties of life soon becomes petrifac¬ tion. A noble mind has found its limits and will gradually wear off all its new contacts and beat its life out, leaving only the revo¬ lution of the treadmill to furnish evidence of activity. Freshened by contact with the new, the yet unexplained, the human intel¬ lect expands throughout life, becoming, through its constantly increasing store of fact and experience, more and more service¬ able. Particularly is this true where the judgment has been developed through guid¬ ing others along the old paths and starting them off with compass and necessary equip¬ ment along the new paths which lead out to the maze and appealing mystery of the unknown. The college or university teacher who fails to take a part in research in some form or another prunes himself of those branches that give promise of the best future fruit. There are many ways in which the research point of view may be maintained. It does not necessarily mean published work. It may be most serviceable to the teacher and yet show only in fresh thoughts, new stimu¬ lation to the student to think for himself, to investigate. It may be concerned largely with improvement in the presentation of subjects before classes. The man who de¬ votes much of his time to research and ex¬ perimental work and yet drags out the well- thumbed notes of bygone lectures to ham¬ mer at his classes is far from having the July 7, 1916] SCIENCE 3 research mind we need in the teacher. Such a man is of less value than the in¬ structor who studies his subject but makes no pretense to so-called “productive work.” The research mind keeps up to date in its correlations and brings the inspiration of the best and newest into each teaching day. Sometimes one feels that the external drive towards research by university sentiment leads to many puny efforts and to abortive results. Perhaps, however, even though the result to science is small, the effect upon the individual is salutary. The greatest sport the world knows is the search for the absolutely new in any line. One need only sense the joy once to feel its lure. I recall when working in Ehrlich’s labo¬ ratory in Frankfurt his pleasure in each of the new chemical substances formed by him. He would make a new combination and show it to those working near him, even insist upon putting it into their hands to hold for a moment, saying: “Sehen Sie mal, jemand hat, es nie vorher gesehen; es ist ganz neu.” Think of the satisfaction, the sport: “No one has ever seen it before; it is absolutely new.” Who that could would not try a round in such a game? The successful players in it are those who have builded strong in mind and body — wTho have climbed to the upper heights, ob¬ scured by the mists, where the game is played. Each group of workers pushes the altitude upwards, broadens and solidifies the base, turns peaks into plateaus. The chosen few scale the lofty, unexplored spurs; the many join in filling in the gaps, opening up the intervening spaces, and ma¬ king the secure level ground. We can not all be scouts ; most of us must make up the rank and file of the army; some of us can only play the part of quartermasters. The attitude of the university towards research should be a sane one. At times wraves of research hysteria have swept over university circles and the sense of propor¬ tion has been lost. The number of pub¬ lished pages has seemed to be the standard of scholarship rather than the character of the work done. One has often seen research notes elaborated into articles; articles sub¬ sequently enlarged to monographs, and monographs padded out into books. The essential thing, however, is the discovered fact, the reasoning leading up to and away from the new fixed point. There is no common standard possible in this work nor in research in general; but the university can insist that the instruction offered by its research workers shall show that fresh and stimulating point of view, and that enthusiasm, that go with the growing mind that is abreast of the best thought in its subject. Under these conditions research will play that large part in the life of the university faculty which it should play, and students and teachers will make progress in their chosen fields. Immortality is a theme upon which hu¬ man thought has exhausted itself without absolute and universal conviction because it takes the human mind beyond its depth at the first long stride forward. But there is one phase of immortality about which we can all be assured. The mind of to-day can through the minds of to-morrow project it¬ self into immortality. Ideas and ideals travel through generations of minds to eternity. It will ever be the inspiration of the teacher that to him in particular comes this great opportunity to be a part of the future, by moulding and guiding and train¬ ing the minds of the present. The man who discovers some new ar¬ rangement of forces, some new fact in re¬ gard to chromosomes, some fresh chemical combination, the cause of an obscure dis¬ ease, has thereby become immortal, for his effort has added something which, if true, can not be lost to the human race. What 4 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1123 happier form of immortality than this — to have added something to the world’s store of fact and of law ! Many then are the inspirations of re¬ search, and many the satisfactions of the teacher and the investigator. If we keep our view point clear, recognize the many ways in which new facts and new thoughts are garnered, avoid the spirit of pride and intolerance — we can be assured that from our university faculties there will come a spirit of research and of helpfulness that will act as a powerful factor in moving civilization onward and we hope upward. Ray Lyman Wilbur Stanford University CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY TO GEODESY i In the earlier days of the Coast Survey, whose centennial is now being commemo¬ rated, the geodetic function, as such, was little in evidence. It was then simply an aid in carrying on the work outlined in the Act of 1807, which provided for a survey of the coasts of the United States, in order to provide accurate charts of every part of the coast and adjacent waters. Upon the reorganization of the Survey in 1843, the cornerstone was laid for that fine system of geodetic works which the Survey has at present. In this reorganization two very prominent features, from a geodetic standpoint, are to be noted. The first is the man who was the dominant figure in the board of reorganization, and the second is the principles he advocated. Probably no other man has had the influence upon the geodetic operations of the Survey as had Superintendent P. R. Hassler, and probably no one thing has been of such importance to these operations as the scientific meth¬ ods proposed by him. To him belongs the i Address given at the celebration of the cen¬ tennial of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. credit that to-day the operations of the Survey are bound together by a trigonomet¬ ric survey with long lines, and executed by the most accurate instruments, and the most refined methods, rather than being correlated by purely astronomical observa¬ tions. Due to his far-sightedness, the best of foundations was thus laid for geodetic operations, and from this time geodesy be¬ came an important part of the Survey’s work. A further impetus was given to the work when, shortly after the close of the Civil War, Congress authorized a geodetic con¬ nection between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States. The result of this was the great transcontinental arc of triangulation along the 39th parallel of lati¬ tude, one of the most famous arcs in the history of geodesy, and one which has helped to place the United States in the front rank of the nations carrying on geo¬ detic operations. One of the immediate re¬ sults was the recognition of the geodetic function as an important part of the Coast Survey’s work, and in 1879 the Survey’s title officially became “The Coast and Geo¬ detic Survey.” THE TRANSCONTINENTAL ARC The great triangulation system along the 39th parallel was probably the greatest single contribution to the world’s geodesy that had been made by any one country. It marks an epoch in the scientific history of the United States and in that of the world. The results of the work are most important and far-reaching to geodesy, geography, geology, and the other earth sciences. It is the longest arc of a parallel ever undertaken by a single nation, being more than 48° of longitude between its extrem¬ ities, or about one-eighth of the earth’s cir¬ cuit, and is more than half the length of the combined arcs (measured by various July 7, 1916] SCIENCE 5 nations), used by Clarke in deriving the figure of the earth in 1880. The nature of the country traversed by the arc developed new ideas in recon- noissance, signal building, triangulation and methods of computing, which have had an important bearing on all subsequent work. By means of it unity and consistency have been secured in the geodetic work of the Survey. It has proved a bond between the many separate parts of the Survey’s work. These, at first, existed as a number of de¬ tached portions, in each of which the datum was necessarily dependent upon the astro¬ nomic observations. The transcontinental triangulations joined these detached por¬ tions and made them into one continuous system dependent upon the same geodetic and astronomic data. From a higher scientific standpoint this arc is a great contribution to geodesy in giving data for the determination of the earth’s shape and size, but like any other arc of a parallel, it must be combined with an arc in the north and south direction to obtain its full power in this respect. THE EASTERN OBLIQUE ARC In the Eastern Oblique arc the United States has another arc of note, which covers some 22°, and extends from the Bay of Fundy to the Gulf of Mexico at New Orleans. This was the direct result of Hassler’s plans, was the scene of his last labors, and had for its main object the bind¬ ing together of the detached surveys of the harbors of the Atlantic Coast. Unlike the transcontinental arc, it has all the elements necessary for the determina¬ tion of the figure of the earth. It is the first arc which made use, on a large scale, of measurements oblique to the meridian. One of its great effects on the geodesy of the United States was that, through it, came the rejection in 1880 of Bessel’s spheroid of reference, and the adoption of the Clarke spheroid of 1866 as the reference spheroid to be used in this country. ASSISTANT CHARLES A. SCHOTT Many men took part in furnishing the data for these two arcs, and in the resulting computations, but no name stands forth so prominently as that of Assistant Charles A. Schott, the “Grand Old Man,” who for more than fifty years was identified with the work of the Survey. His labors in the field and office did much to bring this work to a most successful finish, and it is fitting that credit be given him for the two monu¬ mental volumes of results which it was his privilege to see completed before death came. For this work, and for the work done in many other lines of the Survey’s activities, I do not hesitate to mention the work of Mr. Schott as one of the great con¬ tributions made by the Coast and Geodetic Survey to the geodesy of the world. The Survey was particularly fortunate in having such a man in charge of geodetic work ; one who could see the full wisdom in the plans of Mr. Hassler, who consistently worked for their fulfilment, and who was able to have these plans transmitted to his successors, Assistant John F. Hayford and Assistant William Bowie. This furnished a eontinuity of plan which probably stands unrivaled in the scientific history of the world, and has been one of the big factors in the great success attendant upon the geodetic operations of the Survey. . t RECENT TRIANGULATION Since the completion of the arcs men¬ tioned, the Coast and Geodetic Survey has added many more arcs to its system, until the total length of the combined arcs is more than 150° of a great circle of the earth, or about three sevenths of the circuit of the globe. Incorporated into the system 6 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1123 and placed on one datum are also the many miles of coast triangulation of the Survey and much of the triangulation executed by the Lake Survey and by the U. S. Engi¬ neers, until now the system stands without an equal in any nation. In the closing years of the last century a new era in geodetic operations by the Coast and Geodetic Survey was begun. The work of the past was searched for the best in instruments and methods, field and office methods were standardized, limits of accuracy were set, and where it seemed ad¬ visable new methods and instruments were devised to meet the changing conditions of the work. This era may be characterized as a period of great speed and low costs. Never before had triangulation been ex¬ ecuted with such rapidity and with such economy in operations. It is significant that this was attained without a reduction in accuracy, and in fact had the effect of an ultimate increase in accuracy, for, owing to the speed, many more circuits could be added to the network, thus strengthening the whole system. As an example of the speed and economy of operation in this last period the Texas- California arc of about 20° is cited. The reconnoissance on this arc was done by two men in 145 days and the primary observa¬ tions in a total of 183 days at a cost of $400 per station and of $32 per mile of progress. Nearly 50 years were spent on the transcon¬ tinental are of 48° with a cost of $2000 per station and $200 per mile of progress. This comparison is not intended to be derogatory to the latter arc, for the work on that arc was the best of any up to that date, and it was only through its work that the economy and speed of the later work was made pos¬ sible. It is believed that no extensive arc in any other country equals the Texas-Cali- fornia arc or some of the other recent arcs of the United States, in these respects. Since about 1900, practically all of the reconnoissance and signal building has been in the hands of one man, Signalman Jasper S. Bilby, who as an expert along these lines probably stands unrivaled in the world to-day. THE UNITED STATES STANDARD DATUM A direct and far-reaching geodetic move¬ ment of influence, not only to the United States, but also one of great importance to the North American continent, and also to the whole world, was initiated in the adop¬ tion by the Survey (in 1901) of the United States Standard Datum. It placed the geo¬ detic work of the Survey on one datum for the correct coordination of the geographic latitudes, longitudes, distances and azi¬ muths. From the scientist’s standpoint it furnished accurate correlation of data for a study of the figure of the earth, of isostasy, and for other related sciences. By its adoption, as the Standard Datum for geodetic operations in Canada and Mex¬ ico, it became a matter of international im¬ portance and consequently its designation was changed by the Survey in 1913 to that of the “North American Datum.” Plans are now under way for carrying the pri¬ mary triangulation of the United States and Canada to the Yukon, and the prediction is here made, that eventually the fifty miles which separate Alaska from Siberia will be spanned, and a junction be effected with the great systems of Asia, Europe and Africa. Then with the extension from Mexico through Central and South Amer¬ ica, the data will be available for a “World Datum,” and the final word will have been said in the geodetic work of the earth. BASE LINE MEASUREMENTS Closely related to, and forming an inte¬ gral part of the triangulation executed by the Coast and Geodetic Survey, is the meas- July 7, 1916] SCIENCE 7 urement of the base lines for controlling the lengths in triangulation. In this work the Survey has furnished much of interest and of value to the geodesist. Ever has it kept keenly before it the necessity for refined measurements, and many valuable devices to accomplish this desired result have been added by members of the force. BASE BARS The Duplex bars, invented by Assistant William Eimbeck, are probably the best form of base bars ever devised and gave a very high degree of precision. But they were soon replaced by the tape as a form of base apparatus. The only bar used in the United States, and probably in the world, -which gives en¬ tire satisfaction, so far as accuracy is con¬ cerned, is the iced bar, designed by Presi¬ dent R. S. Woodward of the Carnegie Insti¬ tution when an assistant in the Survey. Owing to the great cost per kilometer of base of using this form of apparatus for field work, when compared with the cost of using tapes, the iced bar is now used only for standardizing other apparatus, and for this purpose it remains unexcelled. STEEL TAPES In the Coast and Geodetic Survey the tape has supplanted the other forms of base apparatus. Credit for the introduction of steel wires and tapes for this purpose must be given to Professor Jaderm of Sweden, but it wTas the accurate and extensive in¬ vestigations made by Assistant Woodward in 1891 which caused the adoption of tapes by the Survey. He proved that steel tapes, when used at night, and standardized under the same conditions that prevail during the base measures, gave essentially the same high degree of accuracy as the Duplex bars, with about one third of the cost and with far greater rapidity. It is practically certain that no more base lines will be measured by base bars, at least in the United States, except when it is necessary to standardize the tapes. The remarkable measurement of nine base lines in one season, in 1900, by a single party constitutes a noteworthy achieve¬ ment. The nine bases had a total length of 43 miles and furnished a control of over 1,000 miles of triangulation. In order to eliminate constant errors five different sets of apparatus -were used, and an average accuracy corresponding to a probable error of 1 part in 1,200,000 was secured. With this work a new epoch in base line measure¬ ment was introduced, for it proved, through the most rigid of tests, that the tape had no superior for speed, economy and ease of manipulation. INVAR TAPES In the use of invar tapes, base meas¬ uring took another long step forward. Many severe tests have fully proved their excellence. They are found to possess prac¬ tically all of the good features of the steel tapes, but have the added advantage that they enable bases to be measured in the daytime and even in the sunny days, a fact due to the small coefficient of expansion of invar, which is only about one thirtieth that of the steel tapes. Recently the plan has been adopted of having the bases measured by the triangu¬ lation party. By it base measurement has become simply an incident to the triangu¬ lation, and the cost has been reduced to about $60 per kilometer, a sum which is in great contrast to about $300 per kilometer with the Duplex bars. PRECISE LEVELING Practically all of the great nations of the earth have been actively engaged upon the difficult problem of determining the cor- 8 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1123 rect elevation of points far from their coast. It is a work which demands the highest degree of accurate observing and painstaking endeavor. It calls for espe¬ cially designed instruments and methods of observation. These accurate elevations are needed for the reduction of base lines to mean sea-level, for engineering operations of wide extent, and for the solution of scientific problems concerning gravity, the tides and other work. In this leveling of precision, the Coast and Geodetic Survey has added much to the world’s work by attainments in field operations, methods of reduction and scien¬ tific study of errors involved. In its great precise level net (greater than that of any other nation) there are more than 15,000 bench marks, of which the elevations have all been accurately fixed through a single least square adjustment of more than 80 circuits with a total length of more than 25,000 miles. THE COAST SURVEY LEVEL Among the instruments of precision em¬ ployed by the nations for precise level work, it may be truly said that none holds a higher rank than the type which has been in use in the Coast and Geodetic Survey since 1900. This level was designed and built within the Survey, and after more than fifteen years of constant service, in all parts of the United States, has shown itself to be indeed a superior instrument for accurate and rapid leveling. Before the introduction of this level, the average rate of progress was less than 60 miles a month. Recent work, which is of much higher grade of accuracy, shows an average of nearly 80 miles; and one ob¬ server with a party of six men, last season completed 120 miles of progress, or more than 250 miles of single line in one month, which constitutes a world record. Although precise leveling has been brought to the highest perfection in France, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, by the very magnitude of its operations, by the instru¬ ments employed, and by the economy in speed and cost, is certainly without an equal in the geodetic world. ASTRONOMIC DETERMINATIONS Considering astronomy as a definite part of its geodetic function, the Survey has added to the work done by the various na¬ tions many hundreds of astronomic lati¬ tude, longitude and azimuth determina¬ tions, mostly at stations connected directly with the great triangulation system. While no great changes have been introduced in latitude and azimuth work as far as instru¬ ments are concerned, there has been a de¬ cided change in speed and economy. Methods of observing and of computing have been standardized and this has greatly aided the work. Since about 1904 all of the primary azi¬ muths, in so far as was practicable, have been observed by the triangulation party during the progress of the work. It is be¬ lieved that this plan gives the highest de¬ gree of accuracy, for the measurements are made under exactly the same conditions as the triangulation with which they are con¬ cerned, and the cost is very materially reduced. TELEGRAPHIC LONGITUDES The formation of the great telegraphic longitude net of the Coast and Geodetic Survey is a geodetic feat worthy of special note. No less than four transatlantic deter¬ minations have been made which serve to connect the longitudes of the United States with Greenwich and Paris, and more than 50 stations are included in the net which covers this country. Finally, through a transpacific determination made by the Survey, supplemented by a similar one July 7, 1916] SCIENCE 9 made by Canada, the last link in the tele¬ graphic longitude circuit of the globe was completed, and thus nearly all of the longi¬ tude observations made in the world are united into one great single system, accu¬ rately correlated through this circuit. THE TRANSIT MICROMETER Among improvements made by the Sur¬ vey to the instrumental equipment used in astronomic work only one will be men¬ tioned. This is the transit micrometer used in the determination of time by stars at meridian passage. Although the transit micrometer had been in use at fixed ob¬ servatories, it was not until the investiga¬ tions made at the Coast and Geodetic Sur¬ vey, in 1904, that its adaptability to por¬ table transits was thoroughly proved. The many tests it has had in actual field work have shown for it many features of excel¬ lence. With its use, the relative personal equation between two observers is so small as to be masked by the accidental errors of observation and is certainly not more than one tenth as large as the average using the key. No interchange of observers is neces¬ sary, and the time of the determination of a difference of longitude is about one half the time taken by the older method. THE FIGURE OP THE EARTH The very important problem of deter¬ mining the shape and size of the earth is probably the climax, from the scientific point of view, in the geodetic work of the Survey. Reference has already been made to the use of the arcs of triangulation in deter¬ mining the figure of the earth. When many arcs, both meridional and latitudinal, are all joined together on the same trigonomet¬ ric and astronomic basis, the area method, developed in the Coast and Geodetic Sur¬ vey since about 1901, is, without doubt, far superior to the arc method. In it are all of the features of the arc method, to which many important new features are added. Using the great system of triangulation in the United States to furnish the area factor and the many astronomical measures con¬ nected with the system to furnish the curva¬ ture factors, a value for the figure of the earth was derived which is of a very high degree of accuracy. The investigations and results obtained in this work are noteworthy contributions to geodesy. Some of the prominent features of this investigation are shown in the wide area treated, the large number of astronomic observations in¬ volved, and the unusual methods of com¬ putation used. Topographic irregularities within 4,000 kilometers of each astronomic station were considered, and account was taken of possible distribution of density be¬ neath the surface of the earth. These fea¬ tures, together with the actual results ob¬ tained, make this a monumental work. By a study of the station errors, or deflec¬ tions in the verticals, which were developed when the astronomical and geodetic meas¬ ures were compared, evidence was brought forth which established the fact that the condition of isostasy exists in the earth — a fact which is of interest and value to geod¬ esy and geology. These studies of the figure of the earth and isostasy have attracted the attention of the scientific world. Dr. Woodward, the distinguished geodesist, is authority for the statement that the work done by the Coast and Geodetic Survey on isostasy is the greatest contribution to geodesy since the time of Bessel and Gauss. GRAVITY MEASURES Another method of attacking this impor¬ tant problem of the earth’s shape and size is by the use of the pendulum in the deter¬ mination of gravity. The contribution of 10 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1123 the Coast and Geodetic Survey to this field of geodesy are given in the results of more than 30 foreign stations and of nearly 200 stations in the United States. Happily the gravity conference held in 1882 endorsed the plan of using the invari¬ able pendulum, and of employing the dif¬ ferential method of carrying on gravity work, and the Survey’s present excellent equipment and methods are the direct re¬ sults. In its present type of apparatus, known as the Mendenhall pendulums, the Survey has a form which for compactness, portability, precision and ease of operation ranks well among the highest in this field of endeavor. Two features in recent gravity work are worthy of note. One is the application of the interferometer to the measurement of the flexure of the pendulum support, thus giving a direct measurement of this small quantity in terms of a wave-length of light. It is believed that the resulting corrections to the period of the pendulum are more accurate than those by the older static method where the corrections were derived under exaggerated conditions. The inter¬ ferometer has been in use for about 8 years as a field instrument, and determinations of the flexure have been made at about 140 gravity stations, through a very wide range of conditions in piers and external vibra¬ tions. The second feature worthy of note in re¬ cent gravity work is the deriving of the rate of the chronometers by Western Union time signals at noon — a distinct advantage over the older method. By it the local time observations are dispensed with, the time of occupation of a station is decreased and the labor of preparing the station greatly lessened, all of which contribute to a lower¬ ing of the cost per station occupied. In connection with this it is interesting to note that Assistant Schott in 1882 made the statement that Time furnished telegraphically by an observa¬ tory whose clock is protected from changes of tem¬ perature and pressure will be preferable to any local determination at a field station. FIELD AND OFFICE FORCE Little has been said of the men who have composed and do now compose the field and office force of the Coast and Geodetic Sur¬ vey. What the Survey is and accomplishes is due to these men, and to the spirit which influences them. To them must be given the credit for much that the Survey has contributed to geodesy. It would be diffi¬ cult to find a body of men of greater enthu¬ siasm for, or a higher scientific attitude to¬ ward their work. They have a careful de¬ votion, to duty and an interest in the suc¬ cess of the Survey and its work, a fact which has developed a corps of workers of unrivalled excellence. They have ever been most alert to adapt new discoveries, made in the various fields of science, to the needs of the Survey, and to plan new and improved instruments; while to the theoretical work of geodesy they have added much by critical discussion and extensive study of results. Workers must have tools, and this fine body of skilled observers would be seriously handicapped in their work if suitable equip¬ ment were not furnished them. The Survey is particularly fortunate in having a body of skilled artisans in the Instrument Divi¬ sion, under the supervision of a most highly efficient officer. In this division there have been designed or built nearly all of the in¬ struments of precision which have helped so materially to place the Coast and Geo¬ detic Survey in its present high position. Of the relation of the geodetic work of the Survey to that of the world, as shown by its share in the operations of the Inter¬ national Geodetic Conference, only slight reference is here made, for this subject is dealt with in another address by the former July 7, 1916] SCIENCE 11 Superintendent Tittman who is much more capable of addressing you on this subject. In the foregoing, the endeavor has been made to give some idea of the contributions which the Coast and Geodetic Survey has made to geodesy. Of necessity much has been omitted, but what has been given will bear witness that the world’s geodesy has been greatly enriched by the work of the Survey. A test of the greatness of the geodetic work of the Survey may be had in a review of the comments made by prominent men in other organizations and countries, by men who are well qualified to judge. They all accord to the geodetic work of the Survey a very high place in the geodesy of the world. One comment only will be here given as a fitting close to this brief review of the con¬ tributions made by the Coast and Geodetic Survey to geodesy. Commandant Perrier, the French geode¬ sist, in speaking of the work of the Survey, says: There is no example in the history of geodesy of a comparable collection of measurements, made with so much decision, such rapidity and such pow¬ erful means of action, and guided by such an exact comprehension of the end to be attained. William H. Burger College op Engineering, Northwestern University PITTSBURGH’S FIRST CHEMICAL SOCIETY 1 In The Commonwealth , a Pittsburgh weekly newspaper, of November 4, 1811, there was an advertisement to the effect that Dr. Aigster would deliver an intro¬ ductory lecture on chemistry, Wednesday, November 6, at 3 p.m. in the grand jury room at the Court House. The advertise¬ ment concluded with this striking sentence : i This paper was read before the Historical So¬ ciety of Western Pennsylvania on January 25, 1916. All friends of science will be gratuitously ad¬ mitted. The Pittsburgh Gazette, of December 20, 1811, carried the following advertisement: The subscribers to Dr. Aigster ’s Chemical Lec¬ tures are informed that the regular lectures will begin on Monday, the 16th of December, at the Laboratory, corner of Smithfield and Second Streets, at 3 o’clock P.M., to be continued from that time every Monday, Friday and Saturday at the same hour and at the same place. Further subscription will be received at the Laboratory. That Dr. Aigster was not unlike many modern lecturers on scientific subjects is seen from an announcement in the Gazette of December 27, 1811, that Cramer, Spear and Eichbaum had just published a dis¬ course, introductory to a course of lectures on chemistry, which included “a view of the subject and the utility of that science, delivered at Pittsburgh on the 6th of No¬ vember by F. Aigster, M.D.” There is a copy of this discourse bound with Cramer’s Pittsburgh Magazine Alma¬ nacks for 1816 and 1817 in the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. The lecture dis¬ cusses in the words of Dr. Aigster, “the application of chemical knowledge in pri¬ vate and social life.” It describes the ap¬ plications of chemistry to agriculture, min¬ ing, cloth making, glass making, brewing, tanning, paper making and, last but not least, to cookery. Some of Dr. Aigster ’s statements sound as if his lecture were delivered yesterday. Witness this : The time is come when America can shake off the yoke of foreign dependency for a number of the most necessary wants, whose first material, bountiful nature has scattered with lavish hands over this country. And this: A laudable beginning has been made in the wool, flax and cotton manufactures. But it can never be expected that they will attain any high degree of improvement as long as the art of dye¬ ing, which is altogether chemical, is not at¬ tended to. 12 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1123 In a latter part of a lecture Dr. Aigster says that while the history of chemistry in America is short, it contains a few names which would do honor to the proudest na¬ tions of the ancient world. He mentions the names of Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Phila¬ delphia, Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, of New York, Dr. Woodhouse, of Philadelphia, Dr. M ’Clean, of Princeton, Professor Silliman, of New Haven, Dr. I. Redman Coxe, of Philadelphia, Joseph Priestley, and Mr. Thomas Cooper, who he states was his suc¬ cessor as professor of chemistry at Dickin¬ son College. Following the discourse is a syllabus on chemistry which is divided into three sec¬ tions : 1. General forces productive of chemical phenomena. 2. Of the general properties and relations of individual substances. 3. Chemical examinations of organized nature. That Dr. Aigster was interested in the practicable application of some of his theories will be seen from the following note in the Pittsburgh Magazine Almanack for 1812 : Proposals for the formation of a company for the purpose of establishing a combined manufac- tury of sulphurick acid (oil of vitriol), of nitrick acid (aqua fortis) and of allum have been lately issued by Dr. Aigster, formerly professor of chem¬ istry in Dickinson College, Carlisle, now resident in Pittsburgh. The note then goes on to outline the proc¬ ess and the prospects for success. In the Directory of Pittsburgh for 1815, which was the first directory, Dr. Aigster ’s Christian name is given as Frederick, his residence “in the Diamond” and his pro¬ fession as “physician and chymist.” Sarah Killikelly, in her history of Pitts¬ burgh, says that perhaps out of the series of lectures by Dr. Aigster grew the Pitts¬ burgh Chemical and Physiological Society.1 This is no doubt true, as Dr. Aigster ’s name appears in the list of honorary members of the Columbian Chemical Society of Phila¬ delphia, which was founded in 1811, and the Pittsburgh Society appears to have been modeled very closely after the Phila¬ delphia Society. At all events, a notice appeared in one of the weeklies requesting persons interested to “meet at A. M. Bolton’s Academy Hall, Market Street, on Friday evening October twenty-ninth, 1813, at 6 o’clock, for the purpose of organizing the Institution and electing officers.” At the next meeting, on November 12, the following officers were elected : President, Dr. B. Troost. Secretary, J. B. Trevor. Treasurer , iS. Pettigrew. Lecturer, Dr. E. Ramsey. Librarian, A. M. Bolton. Annual Orator, Rev. D. Graham. At the time of the organization of this Chemical Society, the population of these United States was about 7,000,000 and of the borough of Pittsburgh about 7,000. Some of the advertisements which appeared in the papers at that time will give an idea as to why, with so small a population, there was a live interest in chemistry. PAPER MAKERS WANTED Two paper makers, one who is competent to superintend a paper mill and is well acquainted with the whole art and mystery of paper making, the other to work as a journeyman. The highest price in cash will be given for a quantity of merchantable potash. Apply to Anthony Beelen. GLASS BLOWING Wanted, two or three sober lads, fourteen to sixteen years of age, as apprentices to above busi¬ ness. i Killikelly, Sarah H., ‘ ‘ History of Pittsburgh. ’ ’ B. O. and Gordon. Montgomery Company, Pitts¬ burgh, 1906. July 7, 1916] SCIENCE 13 Cash given for pot and pearl ash. Trevor and Encell DR. G. DAWSON Family, patent and horse medicine, surgeon’s in¬ struments, paints of all kinds, spirits of turpen¬ tine, spices, perfumery, oils, varnish, etc. ASHES The subscriber will give 25 cents per bushel for any quantity of good oak and hickory ashes, de¬ livered at his soap and candle manufactory, cor¬ ner of Ferry and Third Streets. Nicholas O’Callaghan NITRE Warranted in its pure stage, refined by the sub¬ scriber and for sale at John McClean’s commis¬ sion warehouse. It may also be had particularly prepared for manufacturing gun powder, by Charles Munns, Gun Powder maker and Salt Petre refiner. Well, to come back to the Chemical and Physiological Society. The advertisements in the papers after the initial meeting were very few. Newspapers were not so liberal with their space as now. A notice appeared in February, 1814, to the effect that there would be a lecture on “the singular prop¬ erties and effects of nitrous oxide or, as it is sometimes called, the exhilarating gas, Friday evening, February 25, 1814.” On November 2, 1814, the Mercury car¬ ried the following advertisement: A stated meeting of the Chemical and Physio¬ logical Society will be held at the usual place, on Thursday evening next, at 7 o ’clock. The punctual attendance of the members is par¬ ticularly requested, in order to make the necessary arrangements for the delivery of the annual ora¬ tion at the succeeding meeting. The election of officers will be held on the 10th instant, agreeable to the constitution. J. B. Trevor, Secretary There is no record as to what was the subject of the annual oration, but there is a record that at the meeting following the election Dr. Troost talked “on oxygen gas accompanied with several interesting ex¬ periments.” The Directory for 1815 tells something of the Society and gives a list of officers who were elected at the meeting on Thursday, November 10, 1814, in the following notice : THE PITTSBURGH CHEMICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL SOCIETY This society was formed in 1813, by a number of scientific gentlemen resident in Pittsburgh, and has since rapidly increased. There are at present belonging to the society, a Library, Chemical and Philosophical apparatus, and a valuable cabinet of mineralogy. Their meetings are held every two weeks, in a room appropriated for that purpose in the Court House. President, Walter Forward. Secretary, Harmar Denny. Treasurer, Samuel Pettigrew. Librarian, Lewis Peterson. Lecturer on Chemistry, Dr. B. Troost. Botany, M. M. Murray. Anatomy, Dr. Joel Lewis. Mineralogy, Dr. F. Aigster. Astronomy and Natural Philos¬ ophy, Joseph Patterson. Annalist, Aquila M. Bolton. Annual Orator, J. B. Trevor. Walter Forward, who is given as the President, was an attorney-at-law, who in 1819 became one of the twenty-six incorpo¬ rators of the Western University of Penn¬ sylvania, now the University of Pittsburgh. In 1841 he was appointed by President Harrison to be the controller of the United States and in that same year he was made Secretary of the Treasury of the United States by President Tyler. Harmar Denny, who is given as *the Sec¬ retary, was the son of Ebenezer Denny, who, in 1816, became the first Mayor of Pittsburgh. Harmar Denny, when he was elected Secretary, had just been graduated from Dickinson College where he had un¬ doubtedly studied chemistry under Thomas Cooper who was professor of chemistry at Dickinson College from 1811 to 1814. The election notice, signed by Harmar 14 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1123 Denny, appeared on November 15, 1814, and on December 14, 1814, the following notice appeared: A special meeting will be held at the Society Hall next Thursday at half past six. Harmar Denny, Secretary Why a special meeting so soon after the election? Did Messrs. Troost and Trevor resent the fact that they were not reelected to their former positions, or had interest in things scientific declined in the borough? Perhaps it was the pressure of business, for less than a month after this notice the newly organized firm of Trevor, Pettigrew and Troost announced that the Western Eagle Lead Factory was in complete operation. The members of this firm later advertised that ‘ ‘ they also manufacture, at their chem¬ ical laboratory, alcohol, ether, sweet spirits of nitre, aqua fortis, muriatic acid, red pre¬ cipitate, calomel and chemical preparations generally.” At least one member of this firm, Dr. Troost, did not lose his interest in pure chemistry, for in 1827 he was elected lec¬ turer in chemistry for the Pittsburgh Philo¬ sophical and Philological Society, of which Rev. Robert Bruce, the first chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh, was president. But, to come back to the Chemical Soci¬ ety, it is almost certain that the Society was disbanded at the special meeting of Decem¬ ber 14, 1814, for no other notices of meet¬ ings appeared in the newspapers. It is interesting to know that the Pitts¬ burgh Chemical Society was undoubtedly the third in the United States. It was pre¬ ceded by two Philadelphia societies, the Chemical Society of Philadelphia, founded by James Woodhouse in 1792, and the Co¬ lumbian Society of Philadelphia, founded in 1811. 2 Pittsburghers have every reason to be 2 Smith, Edgar Fahs, “ Chemistry in America,” D. Appleton and Company, 1914. proud of the fact that so early in the history of the city, which was then a frontier town, away on the other side of the mountains, there was a live interest in science, and, especially, in that branch of science which has contributed so much to the industrial progress of the city. John O’Connor, Jr. Mellon Institute, University of Pittsburgh THE SAN DIEGO MEETING OF THE PACIFIC DIVISION OF THE AMER¬ ICAN ASSOCIATION ASTRONOMICAL society of the pacific The Astronomical Society of the Pacific will hold sessions in San Diego on Thursday and Friday, August 10 and 11, at the time of the meeting of the Pacific Division of the Ameri¬ can Association for the Advancement of Sci¬ ence. In these sessions the Astronomical So¬ ciety of Pomona College will participate. The opening paper of the program will be presented by Professor S. D. Townley, of Stanford University, president of the society. A number of other papers have been promised by astronomers of the Pacific Coast, and an interesting program is assured. A special fea¬ ture of the program will be discussion of problems presented by the nebulae. Attention is also called to the fact that the address on August 9 by the president of the Pacific Di¬ vision A. A. A. S., Dr. W. W. Campbell, will be on the subject “ What we know about Comets.” The titles of papers offered by members of the Society or of the Pacific Division for this meeting should be in the hands of the chair¬ man of the program committee, R. G. Aitken, Mount Hamilton, California, before July 10, and abstracts should be submitted before July 29. It is especially requested that these ab¬ stracts be worded in popular language, as it is planned to print them in the daily press. CORDILLERAN SECTION OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA A meeting of the Cordilleran Section of the Geological Society of America has been ap- July 7, 1916] SCIENCE 15 pointed in conjunction with the meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Associa¬ tion for the Advancement of Science, in San Diego, on the dates August 9, 10 and 11, 1916. Titles of papers from members of this society to be presented at this meeting should be sent to the secretary, J. A. Taff, 781 Flood Build¬ ing, San Francisco, before July 20. An ab¬ stract of about 250 words should be submitted with each title. Papers will also be welcomed from members of the Pacific Coast Section of the Paleontological Society and from the Seis- mological Society of America who may attend this meeting, in case these societies do not also hold meetings. Excursions in the vicinity of San Diego will be arranged for members of the Section who desire to see geologic features of this region which are of peculiar interest. Among these features may be mentioned the cliff section of Point Loma, the great Coronado sand-spit which has formed San Diego Bay, the marine terraces on San Clemente Island, and the peg¬ matite dikes near Pala and Mesa Grande in which valuable deposits of gem tourmaline, garnet and kunzite have been found. The high granite peneplain of the Perris Valley and the Salton Sink and irrigation projects of the Imperial Valley may also be reached by automobile from San Diego. J. A. Taff, Secretary PACIFIC SLOPE BRANCH, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGISTS The first meeting of the Pacific Slope Branch of the American Association of Eco¬ nomic Entomologists will be held in conjunc¬ tion with the meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Association for the Advance¬ ment of Science in San Diego, California, be¬ tween the dates August 9 and 12, 1916. An important feature of this meeting will be the completion of the organization of the branch and the formulation of plans for future work. Among the papers which have already been offered for the San Diego meeting are: “Host Relations of Ecto-parasites, ” by Vernon L. Kellogg, Stanford University, California. “Economic Syrphidse in California,” by W. M. Davidson, United States Bureau of Entomology, Walnut Creek, California. “The Chrysanthemum Gall-fly,” by E. O. Essig, University of California, Berkeley. ‘ 1 Some Scale Insects of Oregon, ’ ’ by LeRoy Childs, Oregon Agricultural College, Hood River. ‘ ‘ The Fruit-tree Leaf Syneta, Spraying Data and Biological Notes,” by George F. Mozenette, Oregon Agricultural College, CorVallis, Oregon. Titles of other papers to be presented at this meeting, together with abstracts, should be submitted to the secretary before July 20. E. 0. Essig, Secretary University of California WESTERN SOCIETY OF NATURALISTS The first meeting of the Western Society of Naturalists will be held in San Diego on Au¬ gust 10 and 11, in conjunction with the meet¬ ing of the Pacific Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The San Diego Natural History Society and the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Phytopathological Society will also participate in the meeting of the Western Society of Nat¬ uralists. At these sessions a number of papers will be presented upon a wide range of topics of gen¬ eral biology which will be of interest to botan¬ ists and zoologists and also to the general pub¬ lic. Worthy papers upon more limited fields of zoology or botany will also be welcome. Titles of papers, together with brief abstracts, should be submitted to the secretary of the society, E. L. Michael, La Jolla, California, be¬ fore July 20. Among the papers already offered for this meeting are the following : “Composition of the Rancho La Brea Fauna,” by John C. Merriam, professor of paleontology and historical geology, University of California. “Eugenics and War; and Isolation and Produc¬ tion of Germinate Species,” by David Starr Jor¬ dan, chancellor, Stanford University. “An Amateur Naturalist in Formosa,” by Dr. Fred Baker, Point Loma. “Biology’s Contribution to a System of Morals Adequate for Modern Civilization,” by W. E. 16 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1123 Ritter, scientific director, Seripps Institution for Biological Research, La Jolla. ‘ ‘ The Mutation Theory and the Species-con¬ cept/ ’ by R. R. Gates, acting associate professor of zoology, University of California. Papers will also be presented by Professor H. M. Hall, Dr. Joseph Grinnell and Mr. Tracy I. Storer, of the University of California; by Dr. D. T. MacDougal, Desert Botanical Lab¬ oratory, Tucson; Professor Harry Beal Torrey, Heed College, Portland, and others. On Thursday afternoon, August 10, the ses¬ sion will take the form of a conference upon the tuna fisheries of southern California. A consideration of the tuna fisheries is especially appropriate at this time in view of the recent development of this industry, the establishment of tuna canneries at San Diego and other ports of southern California, and the work of the Albatross of the United States Bureau of Fisheries in tuna investigations in southern California waters this summer. Barton W. Evermann, President SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS Dr. Henry M. Howe, emeritus professor of metallurgy in Columbia University, has been appointed honorary vice-president of the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain. The Paris Academy of Sciences has elected as correspondent in the section of medicine and surgery in succession to the late Professor Mosso, of Turin, Dr. Bergonie, professor of biological physics and medical electricity at Bordeaux. An honorary degree was conferred by the University of California at its fifty -third com¬ mencement exercises on John Stillman, pro¬ fessor of chemistry in and vice-president of Stanford University. Samuel Gibson Dixon, Pennsylvania state health commissioner and president of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, received the degree of Sc.D. from Lafayette College at the annual commencement on June 14. At the annual commencement of the Uni¬ versity of Cincinnati, on June 10, the honorary degree of doctor of science was conferred on Professor John Uri Lloyd, Cincinnati, known for his contributions to chemistry and pharm¬ acy. George Freeman Parmenter, Merrill pro¬ fessor of chemistry in Colby College, has been given the degree of doctor of science by the college. At its recent commencement the University of Pennsylvania conferred on Daniel Lincoln Wallace, the degree of doctor in chemistry. Dr. Charles Willems, surgeon of Ghent, has been elected a foreign correspondent of the Paris Academy of Medicine. At the annual meeting of the American Academy of Medicine, held in Detroit, on June 12, the following officers were elected: presi¬ dent, Dr. Jacob E. Tuckerman, Cleveland; vice-presidents, Dr. Frederick L. Van Sickle, Olyphant, Pa., and Dr. Bay Connor, Detroit, and secretary, Dr. Thomas W. Grayson, Pitts¬ burgh. Dr. Allen K. Iarause, of the Saranac Lake (N. Y.) laboratories, will take charge of the work on tuberculosis in the Phipps laboratories of the Johns Hopkins University, made possi¬ ble by the recent gift of Mr. Kenneth Dows. Dr. H. B. Wahl, associate in pathology, Western Beserve Medical School, has been elected director of laboratories in the new Mount Sinai Hospital. Professor Selskar M. Gunn, director of the division of hygiene of the Massachusetts State Department of Health, has resigned. Willard J. Fisher, head of the department of physics at the New Hampshire College, has retired to devote himself to research work. Frederic A. Harvey, Ph.D., has resigned from the faculty of Syracuse University to ac¬ cept a position as technical physicist with the Solvay Process Co., at Syracuse, N. Y. Professors W. B. Cannon, of Harvard Uni¬ versity, Frederic S. Lee, of Columbia Univer¬ sity, and William H. Park, of New York Uni¬ versity, and Drs. McCoy and Eichom, of July 7, 1916] SCIENCE 17 Washington, on June 19, spoke in Washing¬ ton before the senate committee on agriculture and forestry in opposition to the bill now be¬ fore congress, which provides for an investiga¬ tion of animal experimentation throughout the country. A considerable delegation of antivivisectionists urged the passage of the bill. A commission constituted by the Interna¬ tional Health Board of the Rockefeller Foun¬ dation sailed on the Almirante on June 14, on a trip to various points of South America where yellow fever is still reported to exist. The commission is headed by Major General William C. Gorgas, U. S. Army, who has ob¬ tained four months’ leave of absence for this purpose. The other members are Assistant Surgeon General Henry R. Carter, H. S. P. H. S., clinician; Dr. Juan Guiteras, head of the Public Health Service of Cuba, clinician and general adviser; Major Theodore C. Lyster, M. C., IT. S. Army, clinician; Major Eugene R. Whitmore, M. C., U. S. Army, pathologist; Sanitary Engineer William D. Wrightson, U. S. P. H. S., sanitary engineer, and Harry H. Wakefield, secretary. Dr. Allerton S. Cushman, of the Institute of Industrial Research, Washington, D. C., gave an address before Sigma Xi at the Wor¬ cester Polytechnic Institute on June 5, 1916, on “ Science and Civilization.” We learn from the Journal of the American Medical Association that a memorial service to the late Dr. Frank W. Reilly, for many years assistant commissioner of health of Chi¬ cago, and at one time secretary of the Illinois State Board of Health, was held on June 21, when the Frank W. Reilly Public School at School Street and Lawndale Avenue was dedi¬ cated. The principal addresses were delivered by Superintendent of Schools John D. Shoop; President Jacob M. Loeb, of the Board of Edu¬ cation; Dr. Arthur R. Reynolds, former health commissioner, and Dr. Alfred C. Cotton. On the occasion of the meeting of the West¬ ern Reserve University Medical Alumni As¬ sociation, June 8, 9 and 10, President Charles F. Thwing formally accepted on behalf of the university, its trustees, etc., portraits of two former professors in the medical school, namely, Dr. Gustav C. E. Weber, formerly professor of surgery, and Dr. Hunter H. Powell, formerly professor of obstetrics and diseases of children. Presentations on behalf of the Alumni Association were made by Drs. W. T. Corlett and A. H. Bill, respectively. Dr. Samuel G. Dixon, president of the Academy of Natural Sciences, has proposed to the mayor of Philadelphia that the statue of Joseph Leidy, now badly placed on City Hall Square, should be erected, at least temporarily, near the academy in the greenery of Logan Square. Among those killed in the naval action in the North Sea on May 31 was Commander H. L. L. Pennell, one of officers of the Terra Nova in the British Antarctic Expedition of 1910. The meeting of Scandinavian naturalists will be held in Christiania on July 10 to 14. The Yorkshire Agricultural Union has de¬ cided to open a national fund for the repre¬ sentation of agriculture in the British parlia¬ ment by practical agriculturists. The Graduate School of the University of Illinois has recently made an appropriation for a geological expedition to Hudson Bay during the summer of 1916. The work will be in charge of Professor T. E. Savage and Dr. F. M. Van Tuyl, of the department of geology, who will be in that region from the latter part of June to the middle of September. It is planned to examine the outcrops and make de¬ tailed collections of fossils along most of the larger rivers south of the Churchill on the west side of the bay, in an effort to obtain more definite information concerning the Paleozoic succession and the ancient sea connections in that part of the continent. Evidences of re¬ cent elevation of the shore line, and other fea¬ tures will also be studied. The publication of agricultural bulletins for the benefit of the farmers of New York state will be discontinued for some time because the governor vetoed the legislative printing appropriation. He vetoed it because, despite 18 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1123 his warning to the legislature, the bill pro¬ posed to appropriate the money, about $200,- 000, in a lump sum instead of by items. His veto cuts off all provision for the expense of legislative printing this year. The Geneva and Cornell experiment stations have had about $60,000 apiece yearly for the printing of reports and bulletins, and this money has been appropriated under the head of legislative printing. Reports of all state institutions have been covered under that head. Bulletins such as the agricultural experiment stations have issued throughout the year for the information of farmers have been officially regarded as anticipating parts of the annual reports of the stations. Part I. of the annual report of the college has comprised the report itself and technical bulletins ; Part II. has been made up of the matter intended for popular use, such as bulletins of general value and the reading course lessons of the year. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS Mrs. Russell Sage has given $75,000 to Knox College of Galesburg, Ill., to make possi¬ ble the securing of the amount to complete its half-million-dollar endowment fund. The alumni of the University of California Medical School have offered to give $400 a year for five years to maintain the William Watt Kerr scholarship in medicine in honor of Dr. Kerr, clinical professor of medicine in the University of California. Miss Charlotte Emily Beckwith has be¬ queathed one half of the residue of her estate, which amounts to about £8,000, to the Victoria University of Manchester in aid of the “ John Henry Beckwith Scholarship ” founded by her mother. A large company of representatives of the scientific and technical press were received at the Imperial College of Science, South Ken¬ sington, on May 31 by the Right Hon. Arthur Dyke Acland, chairman of the executive com¬ mittee of the governing body, and, with the professors and other members of the staff, took them round the institution. Mr. Acland re¬ ferred to the memorial which has just been presented to Lord Crewe by the professors of the college, urging the importance of securing that a larger proportion of young men in this country should be trained in scientific meth¬ ods with a view to industrial research. The suggestion is that a grant of a quarter or half a million pounds, in addition to the quarter of a million (as against Germany’s million and a half) which the state annually grants to the universities might profitably be used to provide an adequate number of bursaries for second¬ ary-school boys of 16 to 18 years of age, to be followed by the offer of government scholar¬ ships tenable at a university. Professor Mary Whiton Calkins, of Wel¬ lesley College, has been appointed lecturer on the Mills Foundation in the department of philosophy of the University of California for the half year ending December 31, 1916 — the lectureship held for the past year by Professor George H. Palmer, of Harvard University. Tile vacancy in geology in the University of Kansas, caused by the resignation of Pro¬ fessor W. H. Twenhofel, has been filled by the election of Dr. Raymond C. Moore, of the Uni¬ versity of Chicago. At the June meeting of the board of regents of the University of Nebraska Dr. Raymond J. Pool was elected permanent head of the de¬ partment of botany. Professor Pool had been acting head of the department since the death of Professor Bessey in February, 1915. Dr. Charles C. Adams has been promoted to the professorship of forest zoology in the newly formed department of forest zoology in the New York State College of Forestry at Syra¬ cuse University. As assistant professor of industrial hygiene of the medical college of the Ohio State Uni¬ versity, Dr. Emery R. Hayhurst, an authority on the subject of occupational diseases and the relation of industrial problems to the preventa¬ ble diseases caused by workshop conditions, has resigned as chief of the division of occupa¬ tional diseases of the state department of health and will devote his entire time to the Ohio State Medical College. July 7, 1916] SCIENCE 19 At the last meeting of the corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology promotions and appointments were made to the instructing staff as follows: From assistant to associate professor Daniel F. Comstock (theo¬ retical physics), George L. Homer (topograph¬ ical surveying), C. L. E. Moore (mathematics), Ellwood B. Spear (inorganic chemistry), Wil¬ liam E. Wickenden (electrical engineering). Instructors were promoted to assistant profess¬ orships as follows: James M. Barker (struc¬ tural engineering), Ralph G. Hudson and Waldo Y. Lyon (electrical engineering), Earl B. Millard (theoretical chemistry). Dr. Fred¬ erick G. Keyes was appointed associate pro¬ fessor of physico-chemical research. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE SOME FUNDAMENTAL DIFFICULTIES OF MECHANICS A long and interesting exchange of views on the fundamental equation of mechanics, which has taken place in the columns of Sci¬ ence, has led me to review some old notes in that connection. It has seemed to me that the question may be viewed from two different points, that of the systematizer and that of the teacher. The former desires an equation, fundamental in that from it he can develop the science most easily. The latter must con¬ sider as the fundamental principles those which appeal most directly and forcibly to the stu¬ dent, which enable the student to progress most easily, with rapidity and security. By the student I mean the average student, who has much experience of a mechanical nature, but is unaccustomed to logic and cares little about unity. To the teacher of mechanics students in masses, that is, to nearly every mechanics or physics teacher, even in college and technical school, the first-named viewpoint is unimpor¬ tant as compared with the second. His busi¬ ness is to diagnose the student’s difficulties, and then to obviate or remove them. Some of these difficulties are inherent in the laws of mind and matter. Any teacher will admit that to the average student the descriptive, phenomenological, atti¬ tude toward mechanics is quite too rarefied, too impersonal. Professor C. R. Mann has well said: To a beginner pushes and pulls are the real forces. The beginner can imagine himself pushing or pulling, exerting an effort and taking an interest. Descriptively, it has been questioned whether the concept of force is of much value in mechanics; but the sense and memory of effort give the student his starting point, and the teacher must begin kinetics with force as well as with acceleration and mass. When we exert effort we observe we either change the motion of bodies, or change the relative positions of bodies or of their parts, hence the forms of bodies. During such changes of position or form, more or less tem¬ porary changes of motion occur. Hence we all quite unnecessarily infer that when the motions of bodies are changed, or their relative positions, or their forms, there must be something going on analogous to an effort; this we call force, and we say that the above effects of effort are the effects of force. Moreover, we observe that while the changes of relative position or form of bodies due to our effort may persist after we have ceased to exert effort, on the contrary the motion which has been produced by an effort does not con¬ tinue, it always diminishes and finally ceases. We note that the effort needed for the produc¬ tion or increase of motion depends on the contact of the body acted on with other things, as soil, pavement, ice; water, if floating; oil, if lubricated; air, if swinging suspended; and also on the form of the body, flat or jagged or round. In some cases the production of mo¬ tion is harder, in others easier, the duration of the motions is shorter or longer, but sooner or later the motions end in rest. If we want a thing to keep going we have to keep pushing or pulling; and this without exception in all our bodily experience. Hence we hastily but naturally conclude that rest is the natural state of all bodies, and that for the maintenance of even constant motion continuous effort, or force, is necessary. It has been pointed out that the scholastic 20 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1123 dictum about the necessity of force for the maintenance of motion is thus a consequence of common experience, a deduction of “ com¬ mon sense,” which is the result of common ex¬ perience. And while the common experience of boys and young men is changeable from age to age and different from one culture level to another, while men in the age of stone clubs or in the days of the stage coach had a range of common experience vastly different from what they have in an era of electricity and gasolene, nevertheless this element of terrestrial experi¬ ence persists in them all — to maintain motion force must be continuously exerted ; force lack¬ ing, rest supervenes. Galileo’s principle of inertia, then, Newton’s first law of motion, is not a deduction of com¬ mon sense, because it contradicts common ex¬ perience. Only uncommon experience, inter¬ preted by an uncommon mind, could arrive at it; and it is a fact that the world waited many ages for a genius to arise, fly in the face of common terrestrial experience, announce that the immediate consequence of force is accelera¬ tion, and interpret the inevitable extinction of unsupported terrestrial motions by the hypoth¬ esis of a force of friction, always opposing the existing motion and producing a negative acceleration. And the clear grasp of the inertia principle could only follow the study of a frictionless system. Here we have the first difficulty of kinetics ; its first law contradicts the student’s common sense and all his ingrained mechanical experi¬ ence. I doubt that many students, seeing the experiment for coefficient of friction, with horizontal slab, pulley and cord, actually inter¬ pret the slow uniform motion of the block in terms of two equal and opposed horizontal forces, producing each its own acceleration. It seems too far fetched; rather say, if you stop pulling the slab stops — and have done with it. And so with . all the movements of wind and water; they go on because somehow they are driven. And so also Kepler interpreted the motion of the planet Mars in its orbit as due to a forward tangential force arising no doubt in the sun; and the schoolmen said that bodies fall with speeds proportional to their weights — which is roughly true for snowflakes and raindrops. Change of motion, quantitatively called ac¬ celeration, is an idea rather remote from com¬ mon experience. Every player of games is familiar with it in a crude way, but that it is a measurable quantity, or worth measuring, never entered any head before Galileo’s. This is not at all remarkable, when we consider that speed is not given us by direct measurement, but only by simultaneous direct measurements of distance and time; much less are we given the rate of change of speed. The beginner has no real experience with acceleration as a meas¬ urable quantity; it is the rate of change of a rate of change, and too abstract for most peo¬ ple. It does have a connection with effort; to throw a ball fast is harder than to throw it slow ; but I doubt if the average beginner ever has gone beyond that — and certainly many a student of calculus never connects this rough experience with d2x/dt2. In fact, we can not get differential expressions by measurement; Kepler’s planetary laws and Galileo’s laws of falling bodies are either integral expressions representing their tables of length1 and time measurements, or are deduced from these inte¬ gral expressions. Beginners do not of their own accord take the trouble to construct such tabulations or to differentiate twice the result¬ ing integral expressions; in fact, few can do this, or at first realize what it all means when they are made to do it. Our most continuous effort is to keep our¬ selves or other objects off the ground; the next most familiar, to set objects in motion upward, a motion which, unless some obstacle prevents, is sooner or later reversed into a motion down¬ ward. We say, as if an antagonistic effort were opposing ours, that the earth exerts a down¬ ward force upon us and all things near it; it is able to change their forms or to set them in motion downward. While our sensations of effort are only quali¬ tative, telling us of more and less, but not of how much, we assign measure to this earth effort, or force, or weight, by saying that its i Angles are measured by arcs of graduated cir¬ cles. July 7, 1916] SCIENCE 21 size is twice as great when it pulls on two exactly like objects together as it is when it pulls on only one of them; and conversely we use this pull to measure the elastic force of a spring, the relative magnitudes of different bodies, etc. This notion, that the magnitude of earth pull is proportional to the number of otherwise equal things on which it acts, is fundamental, and so familiar as to seem axiomatic; it is instinctive, as E. Mach would say. The study of the downward motion of bodies affected by their own weight and only slightly by friction was a lifelong interest of Galileo. Directly or indirectly he showed two things; that they fall equal distances in equal times, and that unequal distances of fall are pro¬ portional to the squares of the times of fall. Differentiation of the latter showed that the gravitational acceleration is constant during the time of fall ; the former showed it to be the same for all things, independently of their weight or material. The last conclusion leads to an appreciation of another difficulty in the study of mechanics, if we take into account a law of psychology, well stated in the following quotation from William James: . . . any number of impressions, from any number of sensory sources, falling simultaneously on a mind which has not yet experienced them sepa¬ rately, will yield a single undivided object to that mind. The law is that all things fuse that can fuse, and that nothing separates except what must. The singling out of elements in a compound. It is safe to lay down as a fundamental principle that any total impression made on the mind must be un- analyzable so long as its elements have never been experienced apart or in other combinations else¬ where. The components of an absolutely change¬ less group of not-elsewhere-occurring attributes could never be discriminated. If all cold things were wet, and all wet things cold, if all hard things pricked our skin, and no other things did so: is it likely that we should discriminate be¬ tween coldness and wetness, and hardness and pungency, respectively? If all liquids were trans¬ parent and no non-liquid were transparent, it would be long before we had separate names for liquidity and transparency. If heat were a func¬ tion of position above the earth’s surface, so that the higher a thing was the hotter it became, one word would serve for hot and high. We have, in fact, a number of sensations whose concomitants are invariably the same, and we find it accord¬ ingly impossible to analyze them out of the totals in which they are found. Mow to lift a stone vertically we have to exert an effort, neutralizing the earth’s pull upon it, its weight. To throw the same stone horizontally, to accelerate it, we. have also to exert effort ; and the harder the stone is to lift, the harder it is to throw. (If we refine this crude observation by experiment, we find an exact proportionality between the weights of objects and the efforts or forces required to accelerate them equally.) Hastily general¬ izing, but most naturally, we say that stones are hard to throw, gates hard to swing, not in proportion as, but because they are heavy. To ordinary observation the accelerating and the gravitational efforts always increase and de¬ crease exactly together; they do not tend to become discriminated, we do not abstract them separately. To exact observation, however, a difference does show itself. The same stone weighed in a spring balance would elongate the spring less in low latitudes than in high (we tell our classes this; did any one ever try it?). The same pendulum vibrates more slowly in low latitudes than in high, as Richer found in 1672-3. We can imagine a man lifting and throwing a ball at the bottom and again at the top of a tower four thousand miles high, ob¬ serving a notable change in the weight of the ball and yet none at all in the difficulty of throwing it. But such observations under ter¬ restrial conditions have to be accurate to less than \ per cent., far more accurate than the unaided sense memory can be. To the average man a heavy thing is also hard to throw, be¬ cause it is heavy; a fact which stands as a formidable obstacle to a clear grasp on the idea of mass ; to most students mass and weight are forever identical, except that the book says to divide weight by g to get mass. In an old copy of Wells’ “ Natural Philos¬ ophy” I find the following problem and an¬ swer, which may serve as an illustration : 22 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1123 Why will a large ship, moving toward a wharf with a motion hardly perceptible, crush with great force a boat intervening? Because the great mass and weight of the vessel compensates for its want of velocity. Which shows that the author of this famous book did not discriminate between mass and weight in a case where weight as force does not enter. This confusion of mass and weight can not be helped by pseudo-definitions which attempt to evade the essentially kinetic nature of the mass concept. As is well known, Newton, in the “ Principia,” defined mass as the product of density and volume, and equivalent to quantity of matter. Neither of these statements has any value, as neither brings out the essential fact that a body subject to acceleration dis¬ plays a constant characteristic property, which is the core of Newton’s own treatment of the problem of accelerated motion. Another more recent definition states that mass is the result obtained by weighing with a balance scale. This can not help a student very much. The balance scale was known for centuries before Newton, and had mass been so easily defined it would hardly have been left for him to dis¬ cover the fact of its existence and importance. The fact is, that mass is a concept of kinetics, not to be reached at all by static experiments, and not to be clearly discovered by kinetic ex¬ periments affected by friction. It came into science by way of Mars and the moon, and was then read into terrestrial experience. The “ balance scale ” gives us mass not directly, but by interpretation, even as does the Jolly bal¬ ance. It is not always true that “ in physics sensible people define things the way they do them.” Students in general seem to have no serious difficulty with the equality of push and counter¬ push, of friction and counter-friction, of ac¬ tion and reaction. Trouble does come up in the identification of actions and reactions, and in the realization that these always act upon different things, in opposite directions in the same straight line. As illustrations, take two quotations, the first from Wells’s “Natural Philosophy,” of the sixties, the other from a recent book: The centrifugal force is that force which impels a body moving in a curve to move outward or fly off from a center. The centripetal force is that force which draws a body moving in a curve toward the center, and compels it to move in a bent, or curvilinear course. In circular motion the centri¬ fugal and centripetal forces are equal, and con¬ stantly balance each other. If the centrifugal force of a body revolving in a circular path be destroyed, the body will immediately approach the center; but if the centripetal force be destroyed, the body will fly off in a straight line, called a tangent. Suppose the horse drawing a sled increases his speed. Two reactions now oppose the pull applied to the sled. One, friction, opposes the slipping of the sled over the ground; the other, due to inertia, opposes increase of speed. These two together are equal and opposite to the pull exerted on the sled. These are only cases of confusion such as come up in every physics or mechanics class¬ room; centrifugal and centripetal forces bal¬ ancing each other in circular motion, both act¬ ing on the same thing; friction and the “vis inertise ” are the reactions to the pull exerted by a horse. When one has endeavored to point out the nature of a difficulty, it is natural to ask him for the remedy. I am not pretending that I have found remedies for the difficulties men¬ tioned above, some of which seem to be im¬ posed upon us by the constitution of our minds and the environment in which the race has grown up. The only thing to do is to make every endeavor to break up the satisfaction of the student with the concepts which he has unconsciously formed, to try to contrive stri¬ king experiments which shall, for example, make plain that something more than the notion of weight is needed for their explana¬ tion, and, especially, to familiarize him with the concept acceleration and the various ways of arriving at its value, theoretically and prac¬ tically. The teacher has almost to strive against instinct in the treatment of the laws of motion, and some people can never be expected to grasp them. Willard J. Fisher New Hampshire College July 7, 1916] SCIENCE 23 THE TEACHING OF ELEMENTARY DYNAMICS To the Editor of Science : The communica¬ tion of Professor Wm. Kent in Science of De¬ cember 24, 1915, on the subject heading is par¬ ticularly interesting as a critical analysis, but the writer does not think Professor Kent’s proposed method of teaching the subject is the best way. As further discussion is invited, a method will now be given, very briefly, that is clear and brief and that beginners readily comprehend. 1. Let a spring -balance be graduated with a set of standard pound weights (metal pieces) at sea level, say at latitude 45°, where g = 32.174 ft. per sec. per sec. is the accelera¬ tion due to gravity. Now suppose a certain body there, when hung from the spring-balance, to depress the pointer until it reads W pounds ; then the pull of the earth at this point on the body is exactly W pounds force. 2. Let the same body be hung from this same spring-balance at any other point where the acceleration of gravity is g , and suppose the pointer reads pounds; then the pull of the earth on the body at the second place, is W1 pounds force. 3. State as an experimental fact that W1/g1 = W/g. (1) This simple equation gives the solution to a number of problems involving weights as meas¬ ured on the standard spring-balance at differ¬ ent latitudes and altitudes. Give several of these problems. 4. Mass. — Mass of a body means the quan¬ tity of matter in the body. It is not supposed to alter in amount by changing the position of the body relative to the earth or to be affected by chemical changes, the expansion or con¬ traction of the body or by any change of the body from a solid to a liquid or gaseous state or a reverse change. If the body weighs W pounds on the stand¬ ard spring-balance at the place where the acceleration of gravity is g ft. per sec. per see., the mass of the body will be assumed to vary with W/g, which is likewise unaltered, by eq. (1), by any change of place, volume or condi¬ tion. If M denote the numerical measure of the mass of the body in question, we can write, M = lc W/g, where k is a constant for any chosen set of units. Eor the engineer’s system, k — 1 and, M = W/g. (2) We have now a precise numerical measure of the mass of a body and observe that, at the same place, the mass of a body is directly pro¬ portional to its weight. It is not affected by a change of place, by any chemical changes within the body or by any alteration in vol¬ ume. The student has now a clear-cut, defi¬ nite idea of the mass of a body and of its measure in the engineer’s system. When W =■ <7, M = 1; hence the unit of mass is the quantity of matter that weighs g lbs. on the spring balance at the place where the accelera¬ tion is g. If W is the spring-balance weight at sea level, 45° latitude, where g = 32.174, then M =■ W /32.174 and the unit of mass is the quantity of matter in a body weighing 32.174 lbs. on a spring-balance at sea level, 45° lati¬ tude or 32.174 lbs. on a lever balance anywhere. 5. Mass is a fundamental concept and being clearly understood, “ density ” can be defined, for a homogeneous body, as the ratio M/V, where V is the volume of the body of M units of mass. 6. From eq. (2), we have, W = Mg. (3) Now if an unbalanced force of F lbs., acting on a body of M units of mass, produces in it an acceleration of a ft. per sec. per sec., the formula giving the relation between F, M and a must reduce to (3) when F—W, a = g. Such a formula is F = Ma. (4) This is one of the fundamental formulas of mechanics and the arguments in favor of it should be given as fully as possible, somewhat as in Routh’s “ Dynamics of a Particle,” pp. 18-23 and in connection with Newton’s “ Three Laws of Motion.” The formula is equivalent to the second law, of which the first is a cor¬ ollary. The formula is readily verified by use of Atwood’s machine when a < g. 7. From (4), other well-known formulas, Ft=Mv, Fs = lMv2, etc., can at once be de- 24 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1123 rived; also by aid of (4) and Newton’s third law, that “ action and reaction are always equal and contrary ” the problem of impact of two particles can be solved. 8. By pursuing the course outlined above, the student has to learn and thoroughly under¬ stand, only two simple formulas, M=W/g, F — Ma. Wm. Cain Chapel Hill, N. C. GRAVITATION AND ELECTRICAL ACTION In a paper to be published by the Academy of Science of St. Louis, evidence will be pre¬ sented which appears to show conclusively, that gravitational attraction is diminished by elec¬ trical charges on the acting masses. The sus¬ pended masses of the Cavendish experiment are wholly enclosed in a shield of sheet metal. The small observation window is covered with wire gauze. When a knob terminal connected with the influence machine is moved towards or away from a knob terminal connected with the large attracting masses, the suspended masses slowly move to and fro around the vertical line of suspension. No disruptive discharges occur. It is found that gravita¬ tional attraction is decreased by either posi¬ tive or negative electrification. By the to-and- fro movement of the knob terminal, the ampli¬ tude of vibration can be gradually increased from 2.5 minutes of arc to 50 minutes. It has been established by experimental methods that these results are not due to heat effects. Francis E. Nipiier THE PRODUCTION OF RADIUM To the Editor of Science: On page 799 of the June 2, 1916, issue of Science a statement is made in regard to the production of radium by the Standard Chemical Co. in the year 1915, which is not in accord with facts, and I wish to make this correction. The actual amount of radium produced by the Standard Chemical Co. during 1915 was slightly more than 3 grams of radium element and of this the larger proportion was produced in the first three months of the year from radium which was in process of treatment during the latter part of 1914. In this same article the production of ra¬ dium at a cost of $37,599 per gram by the Na¬ tional Radium Institute Inc. working in co¬ operation and under the supervision of the Bureau of Mines, is compared with the market price of radium of $120,000 a gram. The radium produced by the National Radium In¬ stitute was obtained from high-grade carnotite ore treated without concentration, and the cost of production under these conditions is not properly comparable to the cost of production or the selling price of radium from lower grade ore or concentrates. Applying the Bureau of Mines process to unconcentrated ore containing about 1.5 per cent, of uranium oxide (which is higher than the average carnotite ore) makes the cost of production nearer $70,000 than $40,000 per gram. Since this is practically the condition under which commercial producers of radium must operate, it would be fairer to compare cost of production by the Bureau of Mines process on this basis, rather than on the basis of the uncommercial and somewhat artificial conditions, connected with the treatment of the 1,000 tons of high-grade ore. Concentra¬ tion of the low-grade ore, if practised, natu¬ rally reduces the efficiency of extraction, and in this way would raise the cost of production. While it is true that the war cut off prac¬ tically the entire European market to radium producers, it must be added that the growing American market for radium has been very ad¬ versely influenced by the widespread publish¬ ing of statements, from the United States Bureau of Mines, similar to the statement in Science which we are criticizing. The general effect of these statements has been to lead pros¬ pective purchasers of radium to believe that radium would soon be available at enormously reduced prices. Emphasis being laid by the Bureau of Mines on the exceptionally low cost of production, and in general no mention be¬ ing made of the fact that this low cost of pro¬ duction was in . a large measure due to the abnormal and uncommercial conditions under which the Bureau operated. As regards ore concentration it is also in¬ teresting to note that the method used by the Bureau of Mines is one which has been used July 7, 1916] SCIENCE 25 by the Standard Chemical Company for the past four and a half years, and on the basis of figures published by Dr. Charles L. Parsons in the May number of the Journal of Indus¬ trial and Engineering Chemistry , it is not evi¬ dent that the method is satisfactorily efficient, when applied to the treatment of low-grade carnotite ore. Charles H. Yiol Pittsburgh, Pa., June 3, 1916 SCIENTIFIC BOOKS RECENT BOOKS IN MATHEMATICS Algebraic Invariants. By Leonard Eugene Dickson, Professor of Mathematics, Univer¬ sity of Chicago. New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1914. Pp. 100. $1.25. A Treatise on the Theory of Invariants. By Oliver E. Glenn, Ph.D., Professor of Mathe¬ matics in the University of Pennsylvania. Boston, Ginn and Company, 1915. Pp. 245. Contributions to the Founding of the Theory of Transfinite Numbers. By Georg Cantor. Translated and Provided with an Introduc¬ tion and Notes by Philip E. B. Jourdain. Chicago and London, The Open Court Pub¬ lishing Company, 1915. Pp. 211. $1.25. Problems in the Calculus. With Formulas and Suggestions. By David D. Leib, Ph.D., In¬ structor in Mathematics in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University. Bos¬ ton and New York, Ginn and Company, 1915. Pp. 224. Diophantine Analysis. By Robert D. Car¬ michael, Assistant Professor of Mathe¬ matics in the University of Illinois. New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1915. Pp. 118. Historical Introduction to Mathematical Liter¬ ature. By G. A. Miller, Professor of Mathematics in the University of Illinois. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1916. Pp. 295. An invariant is any thing — a property or a relation or an expression or a configuration — that remains unaltered when other things con¬ nected with it suffer change. In this very comprehensive but essential meaning of the term, the notion is probably as ancient as the human intellect. Certainly in historic time the appeal of the idea has been universal. It has been said that science may be defined as the quest of invariance. Doubtless that quest is an essential mark of science but it is not peculiar to science. For the problem of invari¬ ance, the problem of finding permanence in the midst of change, arises out of the flux of things to confront man in all departments of life. And so it is that the search for what abides is not confined to science but is and always has been the chief enterprise of philos¬ ophy and theology and art and jurisprudence. It is, however, in mathematics that the notion of invariance has come to the clearest recogni¬ tion of its character and significance. In this respect the notion in question has had a his¬ tory like that of all other great ideas that have slowly and at length become available for the processes of logic. The oldest and now most elaborate portion of the mathematical doctrine of invariance is about as old as American independence. Though now an imposing theory, its begin¬ ning was like a mustard seed. It began, not in ratiocination, but in an observation — mathe¬ matics indeed depends even more upon obser¬ vation than upon formal reasoning. It began in what was in itself a very small observation, an observation (1773) by Lagrange that the discriminant of the quadratic form ax- ■-(- 2 bxy ~f- cy 2 remains unaltered on replacing x by x, -j- A y. The next important step was taken by Gauss in 1801 and the next by Boole in 1841. Incited by Boole’s beautiful results, the English mathematicians, Cayley and Sylvester, entered the field, the former pro¬ ducing in rapid succession his great memoirs on Quantics and the latter his brilliant inves¬ tigations in what he conceived more poetically as the Theory of Forms. The interest so aroused quickly passed to the continent en¬ gaging the great abilities of such mathe¬ maticians as Aronhold, Hermite, Clebsch, Gordan and others. The result is the colossal doctrine variously styled the algebra of quan¬ tics, the theory of algebraic invariants and covariants, and the theory of forms. It is to this doctrine that Professor Dick- 26 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1123 son’s book gives the beginner an admirable introduction. It is, I say, for beginners, for it presupposes only a fair knowledge of analyt¬ ical geometry and the differential calculus. The book is much larger than it appears to be, being very compactly written, the author having the art of getting a maximum of results with a minimum of talk. Yet the exposition is remarkably clear, uniting the two stylistic virtues of precision and conciseness. The work is composed of three parts. The symbolic notation is reserved for part III. Geometric interpretation is emphasized. In part I. linear transformation is alternately in¬ terpreted non-projectively and protectively; that is, on the one hand as working a change of reference configuration, and on the other as merely effecting a lawful transfer of atten¬ tion from old loci (or envelopes) to new ones referred to the old configuration. Part II., which is mainly concerned with the properties of binary forms, deals with such matters as homogeneity, weight, transformation products, annihilators, linear independence, Hermite’s reciprocity law, etc. The canonical form of the quartic is found and the equation is solved. Part III., which occupies 38 of the book’s 100 pages, is devoted to a presentation and use of the symbolic method of Aronhold and Clebsch. In passing the author notes that this method is equivalent to the previously invented but relatively cumbrous hyperdeterminant method of Cayley. This part and indeed the book may be said to culminate in Hilbert’s theorem regarding the expressibility of the forms of a system in terms of a finite number of them and the use of the theorem in proving the finiteness of a fundamental system of co¬ variants of a set of binary forms. It seems unfortunate that Professor Dick¬ son did not deem it wise or find it practicable to set forth the matter of this volume in its natural relation to the theory of groups. Per¬ haps some one will some time write for begin¬ ners a book on transformations, groups and in¬ variants with applications. Professor Glenn’s treatise is somewhat more extensive than Professor Dickson’s. It, too, is introductory, beginning with a variety of simple considerations. Both the symbolic and the non-symbolic methods are explained and employed. Geometric interpretations are given and some connection with the group concept is made. The book comprises the following nine chapters: the principles of invariant theory (32 pages) ; properties of invariants (7 pages) ; the processes of invariant theory (40 pages), dealing with operators, the Aronhold sym¬ bolism, reducibility, concomitants in terms of roots, and geometric interpretations ; reduction (4b pages), concerned with Gordan’s series, the quartic, transvectant systems, syzygies, Hilbert’s theorem, Jordan’s lemma, and grade; Gordan’s theorem (16 pages), giving proof of the theorem and illustration by the cubic and quartic; fundamental systems (16 pages) ; combinants and rational curves (13 pages) ; seminvariants and modular invariants (32 pages) ; and invariants of ternary forms (25 pages). There is added an appendix of ten pages devoted to exercises. With access to the foregoing books, to Salmon’s classic book, and to such recent Brit¬ ish works as that by Grace and Young and Elliott’s “ Algebra of Quantics,” the English- speaking student can not complain of having to resort to other languages for a knowledge of this classic branch of modern algebra. Many readers, including mathematicians and philosophers, will be grateful to Mr. Jourdain for his excellent translation of Cantor’s famous memoirs of 1895 and 1897. These were published in the Mathematische Annalen under the title, “ Beitrage zur Begriindung der transfiniten Mengenlelire.” The translator’s rendering of the title is justified by the con¬ tent of the memoirs. This content is not likely to be fully intelligible to any but such as have mastered Cantor’s earlier works begin¬ ning in 1870. The value of the volume is much increased by the translator’s Introduction of 82 pages sketching the development of func¬ tion theory in. the course of the last century and by the notes he has appended dealing with the growth of the theory of transfinite numbers since 1897. Dr. Leib’s collection of problems presents a good list under each important theme dealt July 7, 1916] SCIENCE 27 with in a first course in the calculus. But few of the problems have been worked out fully and the devising of geometric figures has been left to the student under the guidance of the text he is using or of his instructor, but nu¬ merous cautionary and directive explanations are given clearly and concisely, usually at the beginnings of the various problem lists. The answers to typical exercises of each list are given, but a large percentage of the problems are unanswered. Such a collection of exer¬ cises ought to make it practicable to teach the elements of the calculus by means of lectures or by means of thin books confined mainly to a presentation of theory. There are two special reasons why the ap¬ pearance of Professor Carmichael’s beautiful book should be noted in this journal. One is that the subject treated has made a most ex¬ traordinary appeal in all scientific times and places. With the exception of geometry, astronomy and logic, hardly any other tech¬ nically scientific subject has better served to tie together so many centuries, for interest in it probably antedates the school of Pytha¬ goras. The second reason is that a certain long-outstanding problem of Diophantine analysis has recently come to very popular fame by virtue of the extraordinary prize of $25,000 provided by the German mathemati¬ cian Wollfskehl for its solution. The problem is to prove the so-called Last Theorem of Fermat (1601-1665) stated by him without proof on the margin of a page of his copy of a fragment of the “ Arithmetica ” of the Greek mathematician Diophantos. The theorem is : If n is an integer greater than 2 there do not exist integers x, y, z, all different from zero, such that xn -f- yn — zn. The prize, the offer of which does not expire till September 13, 2007, will be awarded to one who proves that the theorem is not universally true (if it is not) and who at the same time determines all values of n for which it is true. Long before the prize was announced the problem engaged the efforts of great mathematicians and thus led to important developments in the theory of numbers. Since the announcement thousands of the mathematically innocent have assailed the problem. If these innocents could have had access to such a book as Professor Car¬ michael’s where the nature of the problem is explained and the present state of knowledge regarding it is sketched, they might have been deterred from wasting their time and that of others. The rendering of such a service was not, however, the author’s aim. There is scarcely another branch of mathematics in which the results achieved in course of the centuries are so special, fragmentary and isolated. Pro¬ fessor Carmichael’s aim was two-fold, namely, to produce for beginners an introduction to Diophantine analysis and to bring its frag¬ mentary and scattered discoveries into organic unity. And he has succeeded admirably. The style is excellent. The content and scope of the book are fairly well indicated by the titles and lengths of its six chapters : Introduc¬ tion, rational triangles, the method of infinite descent (22 pages) ; problems involving a mul¬ tiplicative domain (30 pages) ; equations of third degree (20 pages) ; equation of fourth degree (10 pages) ; higher equations, the Fer¬ mat problem (17 pages) ; the method of func¬ tional equations (9 pages). The theory thus actually presented and the judiciously selected exercises make the work available for private reading as well as for a short university course in the subject. Professor Hiller’s “ Historical Introduction to Mathematical Literature ” grew out of a course of lectures designed to supplement reg¬ ular instruction. It thus employs a more or less expansive style and seeks to be “ synoptic and inspirational” for such as may not lay claim to much mathematical discipline. It is guided by a highly commendable aim/, namely, to conduct the reader to commanding points of view so that he may judge for himself whether the fields he is thus enabled to glimpse invite him to further exploration. The aim is pur¬ sued with a notable optimism despite the nation-wide depreciatory utterances of such educational leaders and agitators as Commis¬ sioner Snedden and Abraham Flexner. Pro¬ fessor Miller believes that “ shameless igno¬ rance ” of mathematics “ does not represent a 28 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1123 normal condition on the part of those inter¬ ested in the history of the human race.” We are also told that “ with our gradual evolution from the state of barbarism the history of war and bloodshed is being slowly replaced by that of political and intellectual movements.” From which we infer that that portion of the preface was composed prior to August, 1914. Believing that history courses for secondary- school teachers should be more largely con¬ cerned with modern developments than is their wont, Professor Miller particularly stresses these developments, though the content of his discourse is in very considerable measure drawn also from ancient and medieval times. The 35 pages of the initial chapter are de¬ voted to sketching the progress made from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present time in mathematical intelligence, mathematical research, mathematical history and mathematical teaching. In particular the fact is pointed out that the rapid and continu¬ ously increasing American mathematical activ¬ ity during the last twoscore years has placed our country among the leading mathematical countries of the world. If we have not yet produced a mathematician of the very first rank, we can at least claim to have produced men of notable ability and productiveness. Chapter II. (42 pages) presents a large amount of interesting information respecting types of recent literature, societies, interna¬ tional congresses, periodicals, works of refer¬ ence, mathematical tables and collected works. In the 51 pages of the third chapter we have a rather meager discussion of definitions of the term mathematics; a historical account of the manner in which the science has acquired its grand divisions and subdivisions ; a • quite too brief but interesting account of the advent, influence and position of a few “ dominant concepts ” such as irrational quantities, equa¬ tion solution, function, group, matrix, domain of rationality; some instructive remarks and historical references respecting mathematical terminology and notation; a short section on errors in mathematical literature; a section, entitled living mathematicians, arguing with feeling and good judgment the importance of devising suitable means for determining “ Who is Who ” among mathematicians ; and a final section treating inadequately, hardly more than touching, the now pressing question of mathematics as an educational subject. There follow three chapters dealing with “ fundamental developments ” respectively in arithmetic, in geometry and in algebra. Of these the first (29 pages) opens with Euclid’s proof that the number of prime numbers is infinite; explains the Sieve of Eratosthenes; sketches the history and appraises the signif¬ icance of irrational numbers, giving (doubt¬ less unintentionally) the impression (p. 133) that these numbers admit of only negative definition; treats briefly the fundamental operations of arithmetic, then of notation sys¬ tems, and closes with a short and excellent account of the Fermat theorem. The next chapter (23 pages) devotes to “ fundamental developments in geometry ” three sections, one to the Pythagorean theorem, one to the area and volume of the sphere, and one to the tri¬ angle. A valuable chapter (22 pages) on algebra is historically rich in its handling of the fundamental theorem of algebra, the no¬ tion of determinant, numerical equations, do¬ mains of rationality, the beginnings of invari¬ ant theory, and the tale of the binomial theorem. Chapter VII., somewhat oddly entitled “ Twenty-five Prominent Deceased Mathe¬ maticians,” is the largest and most interesting division of Professor Miller’s interesting book. It contains a very readable account of the fol¬ lowing men selected from among the great mathematicians of the world : Euclid, Archi¬ medes, Apollonius, Diophantus, Vieta, Des¬ cartes, Fermat, Newton, Leibniz, Euler, La¬ grange, Gauss, Cauchy, Steiner, Abel, Hamil¬ ton, Galois, Sylvester, Weierstrass, Cayley, Hermite, Kronecker, Cremona, Lie, Poincare. The book closes with a list, accompanied with brief characterizations, of a large num¬ ber of bibliographies, reference works, and books on the history, and the teaching and philosophy of mathematics. Cassius J. Keyser Columbia University July 7, 1916] SCIENCE 29 The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes: A Study of Ideational Behavior. By Robert M. Yerkes. New York, 1916. Pp. 145. This monograph reports the results of ad¬ mirable experiments on two monkeys and an orang-utan, first, by the multiple-choice method of Yerkes, and second, by various forms of the mechanical-adaptation method. It also presents a plan for a research institute for the study of the primates. The multiple-choice method is a means of diagnosing and measuring an animal’s ability to respond correctly to relations of spatial order, such as middle door of those open, or right-hand door of those open, regardless of the number of doors that are open or which doors (of the entire nine possible to be open) they are. Food was used as a reward for entering the right door, and, irregularly, detention in a box as a punishment for entering the wrong door. The first problem was to learn to enter at once the first door at the left end of whatever doors were open. The following summary for one monkey will give an idea of the sort of facts obtained. In the course of 150 trials the per cent, of successes rose from 30 to 90, for the ten selections of doors open that were em¬ ployed. In a test with one trial each of ten still different selections of doors the number of successes was 6. The monkey did not seem to learn by a “ free idea ” of “ door at left end”; for each selection of doors seemed to be responded to by itself. 8 as the response to 8-9, 6 as the response to 6-7-8, 4 as the re¬ sponse to 4-5-6-7-8, 7 as the response to 7-8-9 and 5 as the response to 5-6-7 were apparently learned at a time when 1 as a response to 1-2-3, 3 as a response to 3-4-5-6-7 and 2 as a response to 2-3— 4-5-6, were not. There was no sudden elimination of wrong responses. “ Stupid ” responses appeared in connection with the general behavior in the test. As a result of four such series of experi¬ ments with one monkey and three with an¬ other, Yerkes concludes that “ the Pithecus monkeys yielded relatively abundant -evidence of ideation but with Thorndike I must agree that of ‘ free ideas ’ there is scanty evidence, or rather, I should prefer to say, that although ideas seem to be in play frequently, they are rather concrete and definitely attached than ‘ free.’ Neither in my sustained multiple- choice experiments nor from my supplementary tests did I obtain convincing indications of reasoning. What Hobhouse has called articu¬ late ideas I believe to appear infrequently in these animals. But on the whole, I believe that the general conclusions of previous experi¬ mental observers have done no injustice to the ideational ability of monkeys.” The orang-utan seemed to get “ an idea of ” left-end-door of those open and use it to guide his responses. He did not, however, appar¬ ently get the idea of next-to-the-right-end-door in 1,380 trials. Various phases of his behavior, however, convinced Yerkes that he was re¬ sponding to ideas or representations of experi¬ ence. In the miscellaneous tests the orang-utan showed great pertinacity and initiative. On the whole “ the orang-utan is capable of ex¬ pressing free ideas in considerable number and of using them in ways highly indicative of thought-processes, possibly even of the rational order. But contrasted with that of man, the ideational life of the orang-utan seems poverty- stricken.” The experiments with the monkeys and the ape are described with the author’s customary care and will be of service in many ways to future workers in this field. For example, they bear directly on the Smith- Watson-Carr doctrine that frequency of connection, irre¬ spective of the consequences of the connection to the animal, is adequate to account for learn¬ ing. Cases abound in the records where a cer¬ tain wrong door is in the first few trials chosen far oftener than the right door and yet even¬ tually is never chosen. The multiple-choice experiments should be widely used in studies of both animal and human learning. The last division of the monograph presents Yerkes’ proposal for the provision of a spe¬ cial institute for studying the monkeys and apes. Porto Rico and Southern California are suggested as satisfactory localities. The in¬ direct value of such an institute for human 30 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1123 betterment is emphasized as well as its direct value in the advancement of knowledge, and strong claims are made for its support. It certainly is the case that animal psychol¬ ogy in this country has, in the past decade, done very solid and instructive work with very little financial support from universities or re¬ search funds. The experiments here reported represent a gift of the time of one man of sci¬ ence and a gift of material resources from an¬ other. They are typical of the scientific de¬ votion and self help which the public can profitably reward by any means in its power, and which any individual honors himself by supporting. Edward L. Thorndike Teachers College, Columbia University RETROGRESSION IN AMERICAN LONGEVITY AT ADVANCED AGES It is generally suspected among a limited group of scientific men that although we seem to be improving in matters of health we are doing so in spite of adverse conditions at the more advanced ages. We have certainly improved on the whole, for the area in the United States from which acceptable records in mortality statistics are received annually (the registration area) has doubled in the number of states included, within the past decade (1900-1910), although it is still no more than half of the total num¬ ber of the states of the Union, to the shame of such great states as Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, etc. That mortality conditions have improved in the neighborhood of the age of birth and in fact, at all the earlier ages, is so well established that it needs no comment. Also, the general death rate in this country has decreased more in the past decade (2.6) than in the previous two decades taken to¬ gether (2.2). But all this improvement is too deceiving; it covers up the fact that in some respects we are worse off now than we were twenty years or more ago. Stated concretely we expect to show in this paper that individuals between the ages of about 50 and 75 do not, on the average, live as long now as they did twenty years ago; and the extent of this retrogression is increasing. We shall refer to this period or interval of ages as the Period of Retrogres¬ sion. We hope to point out also slight indications of tendencies to “ come back ” at the still more advanced ages, say from 75 on. That the indi¬ viduals at these extreme ages are “ coming back” seems pretty firmly indicated by the results of this investigation, but not only is the “ come back ” small but it is also manifested at ages where statistical data are faulty ; hence, we recommend that these indications be held in abeyance until they are more clearly veri¬ fied by other investigations of similar nature. The English statistician and actuary, Mr. George King, has explained a short method of constructing abridged mortality tables wherein only representative portions of the tables and the corresponding death rates and expecta¬ tions of life are given. We have utilized this . method to construct six abridged mortality tables based upon the mortality statistics of each of the sexes, and for the three single years 1890, 1900, and 1910. The year 1880 was not included because the population data and mortality statistics for that year which were reliable do not cover exactly the same area. The mortality statistics of all years previous to 1880 are worthless for our purpose. The essential purpose of this paper is to compare and discuss the results obtained through the construction of these mortality tables. The fact that each mortality table is con¬ structed from data covering but a single year absolutely prohibits the use of such tables ex¬ cept to point out general conclusions such as are indicated in this paper. Our attitude in this matter should not be forgotten. As the explanation of the method of con¬ struction of the tables is technical and has no special hearing upon the interpretation of the final results, we shall merely refer the reader who desires further information to Mr. King’s explanation — which, however, will bear much simplification — in the Registrar General’s re¬ port for 1914. The statistical data for the year 1890 com- July 7, 1916] SCIENCE 31 prise the population and deaths of the nine registration states of that year: Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ehode Island, Ver¬ mont, and the District of Columbia. The statistics of the years 1900 and 1910 which were used in this investigation comprise those of the same states enumerated above, except Delaware, and of the states Indiana, Maine and Michigan. The mortality tables were completed at the extreme and relatively unimportant ages not covered by reliable data, in the rather arbi¬ trary manner discussed by Mr. King. The abridged mortality tables are given here for visual comparison, but our discussion will be directed solely to the death rates and ex¬ pectations of life given later. MORTALITY TABLES 1890 1900 1910 Agei Males Females Males Females Males Females 12 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 17 98,026 97,715 98,390 98,182 98,537 98,678 22 94,558 94,613 95,596 95,466 96,281 96,665 27 90,219 90,793 92,115 92,066 93,487 94,089 32 85,655 86,559 88,414 88,379 90,344 91,220 37 80,876 82,122 84,450 84,594 86,618 88,036 42 75,777 77,484 80,108 80,625 82,281 84,485 47 70,309 72,670 75,247 76,289 77,246 80,445 52 64,259 67,318 69,998 71,206 71,394 75,532 57 57,290 61,084 63,556 64,932 64,260 69,204 62 49,359 52,181 55,178 57,292 55,255 61,098 67 40,571 43,990 45,167 48,036 44,707 50,974 72 31,000 34,582 33,670 36,844 32,651 38,674 77 20,826 24,192 21,806 24,707 21,358 25,362 82 11,308 14,022 11,151 13,372 11,643 13,677 87 4,579 6,244 4,013 5,240 4,212 5,678 92 1,388 1,976 898 1,347 1,068 1,671 97 339 464 108 198 227 316 102 68 84 6 14 40 34 107 11 12 0 0 6 2 0 1 0 0 It is to be noticed that the ages in the neighborhood of the age of birth are ignored. This is practically necessary in the use of such short methods, considering the great varia¬ tions in death rates at the ages of this period. However, examination of various mortality tables constructed upon mortality conditions in the United States will reveal little differ¬ ence between the expectation of life at age twelve and that at the age of birth. Thus, the expectation of life at age twelve is a fair estimate of the average length of the whole of American life, especially when used for pur¬ poses of comparison of two or more sets of mortality conditions. The abridged list of death rates and corre¬ sponding differences are as follows: DEATH RATES PER 100,000 Males Ages 1890 Dill. 1900 Difl. 1910 12 331 — 55 276 _ 39 237 17 546 - 64 482 — 89 393 22 864 - 165 699 — 141 558 27 1,015 - 230 785 — 156 629 32 1,065 - 196 869 — 98 771 37 1,260 - 273 987 — 40 947 42 1,358 - 204 1,154 — 7 1,147 47 1,696 - 313 1,383 + 50 1,433 52 1,961 - 306 1,655 + 152 1,807 57 2,757 - 283 2,474 + 99 2,573 62 3,277 + 53 3,330 + 311 3,641 67 4,781 + 159 4,940 + 120 5,060 72 6,172 + 874 7,046 + 597 7,643 77 10,075 + 475 10,550 + 738 11,288 82 13,893 + 1,967 15,860 — 628 15,232 87 20,324 +2,344 22,668 + 25 22,693 92 23,384 +7,475 30,859 -5,332 25,527 Females 12 382 - 70 292 _ 69 223 17 574 - 92 482 — 135 347 22 745 - 77 668 — 165 503 27 924 - 133 791 — 206 585 32 987 - 143 844 — 176 668 37 1,136 - 217 919 — 146 773 42 1,195 - 169 1,026 — 125 901 47 1,417 - 181 1,236 — 123 1,113 52 1,705 - 97 1,608 — 104 1,504 57 2,281 - 84 2,197 — 65 2,132 62 2,846 + 118 2,964 + 72 3,036 67 4,207 + 138 4,345 + 145 4,490 72 5,637 + 928 6,565 + 305 6,870 77 8,988 + 663 9,651 + 437 10,088 82 12,610 + 1,106 13,716 + 464 14,180 87 18,496 +2,367 20,863 — 867 19,996 92 23,437 +5,049 28,386 +4,482 32,868 In the table of death rates given above, at¬ tention is called not so much to the absolute values and their differences — for the results lack graduation — but rather to the trend of mortality conditions as indicated by them. This trend among both the males and females is unquestionably forward at all ages below 60, except in the decade 1900-1910, in which the advance among the males is terminated at 2 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1123 about age 45. We might go farther and say that for this same decade the males did not advance as much at the ages at which they did advance as they did in the previous decade. On the other hand, the females maintained or even excelled their record of 1890-1900 in the decade 1900-1910. The most important feature of the table of death rates is the group or period of ages at which both males and females have retro¬ gressed. This retrogression is significant in value wherever indicated, and that it is not due to faulty statistics or errors is clearly shown by the fact that it appears in both decades in both sexes. Further, the retrogression is not spasmodic, but continues firmly from about age 60 on to the end of the table. EXPECTATIONS OF LIFE Males Ages 1890 Dift. 1900 Difr. 1910 12 46.30 +2.19 48.49 + .59 49.08 17 42.18 +2.06 44.24 + .53 44.77 22 38.63 + 1.82 • 40.45 + .30 40.75 27 35.37 + 1.52 36.89 0 36.89 32 32.12 + 1.21 33.33 — .24 33.09 37 28.86 + .91 29.77 — .37 29.40 42 25.64 + .60 26.24 — .42 25.82 47 22.43 + .35 22.78 — .45 22.33 52 19.30 — .01 19.29 — .34 18.95 57 16.34 — .35 15.99 — .29 15.70 62 13.56 — .54 13.02 — .10 12.92 67 10.94 — .60 10.34 + .02 10.36 72 8.54 — .54 8.00 + .26 8.26 77 6.49 — .49 6.00 + .33 6.33 82 4.51 — .07 4.44 + .15 4.59 87 3.73 — .48 3.25 + .34 3.59 92 2.79 — .51 2.28 + .76 3.04 Females 12 47.90 +1.56 49.46 + 1.83 51.29 17 43.96 + 1.36 45.32 + 1.62 46.94 22 40.31 + 1.23 41.54 + 1.32 42.86 27 36.90 + 1.08 37.98 + .98 38.96 32 33.58 + .88 34.46 + .65 35.11 37 30.26 + .63 30.89 + .40 31.29 42 26.92 + .37 27.29 + .21 27.50 47 23.54 + .15 23.69 + .06 23.75 52 20.21 — .01 20.20 — .07 20.13 57 17.00 — .10 16.90 — .17 16.73 62 14.47 — .66 13.81 — .21 13.60 67 11.69 — .71 10.98 — .19 10.79 72 9.18 — .72 8.46 — .05 8.41 77 7.04 — .65 6.39 + .13 6.52 82 5.37 — .62 4.75 + .28 5.03 87 4.14 — .61 3.53 + .33 3.86 92 3.33 — .76 2.56 + .36 2.92 There are a few widely varying values at the terminal ages, but, as mentioned above, the statistics at these ages are so faulty that little or no interpretation is possible. Summarizing the results indicated by the table of death rates, mortality conditions seem to have been improved at ages below sixty during the two decades 1890-1900 and 1900- 1910 among both the males and the females, steadily so among the females but not so much so among the males. At ages sixty and above, both males and females seem to have retro¬ gressed, particularly the males whose period of retrogression during the decade 1900-1910 be¬ gan as far back as age 45. This period of retrogression among death rates for both sexes continues steadily toward the last ages of human life. As indicated in the table of expectations of life given above, the average future life time of males at age twelve seems to have lengthened 2.19 years in the decade 1890-1900 and only .59 of a year in the decade 1900-1910, or 2.78 years in both decades. The gain of only .59 is rather difficult to explain, for even the gen¬ eral death rate suffered a relapse in 1910, and no one seems to know exactly why. It is pos¬ sible that the fact that the period of retro¬ gression encroached upon the earlier ages might offer at least a partial explanation. The period of retrogression among the expectations of life of the males is seen to begin about age fifty in the decade 1890-1900 and about age thirty in the decade 1900-1910. That the initial ages of the period of retro¬ gression in both decades precede the corre¬ sponding ages in the table of death rates from 10 to 15 years is what might be expected and is really quite important in that it emphasizes the fact that a retrogression in death rates at any period of ages will affect the expectation of life of all those living at any earlier ages. The two initial ages, fifty and thirty, men¬ tioned above, differ from earlier ages only in the fact that these are the first ages at which the effect of retrogression at the advanced ages outweighs the effect of improvement at the earlier ages.' July 7, 1916] SCIENCE 33 The amount of retrogression in the expecta¬ tion of life of the males rarely exceeds half of a year, but the mere fact that individuals at ages above fifty do not live as long now as they did several decades ago is of tremendous significance. If this period or retrogression could be made to vanish, so much more would the expectation of life at the earlier ages be increased. It would be serious enough if no advance were registered in this period; an actual retrogression amounts to a calamity. It is very remarkable that the period of re¬ trogression of the males in the decade 1900- 1910 ends about age sixty-five and from that age on we notice a tendency to “ come back,” a tendency not found in the decade 1890-1900. The value of this “ come back ” is small, it is true, hut the values give no indications of un¬ certainty by interposing occasionally a nega¬ tive value (a retrogression). Whether this period of advance at the most extreme ages actually exists or not, we shall not presume to say, but the above figures are highly suggest¬ ive. The period of retrogression among the ex¬ pectations of life of the females also begins about age fifty, but there is quite a difference between the two decades considered. In the decade 1900-1910 the females seem to have overcome to a great extent the retrogression registered in the decade 1890-1900; this fact is not true of the males. Moreover, this period is now restricted to only about twenty years, whereas before it seemed to extend firmly to the end of the table. Here again, we see evidences of an effort to “ come back ” appearing at the extreme ages. The fact that this period of “ come back ” ap¬ pears among the expectations of life of the females in the same decade (1900-1910) as it does among the males adds strength to the probability of its actual existence. The casual reader may have wondered how the period of retrogression among the death rates could extend to the end of the table while that of the corresponding expectations of life could end at some age such as 75. This is perfectly possible, for in obtaining the ex¬ pectation of life at any age we divide the total number of years lived, by the population at that age, and this total number of years may be lessened without decreasing the expectation of life if the population at the given age is also lessened in the proper proportion. In this paper we have pointed out a great field for work; we have pointed out the exact location of a serious problem. It still remains for others to diagnose the trouble, and that task might well be left to those familiar with the diseases operative at the ages covered by this period of retrogression. However, we dare suggest that far the greater part of the trouble is due to a peculiar state of indiffer¬ ence and ignorance in regard to the ordinary laws of nature, and therefore can be overcome best by a systematic plan of education along lines of elementary hygiene. Every one knows that few individuals be¬ tween the ages of thirty and sixty take any constructive forethought for their physical welfare; few carry out any definite plans for regular daily exercise or proper breathing of fresh air. Fewer still have even a fair con¬ ception of their own physical make-up or their condition at any particular time; this fact is due likely both to lack of time and to reluc¬ tance to face the truth. One of the best ways to arouse interest in practical hygiene would be through the organi¬ zation of a National Health League which would hope ultimately to have a representa¬ tive organization in every large community. It should be the duty of such a body to encour¬ age right living among its members and all individuals associated with them. This work should be supplemented by a systematic and regular program of study and discussion. For local organizations made up of individuals who insist they are too busy to make a personal study of the subject, practical lectures could be arranged at regular intervals, calculated to keep interest aroused. The lecturers could be obtained among broadminded and altruistic physicians or the faculty of the state univer¬ sity. The central organization, whether state or national could employ a part of its time and energy in no better way than in providing 34 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1123 a complete corps of efficient lecturers who could answer the call to some local organiza¬ tion. There are many individuals who are look¬ ing for a field in which they can utilize their executive powers in a worthy way. There are many wealthy people who are ready and even anxious to donate funds to a worthy cause. We believe a no more worthy cause exists than the one just suggested. Much work has already been accomplished by organization such as the Y. M. C. A. to en¬ courage right living among young men, but little of it touches the group of busy individ¬ uals who are the victims as well as the causes of the Period of Retrogression. C. H. Forsyth Ann Arbor, Mich. SPECIAL ARTICLES A METHOD OF PLOTTING THE INFLECTIONS OF THE VOICE Some time ago, while the writer was en¬ gaged in the study of the “ tones ” of certain oriental languages, it became desirable to rep¬ resent visually the tonal movements or figures executed by the voice in actual speech. Records of native speech were taken by the Rousselot apparatus, and the wave-lengths in each tracing were measured throughout, re¬ sulting in a series of numbers for each utter¬ ance — which series we may for the moment suppose as included within the compass of two octaves, from 10 to 40 of our scheme. In default of any record of previous at¬ tempts of this kind, the following scheme was first tried as the most obvious and simple. Beginning at the top, the unit lines of the co¬ ordinate paper were numbered in succession downward from 10 to 40. Then beginning at the left-hand margin the measured numbers from the record were plotted in order, each upon its numbered line, but each advanced be¬ yond its predecessor by a constant interval chosen after experiment as best suited to bring out the features of the voice-inflection. A continuous line drawn through the series of plotted points would then represent the move¬ ment of voice as regards pitch. Finally the whole was brought into relation with concert pitch by measuring the wave-length of the record of a C-fork and marking its place among the numbered lines, and computing the positions of the other notes of the scale ac¬ cording to the well-known ratios of the dia¬ tonic scale. The results seemed convincing; but a study of them revealed a certain distortion of ver¬ tical values similar in kind to the horizontal distortion of Mercator’s maps. This was due to the fact that the number-intervals were equally spaced, whereas to our thought and visual imagination the semitone intervals are equal. The first step toward remedying the difficulty was obvious and easy. The letters of the twelve semitones took the places of the integers on the unit-lines of the chart. The next step — to find the new places of these integers — was not so easy. After some fum¬ bling and groping the following points be¬ came clear. 1. Each semitone of the series brings with it to its new place the same numerical value which it had in its former position as a defi¬ nite term of a geometrical progression of twenty-four terms between 10 and 40, with for the common ratio. In Table I. below are given these values for the upper octave. Those for the lower octave are simply twice these. These numbers were entered on the chart against their respective semitones. 2. The integral numbers must next be as¬ signed to their proper stations within this decimal series. Indeed 10, 20 and 40 already appear in that series, and so are assigned to position ; while 15 and 30 are so close to semi¬ tone positions as to be practically coincident with them. A rough determination of the other positions might be made by the method of proportional parts, but the only real deter¬ mination is by solving the equation of the geometrical progression just described. That equation is y = ax , in which y and x are vari¬ ables, and a is constant, namely the common ratio 1JV2. The values of y are the integral numbers from 10 to 40. By applying these values in succession to the equation, the corre¬ sponding values of x are obtained, that is the July 7, 1916] SCIENCE 35 vertical distance from line 10 to the level of each integer. These ordinates are given in Table II. below. Another element of distortion, though very- slight, was found in the assumption of equal spacing for the horizontal intervals between successive points in the plot. The spaces ought to vary somewhat according to the levels of pitch. It was, however, some time before it became clear that the single measurement determined the position of the point on both coordinates — on the vertical one as pitch, and on the horizontal one as time-elapsed between successive wave-crests in the record. So amended, the scheme seems perfect. Nevertheless a suggestion or two may save much time and trouble to one who may have occasion to use it. It is neither necessary nor desirable to meas¬ ure separately every wave-length of the record. It is quite as well to measure them in groups of five together and take the average for plot¬ ting, if only one measure separately the very first wave and the last, so as to make sure of the pitch at those points. Similarly the in¬ tervals for the horizontal spacing need not be the very ones indicated by the measured num¬ bers, but rather some constant fraction of them, such as will better bring out the fea¬ tures of the curve. All the numbers concerned in the scheme are merely ratios setting forth the relationships between the various elements of it within the compass of two octaves of pitch, which is quite sufficient to cover the range of any voice in ordinary speech. The scheme may therefore be used just as it stands if the measurements do not exceed its limits. If they do, the whole system may be raised an octave by the simple device of dividing the integral numbers throughout by 2, or lowered an octave by multiplying them by 2. Or it may be raised a fourth by multiplying them by 0.7, or lowered a fourth by multiplying them by 1.5 — taking pains however in these last cases to shift the semitone letters correspondingly. Since the semitone intervals are all equal, the C which represents concert pitch may be placed anywhere in the field where its meas¬ ured wave-length indicates. All the other semitone letters then will take their places at the same constant distances as in the scheme described. TABLE I Ratios of the Tempered Scale C . 10 B . 10.60 AJ . 11.23 A . 11.89 G{ . 12.60 G . 13.35 Fjf . 14.14 F . 14.98 E . 15.87 D£ . 16.81 D . 17.81 C# . 18.87 C . 20 TABLE II Ordinates of the Number Series Number Distance Number Distance 10 . 000 26 . 16.54 11 . 165 27 . 17 19 12 . 316 28 . 17.82 13 . 454 29 . 18.43 14 . 582 30 . 19 02 15 . 702 31 . 19 58 16 . 814 32 . 20.14 17 . 918 33 . 20.67 18 . 1,017 34 . 21.19 19 . i'll 1 35 . 21.69 20 . E200 36 . 22.17 21 . 1,284 37 . 22.65 22 . 1,365 38 . 23. 1 1 23 . l’442 39 . 23.56 24 . 1,515 40 . 24.00 25 . E586 Cornelius Beach Bradley University of California SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON The 557th regular meeting of the society was held in the Assembly Hall of the Cosmos Club, Saturday, May 20, 1916, called to order by Presi¬ dent Hay at 8 P.M., with 30 persons present. On recommendation of the council, James L. Peters was elected to active membership. The president announced that the council of the society had voted to adopt the custom of medical societies and of many other scientific societies lim¬ iting the members to speak but once during the 36 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1123 discussion of papers and of asking the original speaker to answer all questions at the end of the discussion and to close the same. Under the heading of brief notes and exhibition of specimens, Dr. Howard E. Ames referred again to the dorsally placed mammae of the coypu ( Myocastor coypu ) and exhibited photographs of a female coypu in the collection of the Philadel¬ phia Zoological Society showing the mammae so placed. The first paper of the regular program was by A. T. Speare, “Some Fungi that Kill Insects.” Mr. Speare spoke briefly of certain experiments that were conducted in Europe about 1885, in which place the “green muscardine” fungus was used in a practical way to combat the cockchafer of wheat. Reference was also made to similar work that has recently been conducted in Florida and Trinidad, B. W. I. The writer spoke also of the present status of the chinch-bug disease and of the brown- tailed moth disease. In regard to the latter he spoke in detail of the methods employed in spread¬ ing this disease in the field. At the end of the paper he exhibited lantern slides illustrating vari¬ ous types of entomogenous fungi, some of which were collected by him in the Hawaiian Islands. Mr. Speare ’s communication was discussed by General Wilcox and by Dr. Howard. The second paper was by L. O. Howard: “The Possible Use of Lachnosterna Larvae as a Food Supply. ’ ’ Dr. Howard briefly referred to the prejudice against insects as food, and gave an ac¬ count of his experiments recently undertaken with white grubs sent in from Wisconsin. They were sterilized, thoroughly washed, the contents of the alimentary canal removed, and were then served as a salad and in a broth. They were eaten by several members of the Bureait of Entomology and by Mr. Vernon Bailey of the Bureau of the Biological Sur¬ vey and were pronounced distinctly edible. The speaker urged further experimentation with abun¬ dant species of insects as to their food value. Dr. Howard ’s communication was discussed by the chair, Mr. W. E. Safford, General Wilcox and Med¬ ical Inspector Ames. The last paper was by W. E. Safford: “Agri¬ culture in Pre-Columbian America.” Mr. Safford described the various plants used by the early in¬ habitants of America, particularly those of Mex¬ ico, Central and South America, the manner of their use and preparation, and called attention to those employed at the present day and which have been adopted by civilized man. The prominent part which these plants played in the life of the pre-Columbian inhabitants is shown in ceremonial objects, earthenware products, etc., ornamented by designs based on these plants and in some cases by molds of parts of plants. Mr. Safford ’s com¬ munication was illustrated by numerous lantern- slide views of the plants under consideration and of many objects bearing plant designs. It was discussed by the chair, General Wilcox and Pro¬ fessor E. 0. Wooton. M. W. Lyon, Jr., Recording Secretary ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON At the 499th regular and 37th annual meeting of the Anthropological Society of Washington, on April 18, Dr. John R. S wanton, president of the society, read a paper on “The Influence of In¬ heritance on Human Culture.” The speaker distinguished between the physical and mental traits which one inherits in his own person, and the store of ideas and things which have been passed down to him by previous gen¬ erations. The environment into which one is born is of two kinds, the environment unaffected by man, and the environment as modified by man; and the advancement of a tribe depends on the amount of environment it is able to grasp and transmit. In this way a mental and material cap¬ ital is laid up which enables further progress to be taken much more easily. Nevertheless, all of this world capital is not good, since false ideas and injurious institutions may be transmitted as well as true principles and beneficent institutions. One of the most pernicious of these institutions is that which permits monopolization of ideas and things by limited classes. A general diffusion of knowledge and improvement of the means of dis¬ tributing it has largely destroyed monopoly in ideas, but monopoly in property still persists. The cure for this condition is to be found, the speaker believed, either in binding together use and owner¬ ship iiLsuch a manner that they can not be sepa¬ rated, or in vesting ownership in an immortal body such as the state and allowing use to individuals during their lives. The following officers were elected for the en¬ suing year: President, Dr. John R. Swanton (re¬ elected); Vice-president, Mr. William H. Babcock; Secretary, Miss Frances Densmore; Treasurer, Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt (reelected) ; Councillors, Dr. Tru¬ man Michelson, Mr. Neil M. Judd, Mr. Francis La- Flesche, Dr. C. L. G. Anderson, and Dr. Edwin L. Morgan. Frances Densmore, Secretary SCIENCE Friday, July 14, 1916 CONTENTS Ideals of Chemical Investigation: Professor Theodore W. Richards . 37 The One Hundredth Anniversary of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey: Dr. T. C. Men¬ denhall . 45 Grants for Scientific Research: Professor Charles R. Cross . 50 The Second National Exposition of Chemical Industries . 51 Scientific Notes and News . 52 University and Educational News . 56 Discussion and Correspondence : — Results of a Study of Dolomitization: Ed¬ ward Steidtmann. Celloidin Paraffin Method: S. I. Kornhauser. The Asphyxia¬ tion of Cancer: Dr. L. D. Bristol . 56 Quotations : — Business Men who want the Metric Sys¬ tem . 59 Scientific Books: — Smith on Who is Insane? : Dr. C. B. Farrar. Phillips on Beekeeping : C. Gordon Hewitt. 59 A Valuable Unpublished Work on Pomology: P. L. Ricker . 62 Special Articles: — The Inversion of Menthone by Sodium, Po¬ tassium and Lithium Ethylates: W. A. Gruse and S. F. Acree. Measuring Biolog¬ ical Actions by the Freezing-point Method directly in the Soil: George J. Bouyoucos. The Synonymy of Oxyuris vermicularis : Albert Hassall . 64 The Iowa Academy of Science: Professor James H. Lees . 67 The Kentucky Academy of Science: A. M. Peter . 71 MSS. intended for publieation and books, etc., intended for review shonld be sent to Professor J. MeKeen Cattell, Garrison- on-Hudson. X. Y. ■ ■■■ ~ . r-.m ' i.'B IDEALS OF CHEMICAL INVESTIGA¬ TION1 Less than three centuries ago an out¬ spoken student of nature sometimes faced the grim alternatives of excommunication, imprisonment, or death. To-day he no longer needs to conceal his thoughts in cryptic speech or mystic symbolism. Al¬ though the shadow of incomprehensibility may still darken the language of science, mystery is no longer necessary to protect the scientific investigator from persecution. The generally recognized value of the truth with his domain gives him the right to exist. The courage needful for the task of ad¬ dressing this august assembly on a topic concerning chemistry is, therefore, of a dif¬ ferent order from the courage required for such a task in the days of Galileo. The problem to-day is not how to obscure the thought, but rather how to elucidate its inevitable complications. Modern chemistry has had a manifold origin and tends toward a many-sided des- tinv. Into the fabric of this science men «/ have woven the thought of ancient Greek philosophers, the magic of Arabian alchem¬ ists, the practical discoveries of artisans and ingenious chemical experimenters, the doc¬ trine of physicists, the stern and -uncom¬ promising logic of mathematicians, and the vision of metaphysical dreamers seeking to grasp truths far beyond the reach of mortal sense. The complex fabric enfolds the earth — indeed, the universe — with its far- reaching threads. i Oration delivered before the Harvard Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa in Sanders Theater, Cam¬ bridge, Mass., on June 19, 1916. 38 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1124 The history of the complicated evolution of chemistry is profoundly significant to the student of human thought. Long ago, at the very dawn of civilization. Hindu and Greek philosophers were deeply interested in the problems presented by the nature of the universe. They speculated intelligently, although often with childlike naivete, con¬ cerning energy and the structure of matter ; hut they forbore to test their speculations by experiment. They builded better than they knew ; their ancient atomic hypothesis, ardently supported but very inadequately applied two thousand years ago, now finds itself installed in the innermost recesses of chemical theory. Independently, ancient artisans and medieval alchemists, dealing with the mysterious actual behavior of things, acquired valuable acquaintance with simple chemical processes. After much chemical knowledge of facts had been gained, alchemy sought the aid of philos¬ ophy. Thus, little by little, order was brought into the chaos of scattered experi¬ ence. But strictly chemical knowledge alone was inadequate to solve the cosmic riddle ; it had to be supplemented by knowl¬ edge of heat and electricity — agencies which produce profound alterations in the chemical nature of substances. Thus the study of physics was combined wfith that of chemistry. Again, since mathematical gen¬ eralization is essential to the study of physics, this discipline also was, of neces¬ sity, added to the others. All these power¬ ful tools taken together having failed to penetrate to the ultimate essence of things, imagination is invoked, and physiochemical dreams to-day conceive a mechanism of infinitesimal entities far beyond our most searching powers of direct observation. Chemistry has not grown spontaneously to its present estate; it is a product of hu¬ man mentality. The science which we know to-day is but an echo of the eternal and in¬ comprehensible “music of the spheres,” as heard and recorded by the minds of indi¬ vidual men. Impersonal and objective al¬ though matter and energy may be, their ap¬ preciation by man involves much that is subjective. The history of science, like all the rest of human history, is, as Emerson said, “the biography of a few stout and earnest persons.” Robert Boyle, self-styled “the skeptical chymist,” a gentle spirit skeptical only of the false and vain, pure-minded aristocrat in an age of corruption ; Mikhail Lomono- soff, poet, philosopher, philologist and scien¬ tific seer, far outstripping contemporary understanding ; Antoine Lavoisier, whose clear mind first taught man to comprehend, after thousands of years, the mighty stolen gift of Prometheus; John Dalton, Quaker peasant, wTho found convincing chemical evidence for the ancient atomic hypothesis; Michael Faraday, a blacksmith’s son, whose peerless insight and extraordinary genius in experiment yielded theoretical and prac¬ tical fruits beyond the world’s most daring dreams — these men and a few score others are the basis of the history of chemistry. The science has not come into being, Min- erva-like, full-grown from the brain of Jove; she has been born of human travail, nursed and nourished from feeble infancy by human caretakers, and she sees the uni¬ verse to-day through human eyes. The diversified origin of chemistry has shaped the varied contemporary application of the science and its many-sided destiny in the years to come. Chemistry has wide theoretical bearings, but at the same time is concerned with the crudest and most obvi¬ ous affairs of manufacture and every day life. Chemical knowledge must form an essential part of any intelligent philosophy of the nature of the universe, and alone can satisfy one manifestation of that intense intellectual curiosity which to-day, no less July 14, 1916] SCIENCE 39 than of old, yearns to understand more of the fundamental nature of things. On the other hand, rational applied science to-day must follow in the footsteps of the swiftly advancing strides of theory. The laws of chemistry can not be adequately applied until they have been discovered. Chemical insight, concerned with the intimate changes of the substances which are all about us as well as within our bodies, fur¬ nishes us with the only means for employ¬ ing material things to the best advantage. Chemical processes appertain in large de¬ gree to medicine, hygiene, agriculture and manufacture ; these processes depend upon laws of which the perfect understanding is essential to the full development of most of the activities of civilized life. However oblivious we may be of the in¬ exorable laws of chemistry, we are ever under their sway. Our consciousness is housed in a mortal shell, consisting pri¬ marily of compounds of less than a score of chemical elements. The physiological be¬ havior of our bodies is inevitably associated with the chemical changes or reactions among highly intricate chemical unions of these few elements. The driving tendency or immediate cause of the reactions which support life is to be found in the chemical affinities and respective concentrations of the several substances. Our bodies are chemical machines, from which we can not escape except by quitting our earthly life. The nature of the chemical elements and their compounds therefore presents one of the most interesting and important of all problems offered to mankind. That the study of chemical problems of life is con¬ sistent with the study of man in a biolog¬ ical, a psychological, or a spiritual sense is obvious. To-day the epigram, ‘ ‘ The proper study of mankind is man,” must be greatly broadened in order to correspond with modern knowledge. These words regarding the origin and significance of chemistry serve as an intro¬ duction. Your committee has honored me by the request that I should tell you some¬ thing about the object and outcome of my own endeavors, and these could be made clear only by reviewing the peculiar nature of chemistry. In my case the incentive to the pursuit of science was primarily that intense curiosity concerning the nature of things which echoes down the ages from the time of the ancient philosophers. To the feeling of curiosity, as time went on, was added the perception that only through a knowledge of the fundamental laws of chemistry can men use the resources of the world to the best advantage. Any further gain in this knowledge must, sooner or later, directly or indirectly, give mankind more power. Even an abstract chemical generalization must ultimately be of price¬ less service to humanity, because of the ex¬ traordinarily intimate relation between theory and practise. The field is wide, and it is traversed by many paths. Among these one must be chosen and persistently followed if prog¬ ress is to be made ; and in my case that one was the study of the fundamental attributes or properties of the chemical elements, and the relation of these properties to one an¬ other. The work was undertaken with the hope of helping a little to lay a solid foun¬ dation for our understanding of the human environment. What, now, are the fundamental attri¬ butes of the elements? First and foremost among these stands weight — the manifesta¬ tion of the all-pervading and mysterious force of gravitation possessed by all forms of matter. Hand in hand with this attri¬ bute of weight goes the equally inscrutable property of inertia — that tendency which causes a body once in motion to keep on moving forever in the same straight line, if 40 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1124 not acted upon by some new force. The idea of inertia, conceived by Galileo and amplified by Newton, was one of the start¬ ing points of both modern philosophy and modern physics. So far as we know, weight and inertia run parallel to each other. Of any two adjacent bodies, that having greater weight has also greater inertia. Hence they may be determined at one and the same time, and this Siamese-twinlike conjunction of properties establishes itself at once as perhaps the most fundamental of all the attributes of matter. Next perhaps comes volume, the attribute which enables matter to occupy space, with the corollaries dealing with the changes of volume caused by changes of temperature and pressure. Other fundamental properties are the tendency to cohere (which has to do with the freezing and boiling points of the liquids) and the mutual tendency of the elements to combine, almost infinite in its diversity, which may be measured by the energy-changes manifesting themselves dur¬ ing the reaction of one substance with an¬ other. These are only a few of the important properties of the elements, but they present an endless prospect of further investigation, in spite of all that has been done during the past hundred years. For as yet we know only the surface of these things, and com¬ prehend but little as to the underlying con¬ nections between them and the reasons for their several magnitudes. Why, for ex¬ ample, should oxygen be a gas, having an atomic weight just four times as great as that of helium, and why should it have an intense affinity for sodium and no affinity whatever for argon or fluorine? No man can answer these questions ; he can discover the facts, but can not yet account for them. The reasons are as obscure and elusive as the mechanism of gravitation. But we shall not really understand the material basis upon which our life is built until we have found answers to questions of this sort. In order to correlate the properties of the elements, and to attain any comprehension of their significance, one must first exactly ascertain the facts. Therefore, my endeavor has been to institute systematic series of experiments to fill the gaps in our knowl¬ edge of the actual phenomena. In much of this work I have had the invaluable aid of efficient collaborators, for which I am grateful. The atomic weights were the first of the fundamental properties of the elements to receive attention in carrying out this plan. These, as every one who has studied ele¬ mentary chemistry knows, represent the relative weights in which substances com¬ bine with one another. They are called atomic weights rather than merely combin¬ ing proportions because they can be ex¬ plained satisfactorily only by the assump¬ tion of definite particles which remain indi¬ visible during chemical change. Even if some of these particles or so-called “atoms” suffer disintegration in the mysterious proc¬ esses of radioactive transformation, the atomic theory remains the best interpreta¬ tion of the weight-relations of all ordinary chemical reaction. Indeed, it is entrenched to-day as never before in man’s history. The determination of atomic weights is, primarily, a question of analytical chemis¬ try — a question of weighing the amount of one substance combined with another in a definite compound — but its successful prose¬ cution involves a much wider field. First, the substances must be prepared and weighed in the pure state, and next, they must be subjected to suitable reactions and again weighed with proof that in the proc¬ ess nothing has been lost and nothing acci¬ dentally garnered into the material to be placed on the scale pan. These require¬ ments involve many of the principles of the July 14, 1916] SCIENCE 41 new physical chemistry, so that the accurate determination of atomic weights really be¬ longs as much in that field as in the field of analytical chemistry. At Harvard during the last thirty years the values of the atomic weights of thirty of the most frequently occurring among the eighty or more chemical elements have been redetermined. From data secured here and elsewhere is compiled an international table of atomic weights, revised from year to year by an authoritative committee composed of representatives of various nations. The values thus recorded are in daily use in every chemical laboratory throughout the world, serving as the basis for the compu¬ tation of countless analyses performed by the analytical chemist, whether for tech¬ nical or for scientific purposes. This practical utility of atomic weights, although not forgotten, was not the prime incentive in the work under discussion. The real inspiration leading to the pro¬ tracted labor of revising these fundamental quantities was the hope of finding some clue as to the reasons for their several magni¬ tudes, and for the manifest but incompre¬ hensible relationships of the elements to one another. The unsolved cosmic riddle of the mean¬ ing of the atomic weights may have far- reaching significance in another direction, because the atomic weights may be supposed to hold one of the keys to the discovery of the mechanism of gravitation. The mutual attraction of the earth and sun, for exam¬ ple, must be due to the countless myriads of atoms which compose them, each atom possessing, because of its own appointed relative atomic weight, a definite if infin¬ itesimal gravitational force attracting other atoms. If we could discover the reasons for the individual atomic weights, we should probably gain a far better understanding of the all-embracing force built up of the infinitesimal effects represented by their individual magnitudes. Among the striking facts to be considered is the constancy of gravity (and, therefore, of the sum total of the weights of all the atoms concerned) as shown in many ways. Moreover, not only is the sum total of the weights of the atoms remarkably constant, but also in many cases the values for the individual elements are found to be num¬ bers of amazing constancy. Silver from all parts of the world and from many different ores yields always the same value; copper from Europe has the same atomic weight as the native metal mined under the bottom of Lake Superior; and yet more wonderful, the iron which falls from the sky, in meteor¬ ites having their birth far beyond the ter¬ restrial orbit, has precisely the same atomic weight as that smelted in Norway. Many atomic weights, therefore, must be supposed to be constant, whatever the source of the elements. Although thus we know only one kind of copper and iron and silver, evidence has recently been discovered which points to¬ wards the existence of at least two kinds of metallic lead. Every sample of ordinary lead always has exactly the same atomic weight as every other sample; but lead from radioactive minerals — lead which seems to have come from the decomposition of radium — has neither the same atomic weight nor the same density as ordinary lead, although in many of its properties, including its spectrum, it seems to be iden¬ tical. This recent conclusion, reached only two years ago at Harvard, has been con¬ firmed in other laboratories, and it now seems to be beyond question. Whatever may be the ultimate interpretation of the anomaly, the solution of this cosmic conun¬ drum must surely give us a new idea of the essential nature of matter. Indeed, the fascinating subject of radioactivity bids 42 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1124 fair to give us in many ways an entirely tiew insight into the innermost structure nf the atom. During the progress of the study of the combining proportions of the elements, it became more and more evident to me that the atomic weights should be considered not only in relation to one another, but also in relation to many other essential distin¬ guishing properties of the elements. This Twider problem involved a great extension of '-the experimental field. Among other attributes of the various forms of matter, compressibilities, surface tensions, densities, dielectric constants, heats of reaction and electromotive forces have begun to receive attention, and already many new data have been accumulated. The explanation of the nature of these re¬ searches would take us far beyond the scope of this present address, but their object de¬ serves attention. This object is the corre¬ lation of the various properties into a con¬ sistent whole, in the hope of tracing the unknown physical influences which deter¬ mine the nature of the elements. The rigorous science of thermodynamics enables us to predict in logical and precise fashion some of the relations between phys¬ ical properties. My hope is not only to aid in providing accurate experimental basis for calculations of this kind, but also to achieve the correlation of different prop¬ erties, apparently independent of one an¬ other from a thermodynamic point of view, thus, perhaps, enabling one by inductive reasoning to penetrate further into the causes which lie back of all the attributes of matter. In attempting to follow this inductive path comparisons of the properties of the elements have been made in two different ways. On the one hand a given property of one element has been compared with the same property of another. For example, the question, “Which of the two elements, cobalt or nickel, has the heavier atom?” was answered by parallel determinations, using the same methods, conducted side by side in the laboratory. Cobalt was found to possess the higher atomic weight. On the other hand, the attempt has been made to discover a relation between the different, apparently quite distinct, prop¬ erties of a single element. For example, one may ask: “Have the low melting and boiling points of phosphorus any connec¬ tion with its small density and its large compressibility ? ’ ’ Here one compares vari¬ ous properties of the same element, and one seeks to discover if all are based upon some common, ultimate characteristic of phosphorus, of which the properties are merely symptoms. The inductive methods used in compari¬ sons of this sort can not be explained here to-day. They are partly statistical, partly mathematical and partly graphical. From the nature of the problem, which involves many unknown variables, perfect mathe¬ matical exactness is not to be expected. Nevertheless, little by little, one may hope to trace the conflicting tendencies, and as¬ cribe them to a few common causes. With the help of these methods the ten¬ tative conclusion has been reached that the space occupied by the atom and molecule in solids and liquids is highly significant. The actual atomic bulk or volume is diminished but slightly by moderate mechanical pres¬ sures, and by cooling even to the absolute zero ; but it is very greatly affected, appar¬ ently, by the mutual attractions of the atoms, called cohesion and chemical affinity. Usually the less volatile a substance (that is to say, the more firmly it is held together by cohesion) the greater is its density and the less is its compressibility, other things being equal. Greater cohesion is associated July 14, 1916] SCIENCE 43 with greater compactness. Likewise the existence of powerful chemical affinity be¬ tween elements forming a compound is usually associated with great decrease in volume during the act of combination, and consequent increase in the density of the product in relation to the average density of the constituents. Thus we can hardly escape the inference that both cohesion and affinity, by pulling the atoms together with enormous pressure, actually exert a com¬ pressing effect upon the atoms, or at least upon the space which they demand for their occupation. The result of each of these compressing agencies is found to be greater the greater the compressibility of the sub¬ stances concerned — a new evidence of the reasonableness of the inference. Not al¬ ways are these effects easily traced, because the situation is often complicated, and the several effects are superposed. Neverthe¬ less, enough evidence has been obtained to leave but little doubt, at least in my mind, as to the manner of working of the essential agencies concerned. But we need not dwell upon this tentative hypothesis. Many more data and much more thought are necessary to establish it in an impregnable position, although no important inconsistency has thus far been pointed out in it. At present it may be looked upon as valuable because it, like other hypotheses of this type, has stimu¬ lated thought and experiment concerning the fundamental facts wuth which it deals. As the years go on, the recent contribu¬ tions to the study of atomic weights and volumes and other properties will be sifted and tested; and such contributions as may stand the test of time will take their places among the multifarious array of accepted chemical facts, laws and interpretations accumulated by many workers all over the world. But we may well ask: What use, in the years to come, will mankind make of this knowledge gained step by step through the eager study of many investigators? Chemistry has, indeed, a many-sided destiny. A mere catalogue of the countless applications of the science, which underlies many other sciences and arts, would de¬ mand time far exceeding the limits of this brief discourse. Some of the more obvious uses of chemistry have become daily topics in the public press. America is gradually awakening to the consciousness that, because every material object is composed of chem¬ ical elements and possesses its properties by virtue of the nature of these elements, chem¬ istry enters more or less into everything. We perceive that chemical manufactures must be fostered, and also that chemical knowledge must be applied in many other industries not primarily of a chemical na¬ ture. Although chemistry plays so promi¬ nent and ghastly a role in war, her greatest and most significant contributions are to¬ wards the arts of peace. Even explosives may be highly beneficent; they may open tunnels and destroy reefs, furthering friendly communication between men; dig ditches for irrigation; help the farmer in his planting; and in many other ways ad¬ vance the constructive activities of man¬ kind. Again, poisonous gases, confined and harnessed within safe limits, may render valuable aid to humanity in preparing precious substances otherwise unattainable. Such obvious and well recognized offices of chemistry need no further presentation to this intelligent company. Neither is it necessary for me to call your attention to the services which science may render to agriculture through the chemical study and enrichment of the soil in preparing it for the development of those subtle chemical mechanisms called plants, upon which we depend for our very existence. There is a further beneficent possibility 44 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1124 worthy of more than passing mention — namely, that which arises from the relation of modern chemistry to hygiene and medi¬ cine. Already yonr attention has been called to the indisputable fact that the human body is, physiologically considered, a chemical machine. For this reason, fu¬ ture knowledge of chemical structure and of organic reaction may perhaps revolu¬ tionize medicine as completely as it was revolutionized by the devoted labors of Pasteur — not by doing away with his price¬ less acquisitions of knowledge, but rather by amplifying them. Chemistry may show how germs of disease do their deadly work through the production of subtle organic poisons, and how these poisons may be com¬ bated by antitoxins; for both poisons and antitoxins are complex chemical substances of a nature not beyond the possible reach of chemical methods already known. In that far-off but not inconceivable day when the human body may be understood from a chemical standpoint, we shall no longer be unable to solve the inscrutable problems which to-day puzzle even the most learned hygienist and physician. Is not a part, at least, of the tragedy of disease a relic of barbarism? A race which could have put as much energy and ingenuity into the study of physiological chemistry as man¬ kind has put into aggressive warfare might have long ago banished many diseases by discovering the chemical abnormalities which cause them. May not the study of subtler questions, such as the nature of heredity, also lead us finally into the field of chemistry in our search for the ultimate answer ? Even psy¬ chology may some time need chemical assist¬ ance, since the process of thinking and the transmission of nervous impulse are both inextricably associated with chemical changes in nervous tissue ; and even memory may be due to some subtle chemical effect. In the realm of thought there can be no question of the blessed service already per¬ formed by science in dispelling grim super¬ stitions which haunted older generations with deadly fear. In brief, more power is given mankind through the discoveries of chemistry. This power has many beneficent possibilities, but it may be used for ill as well as for good. Science has recently been blamed by super¬ ficial critics, but she is not at fault if her great potentialities are distorted to serve malignant ends. Is not this calamity due rather to the fact that the spiritual en¬ lightenment of humanity has not kept pace with the progress of science ? The study of nature can lead an upright and humane civilization ever higher and higher to greater health and comfort and a sounder philosophy, but that same study can teach the ruthless and selfish how to destroy more efficiently than to create. The false attitude toward war, fostered by tradition and by the glamor of ancient strife, is doubtless one of the influences which have held back man¬ kind from a wider application of the Golden Rule. There is, in truth, no conflict between the ideals of science and other high ideals of human life. With deep insight, a poetic thinker on life’s problems, in the opening lines of a sonnet, has said : Fear not to go where fearless Science leads, Who holds the keys of God. What reigning light Thine eyes discern in that surrounding night Whence we have come, . . . Thy soul will never find that Wrong is Eight. Our limited minds are confined in a limited world, with immeasurable space on all sides of us. Our brief days are as noth¬ ing compared with the inconceivable asons of the past, and the prospect of illimitable ages to come. Both infinity and eternity are beyond our mental grasp. We know that we can not hope to understand all the July 14, 1916] SCIENCE 45 wonders of the universe; but, nevertheless, wre may be full of hope for the future. Step by step we gain in knowledge, and with each step we acquire better opportunity for im¬ proving the lot of mankind, and for illumi¬ nating the dark places in our philosophy of nature. Although we shall none of us live to see the full development of the help which science may render to the world, we rejoice in the belief that chemistry has boundless service still in reserve for the good of the human race. Theodore W. Richards Harvard University THE ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE U. S. COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY i The honor of being one of the speakers on this memorable occasion is highly ap¬ preciated, in spite of a perfect realization of the fact that it comes to me solely because I have had the fortune, good or bad, to survive my predecessors. To live long, ac¬ cording to a well-known proverb, is to prove that one is not a favorite of the gods; on the other hand, to live long is to furnish fairly good evidence that one has not been found guilty of a capital crime. During the past two days the various ac¬ tivities of this service have been so thor¬ oughly discussed by competent critics that there is little room for further comment. As I am, in a way, representing the men who directed these activities during the century of its existence, I choose to speak, not for them, but of them, the superintend¬ ents of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, with some reference to their share in the devel¬ opment of the work. To the republic of Switzerland American science is enormously indebted. Thence came Agassiz, Guyot, Lesquereux, and others who stirred us into scientific activity i Address given at the banquet, April 6, 1916. hfty years ago, and more than a half cen¬ tury earlier came Ferdinand Hassler, or¬ ganizer and first superintendent of the Coast Survey. No brief sketch can do jus¬ tice to Hassler ’s personality or to his all- powerful influence in molding the charac¬ ter of the new organization, the first of the so-called “scientific bureaus” of the United States government. Educated in the best schools of Europe, intimately acquainted with the most eminent scientific men of the Old World and with experience in the trig¬ onometrical survey of his native country, he possessed exactly the qualifications nec¬ essary to a successful launching of the new enterprise. Not the least of these qualifica¬ tions was one rather rare among men of sci¬ ence, though common enough in the so- called “learned professions.” With intel¬ lectual power and technical skill of the highest order he combined an equally high appreciation of his own merits. It is re¬ lated that when invited to organize and di¬ rect the survey of the coasts, which had been strongly recommended to Congress by Thomas Jefferson, he demanded and re¬ ceived a salary equal to that of the head of the department to which the new bureau was assigned. Tempora mutantur ! There is also a tradition that when the President objected, saying, “Your salary is as large as that of my Secretary of the Treasury, your superior officer,” he replied: “Any presi¬ dent can make a Secretary of the Treasury but only God Almighty can make a Hassler. ’ ’ Visiting Europe to purchase the neces¬ sary instruments and standards of meas¬ ure, he was detained in England as an alien enemy until 1815 and thus a period of nearly ten years elapsed between its au¬ thorization by act of Congress and the ac¬ tual inception of the Survey. Hassler ’s plan of organization, broad and thoroughly worked out, is still the funda- 46 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1124 mental directing ordinance of the Coast Survey. He provided for the division of its operations into three great groups, the geodetic, the topographic and the hydro- graphic, and of these he considered the geodetic the most important as affecting the accuracy and final value of the results. In insisting upon a degree of precision in the execution of these operations hitherto undreamed of in this part of the world, he “set the pace” which the Survey has since maintained with such distinction and which it must continue to maintain if its future is to be worthy of its past. Naturally a man of his temperament was likely to come into occasional conflict with government authorities who were quite un¬ able to appreciate the nature and demands of such a service. The very refinement in measure and computation which was the chief merit of the work came near being the undoing of Hassler as it has, indeed, of more than one of his successors. In 1842 a congressional committee made a searching and unfriendly investigation of the Sur¬ vey, during which, as one of its members confessed on the floor of the House, it was found that of the subject under considera¬ tion the superintendent knew so much and the inquisitors so little that the committee was helpless in his hands. Although the work of this committee, like that of most of its successors, was an inquisition rather than an investigation, its report was practi¬ cally a complete endorsement of the prin¬ ciples on which the Survey had been con¬ ducted by Hassler. His death occurred in the following year, but not before a com¬ plete and comprehensive plan for the con¬ tinuation and expansion of the work had been outlined and approved by Congress. The duty of executing this plan, of build¬ ing upon the foundation laid by Hassler, fell to one who was everywhere acclaimed as the best fitted for the task. Alexander Dallas Bache had inherited through his grandmother, the famous ‘ ‘ Sally Bache ’ ’ of the Kevolutionary period, only daughter of Benjamin Franklin, not only his distinguished ancestor’s tastes for scientific pursuits, but also much of his tact and skill as a diplomat, a quality that con¬ tributed in no small degree to his notable success as superintendent. After gradu¬ ating from West Point Military Academy at the age of eighteen years, at the head of his class, with the extremely rare record of having completed the entire course without having received a single demerit, he had enjoyed a wide experience in public service in various capacities, besides being actively engaged in important researches in mag¬ netism and electricity. At the age of thirty-seven years he had already won distinction as a scientific man of originality and power and his appoint¬ ment as Hassler ’s successor was recom¬ mended by all of the principal scientific societies and institutions of learning in the country. His service extended over a period of almost exactly a quarter of a cen¬ tury, being terminated by his death in 1867. The splendid superstructure which Bache erected upon Hassler ’s foundation has received the highest praise from com¬ petent judges in all parts of the world. During his administration he was success¬ ful in securing the confidence of Congress and the operations of the Survey were greatly extended. While keeping well in mind the practical results, for the attain¬ ment of which the organization was created, he had a keen eye for the purely scientific by-products of which he gathered a great harvest. The distinguished mathe¬ matician and astronomer, Professor Benja¬ min Peirce, on assuming office as his suc¬ cessor, said of the Coast Survey at the end of its first half century : ‘ ‘ What it is Bache has made it. It will never cease to be the admiration of the scientific world. It is only necessary conscientiously and faith- July 14, 1916] SCIENCE 47 fully to follow in his footsteps, imitate his example and develop his plans.” During the later years of Bache ’s admin¬ istration Professor Peirce had directed the longitude operations of the Survey, acting also as a sort of general scientific adviser and naturally his policy after becoming superintendent was essentially that of his predecessor. Many of the larger opera¬ tions of the Coast Survey had been sus¬ pended during the Civil War, in which both the superintendent and his assistants had played an important part. The execu¬ tion of the primary triangulation on both the east and west coasts was resumed by Peirce and an exploration and survey of the newly acquired territory of Alaska was be¬ gun. The most important act of his ad¬ ministration was the development of a plan for two gigantic chains of triangles extend¬ ing across the continent, thus covering the whole country by a trigonometrical survey and joining the systems of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. This scheme received the approval of Congress and was in many respects the most remarkable work of its kind ever undertaken by any government. Peirce had continued to hold his pro¬ fessorship in Harvard University and also his many other activities, as a writer of text-books, a frequent contributor to scien¬ tific journals, etc., and at the age of sixty- five years, doubtless finding his burden too heavy, resigned the superintendence of the Survey in 1874, after a service of seven years, but he continued to act for a time as “consulting geometer.” As a genius in mathematics and astronomy he is easily the star of first magnitude in the Coast Sur¬ vey galaxy. Peirce’s successor was Carlile Pollock Patterson, naval officer and son of a naval officer. Previous to his appointment as superin¬ tendent he had served for more than a dozen years as hydrographic inspector, an appointment usually held by a naval officer, active or retired. The general plans of the Survey as per¬ fected by his predecessors were adhered to by Patterson, whose term as superintendent covered a period of seven years, ending with his death in 1881. His successor, Julius Erasmus Hilgard, was brought at the age of ten years from his birthplace in Germany by his father, a highly educated and successful lawyer and jurist in his own country, who settled on a farm in Illinois near the city of St. Louis. Educated by his father, young Hilgard at the age of eighteen years went to Philadel¬ phia to study to be a civil engineer. There he soon attracted the attention of Professor Bache, who invited him to become one of his assistants in the Coast Survey. In 1845 he joined the corps, his connection with it terminating on his resignation in 1885 after forty years of service. His in¬ dustry and rare talents brought rapid pro¬ motion and in 1862 he became assistant in charge of the office in Washington, a posi¬ tion next in importance and responsibility to that of superintendent. In this capacity he served for nineteen years until his ap¬ pointment as superintendent in 1881. In the meantime his reputation had become in¬ ternational. He was one of the most in¬ fluential members of the International Metric Commission that met in Paris in 1872; was made a member of its perma¬ nent committee and on the organization of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, with headquarters at Paris, he was offered the directorship. This honor he declined. By training, ability and ex¬ perience Hilgard was more completely fitted for the headship of the Coast Survey than any other person who has ever served in that capacity and it was unquestionably the goal which he had hoped to reach. Recommended for the appointment as Bache had been forty years earlier, by 48 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1124 scientific men, learned societies, colleges and universities, he began his administra¬ tion under the most favorable conditions. During the earlier years his work justified the confidence reposed in him, but in the meantime, unknown to his friends and per¬ haps unsuspected by himself, he had be¬ come the victim of an insidious disease which weakened the power of both his will and his intellect. Undoubtedly advantage was taken of this fact by others and an in¬ vestigation of the affairs of the Survey brought to light certain irregularities in its business management that were at first be¬ lieved to reflect upon the integrity of not only the superintendent, but of many of the older assistants, especially those em¬ ployed in the field. The superintendent resigned in 1885 and a long and brilliant career thus ended in almost a tragedy. The investigation referred to was made by a committee of three employees of the Treasury Department with Frank Manley Thorn, chief clerk of internal revenue, as chairman. Mr. Thorn was placed temporarily in charge of the Survey, and afterwards by appointment of the President he con¬ tinued to act as superintendent until the close of the first Cleveland administration. The unprejudiced historian can not fail to accord to Mr. Thorn great credit for the way in which he managed the affairs of the Survey during this trying period. In¬ spired by a prospect of participating in the spoils of office, a number of witnesses had volunteered testimony that was either grossly misleading or absolutely false, and this had been incorporated in the report of the commission of which he was chair¬ man, along with a severe arraignment of the business methods of the Survey and of the integrity of several of its principal officers. During the nearly four years of his administration he learned much about the methods and requirements of such a service as the Coast Survey of which in the beginning he had been totally ignorant. A man of sterling integrity, he had the cour¬ age to revise this report by innumerable additions and annotations, practically vin¬ dicating the men against whom charges had been made, most of which were merely tech¬ nical. In spite of the unwholesome conditions existing in the beginning of Thorn’s ad¬ ministration the operations of the Survey were continued without serious interrup¬ tion and much important work was ac¬ complished. A much more regrettable state of affairs prevailed during a considerable period of the administration of General William Ward Duffield, who served as superintend¬ ent for about three years following his ap¬ pointment in the autumn of 1894. Not only was the influence of the spoilsman again paramount, but for some unexplain¬ able reason a number of men were dismissed from the force whose places could not be filled from any source whatever. Men of long and faithful service, whose reputation was international, were lost to the Survey at that time, though a few men afterwards were reappointed. It is charitable to as¬ sume that the superintendent, who was by profession a civil engineer with a record of good service in the Civil War, had passed the years of discretion before receiving his appointment. That the paralysis by which the service was then afflicted did not be¬ come complete was due entirely to an un¬ wavering loyalty to its best traditions on the part of those who remained. The historian would gladly pass over these unpleasant episodes, but a due regard for the good name and fame of many indi¬ viduals involved demands brief reference to them. I come now to the living, whose connec¬ tion with the service is quite within the memory of most of those interested, and July 14, 1916] SCIENCE 49 of whose work little need be said. There are times when brevity is not only the soul of wit but also the essence of discretion. Upon Henry Smith Pritchett, astron¬ omer and son of an astronomer, fell the task of making a complete reorganization of the hydrographic operations of the Survey. From the earliest days these operations had been carried on almost entirely by naval officers detailed for that purpose, but dur¬ ing the war with Spain such details became impossible. The difficult problem thus pre¬ sented was solved with marked success by Pritchett and this reorganization, though but one of many notable things accom¬ plished during his comparatively short term from 1897 to 1900, must be regarded, I think, as the most important act of his administration. The appointment of Otto Hilgard Titt- mann, as successor to Pritchett on the resig¬ nation of the latter, was an event predeter¬ mined by his long connection with the service, which began in 1867, when he was seventeen years old, and continued without interruption for almost a half century, to his resignation in 1915. Inheriting through his mother the scientific tastes and special talents of the Hilgards, with successful ex¬ perience in nearly every one of the various operations of the Survey, including many years as assistant in charge of the office and assistant superintendent, his remark¬ able career ended with the longest term as superintendent since the time of Hassler and Bache. Under his direction the Sur¬ vey has advanced with great strides and so many important things have been accom¬ plished that it is difficult to select even one for mention in this brief review, but among those of first rank will surely be found his personal and official services in represent¬ ing the United States on numerous inter¬ national commissions and boundary tribu¬ nals. I am tempted to overstep the bounds laid down for me, to pay my tribute to the abil¬ ity, faithfulness and loyalty with which the assistants of the superintendent have almost invariably supported him in the discharge of difficult and often disagreeable duties, and I use the term assistant as in¬ cluding not only those employed in the field, but also the office force; the com¬ puters, engravers, printers, mechanicians, clerks, etc., through whose hands all of the work of the field officers must pass before it becomes useful to the public. Without this support the ablest chief could accom¬ plish little or nothing. I would like espe¬ cially to speak of a few of the veterans of my own time who have passed away; of Whiting who, beginning with Hassler, had served for more than a half century and under every superintendent up to the day of his death ; of Davidson, the oracle of the Pacific coast, whose service was nearly as long; of Schott, the severe but just judge at the head of the computing division ; of Mosman, Fairfield, Eimbeck, Ogden, Grauger, Preston, Mitchell, Smith, Rodgers and others ; it is a long roll but it is a roll of honor in the annals of the Survey. To them, and to many others, happily still liv¬ ing, I owe a debt of gratitude for their loyal cooperation and support. I desire also to testify to the great im¬ portance to the service, of the cooperation of the army and navy, especially in the de¬ tail of officers from the army in the early days and from the navy during many years for special duty under the superintendent, to whom they were almost, without excep¬ tion, unselfishly loyal. I should like, also, to speak more than briefly of some of the famous men who were at various times attached to the Survey for longer or shorter periods, some of whom in this service laid the foundation of their fu¬ ture careers in which they achieved great distinction; of the great artists, Whistler and Alexander; the great scholars, Agassiz 50 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1124 ^rather and son), Ferrel, the two Peirces, Gould the astronomer, and others; of Cap¬ tain Derby, the “John Phoenix’ ’ of the world of wit and humor; of Blake, the in¬ ventor, and many others, but in this I may not indulge myself. If I could summon their spirits from the “vasty deep” I am sure those of the former superintendents who are dead would join with those who are living in congratulating their successor who has recently been charged with the responsibility of direct¬ ing its operations, on the thoroughly trained and competent corps of assistants who will aid him in carrying the Coast and Geodetic Survey into its second century. But perhaps even more important than these will be the traditions of a hundred years which he will not lightly put aside. I confess to a feeling of nausea in these latter days whenever I hear the word effi¬ ciency, wrenched as it has been from its original meaning and made to stand for “the greatest possible output in the least possible time. ’ ’ The Survey has often been the object of adverse criticism, based on ignorance of the character of its work, be¬ cause of the slowness of some of its opera¬ tions. It is to its everlasting credit that as far as known no one has ever found fault with it for not keeping its work up to the highest standard attainable at the time. Not “how much?” but “how well?” has been its criterion. It is only by persistently adhering to standards of quality rather than quantity that it will continue to be as it was in the middle, and still is at the end, of its first century, “the admiration of the scientific world. ” T. C. Mendenhali Ravenna, Ohio GRANTS FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH MEDICAL SCHOOLS AND LABORATORIES ( Continued from Vol. XL1II., p. 681) The following list contains such facts as the committee has ascertained regarding the funds which are available for medical re¬ search in the United States and Canada. Bender Hygienic Laboratory, Albany, N. Y. Dr. Ellis Kellert, Director. Income, not exceed¬ ing $200; available at discretion of Director. Harvard University Medical School, Boston, Mass. Dr. E. H. Bradford, Dean. Funds approxi¬ mately “between $350,000 and $375,000" ex¬ clusive of teaching fellowships, many of which are utilized for research. Massachusetts Homeopathic Hospital, Boston, Mass. Dr. F. C. Richardson, Director. Evans Memorial Department of Clinical Research and Preventive Medicine. Income from fund of $260,000 available. University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill. Rush Medical College. Dr. J. M. Dodson, Dean. Appropriations from General Budget. Otho S. A. Sprague Memorial Institute. Dr. H. Gideon Wells, Director. Approximately $35,- 000 per annum appropriated for research in medicine, used chiefly in paying salaries of research workers. Memorial Institute for Infectious Diseases, Chi¬ cago, Ill. Dr. Ludvig Hektoen, Director. In¬ come from $2,000,000 devoted to research in infectious diseases. Northwestern University, Chicago, Ill. Dr. C. W. Patterson, Dean. James A. Patten Fund for Medical Research. $200,000. Income approximately $10,000. Available in all departments of medical re¬ search but used mainly in department of bac¬ teriology and in research on tuberculosis. James A. Patten Fund for scholarships in med¬ ical research. $50,000. Income approximately $2,500. Available under sane conditions as above. Yail Research Fund. $2,000. Income available for a research fellowship. Western Deserve University, Cleveland, Ohi x Dr. C. A. Hamann, Dean. Cushing Fund. $170,000. (Cushing Laboratory of Experimental Medicine.) Apparatus Fund $17,000. Payne, Crile Fund $8,000. Hanna Fellowship Fund $12,000. McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Dr. Francis J. Shepherd, Dean. Douglas Research Fellow¬ ship in Pathology. $25,000. Yale University, New Haven, Conn. Dr. George Blurner, Dean. Francis E. Loomis Fund. $20,000. Up to 1915 interest appropriated chiefly for departments of anatomy, physiol¬ ogy and pharmacology. July 14, 1916] SCIENCE 51 Tulane University, New Orleans, La. Dr. Isadore Dyer, Dean. Provision statedly for research in annual appropriations, not over $1,000 per annum. Columbia University, New York, N. Y. College of Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. S. W. Lambert, Dean. William T. Bull Memorial Pund. $32,100. Income available for re¬ search in surgery. Vanderbilt Clinic Endow¬ ment Pund. $115,000. George Crocker Special Research Pund. Dr. F. C. Wood, Director. $1,441,150. Income avail¬ able for cancer research. Cornell University, New York, N. Y. Dr. W. M. Polk, Dean. Sage Foundation Fund for re¬ search in calorimetry in connection with ward patients. Occasional funds contributed for particular research work. There are four re¬ search fellowships in medicine. Eockefeller Institute for Medical Besearcli, New York, N. Y. Dr. Simon Flexner, Director. Endowment Fund 1912, $8,443,450. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa. Dr. Wm. Pepper, Dean. Robert Robinson Porter Fellowships in Research Medicine. $600 per annum. To be devoted to “investigation in medical sciences.” Robert M. Girvin Fellowship in Research Medi¬ cine. $650 per annum. Purpose similar to Porter Fellowship. Henrietta Hecksher Fellowship in Medical Re¬ search. $500 per annum. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa. Dr. Thomas Shaw Arbuthnot, Dean. Mellon Fel¬ lowships. (1) $750 per annum. Open to grad¬ uates in medicine for research in the depart¬ ment of pathology. (2) $600 per annum for research in electrocardiography with clinical study of diseases of the heart. Washington University, St. Louis, Mo. Dr. P. A. Schaffer, Dean. Provision for research made in departmental appropriations. University of California, San Francisco, Calif. Dr. H. C. Moffet, Dean. Hooper Foundation. $50,000 annually for medical research. Ap¬ proximately $1,000 appropriated annually from budget for research in anatomy, physiol¬ ogy and pathology. Department of medicine, $500 annually. Department of surgery, $800 annually. Department of pediatrics, $600 annually. Department of obstetrics and gynecology, $500 annually. Research position in department of pathology, $1,200 per annum. Leland Stanford Jr. University, San Francisco, Calif. Dr. R. L. Wilbur, President. Coffin Re¬ search Fund for study of Tropical Diseases. Amounts for particular departments included in budget. University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. Robert Falconer, President. Medical Research Fund yields $15,000 per annum. Surgical Research Fund yields $1,000 per annum. Charles R. Cross, Chairman THE SECOND NATIONAL EXPOSITION OF CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES The Second National Exposition of Chem¬ ical Industries will be held at the Grand Cen¬ tral Palace, New York City, during the week of September 25-30, 1916. The Advisory Com¬ mittee of the Exposition is as follows : Chas~ H. Herty, chairman, Raymond E. Bacon, L. H_ Baekeland, Henry B. Faber, Francis A. J. Eitzgerland, Bernard C. Hesse, A. D. Little, R. P. Perry, Wm. Cooper Procter, E. E. Roeber, George D. Rosengarten, T. B. Wagner, Utley Wedge, M. C. Whitaker and Charles F. Roth and Adriaan Nagelvoort, managers. The roster of exhibitors includes most of the leading companies doing business with those industries wherein chemistry plays a part. From this list it appears that the exposition is already twice the size of its successful prede¬ cessor. The managers anticipate an even greater number of visitors to attend this second expo¬ sition. The chemical and engineering soci¬ eties that last year had their attention divided with the attractions of the exposition and the engineering congresses on the Pacific coast, have this year united and arranged to hold their annual meetings in New York during and in conjunction with the exposition. The American Chemical Society will hold its annual meeting during the whole week — the program for the meeting is now being ar¬ ranged and the committees appointed. The American Electrochemical Society has ar¬ ranged to hold its meetings the latter part of the week, September 28, 29 and 30. The Technical Association of the American Pulp and Paper Industry is arranging its meeting for this week, and other societies are expected to hold meetings. 52 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1124 The Bureau of Commercial Economics at Washington is again cooperating with the ex¬ position by arranging an elaborate program of motion pictures covering subjects dealing with the industries depending on chemistry. A few of the films that appear on the tentative pro¬ gram are: The match industry, the rubber in¬ dustry, manufacture of explosives, varnish manufacture, silver mining, mining and manu¬ facturing of iron, making of blotting paper, accident and fire prevention, manufacture and use of fertilizers and manufacture of steel. SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS The dispensary building of the Orthopedic' Hospital and Infirmary for Nervous Diseases, Philadelphia, has been formally dedicated to the memory of Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, one of the founders of the institution and for many years head of the hospital staff. At the en¬ trance of the dispensary is a stone tablet on which is inscribed in bronze letters, “ S. Weir Mitchell Memorial, Philadelphia Orthopedic Hospital and Infirmary for Nervous Dis¬ eases, 1915.” A bronze tablet in the main waiting room states that the building is dedi¬ cated to the memory of Dr. Mitchell by his friends and patients. The address was deliv¬ ered by the dean of American surgeons, Dr. William W. Keen, who was a close friend and associate of Dr. Mitchell for a period of more than fifty years. Attention is called in Nature to the fact that on June 24, the Rt. Hon. Henry John Moreton, Earl of Ducie, F.R.S., entered on his ninetieth year, having been born in 1827. He is the senior fellow of the Royal Society in point of election to that body, this dating from 1855. When Lord Moreton, he obtained from the Jurassic limestone of Burford the fossil species of star-fish named by Professor Edward Forbes Solaster moretoni, in honor of the finder. In connection it may be mentioned that Sir Robert Palgrave, F.R.S., entered on his ninetieth year in the early part of May, while Sir William Crookes attained the age of eighty -four on June 17. William Morton Wheeler, professor of eco¬ nomic entomology and dean of the faculty of the Bussey Institution, of Harvard University, and Otto K. O. Eolin, Hamilton Kuhn pro¬ fessor of biological chemistry in the Harvard Medical School, were given the doctorate of science at the University of Chicago convoca¬ tion celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary. At the quarter-centennial convocation of the University of Chicago, the honorary doc¬ torate in science was conferred on John M. Clarke, state geologist of New York. Dr. William H. Holmes, chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology, and Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, of the U. S. National Museum, have been made corresponding associates of the Academia Nacional de Historia of Colombia. At a meeting of the Texas chapter of the Society of the Sigma Xi, on June 5, Dr. Fred¬ eric W. Simonds, professor of geology in the University of Texas, was elected president for the year. Dr. Simonds was one of the first five graduate students elected to membership in the Cornell chapter. The Yale Chapter of Sigma Xi has elected Professor R. S. Lull, president, and Professor W. R. Longley, vice-president, for the coming academic year. Dr. Axel Gavelin has been appointed di¬ rector of the Swedish Geological Survey. Signor Leonardo Bianchi is a member of the new Italian ministry as a representative of the party he leads — that of the Constitu¬ tional Democrats. He is professor of psy¬ chiatry in the University of Naples and di¬ rector of the university clinic for nervous and mental diseases, and it is understood that he will devote himself to hygienic and social problems arising out of the war. Professor Alfred Stenzel has been placed in charge of a clinic at the hospital of the University of Pennsylvania for the exclusive study of industrial and occupational diseases. Mr. Francis Harper has joined the staff of the Biological Survey of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. Dr. Willard J. Fisher, whose withdrawal from the department of physics at New Hamp¬ shire College was recently noted in Science, has been appointed honorary fellow in phys- July 14, 1916] SCIENCE 53 ics at Clark University for the academic year 1916-17. The geologist and geographer T. A. Ben- drat is about to start on an expedition to the headwaters of the Orinoco River in Vene¬ zuela to explore its sources and the surround¬ ing region. Dr. Julius Hayden Woodward, of Hew York, professor of diseases of the eye at the Hew York Post-graduate Medical School since 1908, and director of instruction in ophthalm¬ ology since 1913, died at his home on July 2, aged fifty-eight years. The Kansas State Board is endeavoring to get the state universities to cooperate in an effort to induce the government to establish a health experiment and research laboratory in connection with each university school of medicine under the United States Public Health Service. We learn from Nature that the formation by the British Advisory Council for Scientific and Industrial Research of a standing com¬ mittee on mining, constituted so as to repre¬ sent both the scientific and industrial sides, has now been completed. The standing com¬ mittee includes the following members nomi¬ nated by professional associations: Institution of Mining Engineers: Sir William Garforth, Dr. John Haldane, Dr. R. T. Moore, Mr. Wal¬ lace Thorneycrof t ; Institution of Mining and Metallurgy: Mr. Edward Hooper, Mr. Edgar Taylor; Iron and Steel Institute: Professor H. Louis; the South Wales Institute of Engi¬ neers: Mr. W. Gascoyne Dalziel; and the fol¬ lowing members appointed directly by the ad¬ visory council : Sir Hugh Bell, Bart., Mr. Hugh Bramwell, Lieutenant-Colonel W. C. Blackett, Professor Cadman, Professor Erecheville, Mr. Bedford McHeill, Mr. Hugh E. Marriott, Sir Boverton Redwood, Bart., Mr. C. E. Rhodes. The advisory council has appointed Sir Wil¬ liam Garforth to be chairman. The California State Board of Health, in cooperation with the University of California, is conducting a state-wide malaria mosquito survey under the supervision of Professor W. B. Herms, consulting parasitologist for the state board and associate professor of parasitol¬ ogy in the University of California, who is assisted by Mr. S. B. Freeborn, instructor in entomology. The work began on May 10, and will continue through the summer. Probably three summers will be required to complete the survey of the entire state. The party travels by automobile, collecting mosquitoes, locating their breeding places, determining the pres¬ ence or absence of malaria, distributing litera¬ ture, lecturing and giving information on ways and means for the control of the insects. The Sacramento Valley and the northeastern por¬ tions of the state to the Oregon and Hevada state lines have already been covered. Thus far endemic malaria has been found at a maxi¬ mum elevation of 5,500 feet and the Anophe- line carriers have been located. Two or three new species of mosquitoes have been found. The second Interstate Cereal Conference was held at the University of Minnesota, Uni¬ versity Farm, St. Paul, on July 11, 12 and 13. At this conference there was a discussion of the various phases of cereal research relating to the region of which St. Paul may be con¬ sidered the center. The program included papers on problems of wheat, oat, barley and flax production in the northwest; the grading of barley and corn ; breeding winter wheats for Minnesota; ergot for rye; methods for the eradication of bunt or stinking smut; prob¬ lems in flax diseases, and a symposium on mill¬ ing and baking. Two days were devoted to the presentation and discussion of papers. The third day was used in an inspection of the plat work of the Minnesota Agricultural Ex¬ periment Station and of one of the local flour mills. On August 24, 25 and 26, the third annual conference of the Society for Practical Astron¬ omy will be held at the Bausch and Lomb Ob¬ servatory in Rochester, H. Y. The president of the society, Mr. Latimer J. Wilson, urges all the members to attend these sessions and extends the invitation to any one interested in astronomy. Papers will be read showing the important work of the society and addresses on optical matters and their relation to astronom¬ ical research will be given. The Bausch and 54 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1124 Lomb Observatory is equipped with an 11-inch refractor constructed by the Bausch and Lomb Optical Company. The conference promises to be as successful as that of last year, which was held at the University of Chicago. The mathematicians of the Scandinavian countries, including Finland, will hold a re¬ union at Stockholm, from August 30 to Sep¬ tember 2. The International Congress of Mathematicians was to have been held there at this time, but European conditions have rendered such a meeting impossible, and this reunion therefore serves as a partial substitute. Students in the field course in geography at the University of Missouri, at Columbia, will take a waterways tour on the Mississippi River and Great Lakes during August. The tour, commencing at St. Louis, will include the following points : St. Paul, Minneapolis, Duluth, Houghton, Saulte Ste. Marie, Macki¬ nac Island, Parry Sound, Toronto, Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Cleveland, Put-in-Bay, Detroit and Chicago. Work on the trip will consist of studies and lectures on the principal local in¬ dustries, commerce on the Great Lakes, gov¬ ernment improvements and aids to navigation, historic geography of the Lakes and Missis¬ sippi regions, and physiographic and geologic subjects. No previous study in geology is re¬ quired of those desiring to make the trip. The course is open to both men and women whether enrolled in the university or not. Three to five hours’ credit will be given to those who make the tour. Those not enrolled in the university will be given credit which will be accepted upon entrance by Missouri or other universities of equal standing. Impressed by the work of the Army Med¬ ical School and the inadequacy of the facilities provided for that work, Drs. John M. T. Finney and Joseph C. Bloodgood, of Balti¬ more, recently left with the president the fol¬ lowing memorandum: We are so impressed by the character and im¬ portance of the scientific work which is being done there we feel the need of bringing to the attention of yourself and the country the utterly inadequate facilities provided not only for purposes of investi¬ gation, but for those of instruction as well. The quarters are unsuited for existing conditions and they will prove still more so in case of any expan¬ sion of the service. We furthermore, from our experience as teach¬ ers, believe that the Army Medical School should be in the vicinity of, and closely affiliated with, the newly established Walter Reed Hospital for the benefit of both institutions. North Carolina was the first state in the Union to recognize the need of geologic sur¬ veys within its borders. In 1823 an act of the general assembly authorized the board of agri¬ culture to pay the expenses of “ geological ex¬ cursions ” for a period of years, as a result of which several geologic reports on the state were published. South Carolina was quick to follow the example of her sister state and in 1824 established a State Geological Survey, whose geologic report, appearing in 1826, was the first issued under the patronage of any state. Massachusetts and Tennessee early es¬ tablished official Geological Surveys on a much larger scale than those of North and South Carolina, and in 1833 Maryland fol¬ lowed their example. To Maryland also be¬ longs the credit of being the first state to undertake a topographic survey, in which she obtained the cooperation of the Coast and Geodetic Survey. This marks the beginning of the federal and state cooperation in such matters which is now so important in topo¬ graphic mapping and in the investigation of our mineral resources. Bulletin 465 of the United States Geological Survey, entitled “ The State Geological Surveys of the United States,” includes a historical report of each state in which there is now a Geological Sur¬ vey, giving also a sketch of early surveys and an account of the legal designation, organiza¬ tion, laws, appropriations, publications and nature of the work of each individual state. The bulletin is valuable as showing the early recognition of the need and value of basic in¬ vestigations of our enormous latent mineral wealth. The University of Nevada has founded in both college and station a department of range management. Nevada contains immense areas too elevated for field agriculture, but per¬ fectly adapted to the grazing of bands of cat- July 14, 1916] SCIENCE 55 tie and sheep. The range country in Nevada will never be broken up into farms; it can be used for nothing but range; it presents many unique and interesting problems. These cen¬ ter around the adaptation of grazing methods to the periods of growth and reproduction of the native forage plants with a view to making the fullest use of the range without further injury to the plant life. Mr. C. E. Fleming, Cornell, 1910, formerly of the Forest Service, Grazing Studies, has been chosen to head the new department which ranks as a full professor¬ ship in the university. Mr. Fleming has been in charge of the Federal Grazing Reserve at Jornada, New Mexico. Studies of the poison¬ ous plants of the range will be carried on by Mr. Fleming and Dr. Jacobson, the head of the department of chemistry in the Nevada station. The project work of the Nevada Ex¬ periment Station is being based almost wholly on the problems of western agriculture; an effect is made, however, to maintain the high scientific character and accuracy of the work. The new department will have a set of prob¬ lems characteristic of the peculiar agriculture of the western mountain country. The production of anthracite in 1915, as shown by the final figures compiled by C. E. Lesher, of the United States Geological Sur¬ vey, from returns made by the operators, was 79,459,876 gross tons, differing from the esti¬ mate of 79,100,000 tons published last Jan¬ uary by less than one half of 1 per cent. The value of this output was $184,653,498, an aver¬ age of $2.32 per ton, a value slightly higher than the average in 1914. Compared with the figures for 1914 those for 1915 show a decrease of 2 per cent, in quantity and 1.9 per cent, in value. Anthracite is used mainly as a do¬ mestic fuel, and the mild weather during the early months of 1915 resulted in a decrease in consumption. A falling off in the exports to Canada, which normally takes a large quantity, and light buying by householders and retail yards in this country during the summer period of low prices, were also factors con¬ tributing to this decrease. There were 176,- 552 men employed in the anthracite mines in 1915, a greater number than in any year ex¬ cept 1914, when there were 179,679. The aver¬ age number of days these men worked was 230, as compared with 245 in 1914, and the number of tons produced per man per year was 450, and per man per day 1.96, as against 451 tons per year and 1.84 tons per day in 1914. The smaller number of days worked, together with the comparatively large number of men em¬ ployed, indicate that the work during the slack months was divided by the companies among a greater number of men than was necessary, in order to assist all. As in 1914, there were few strikes, only 30,325 men having been in¬ volved in 1915, for an average of 7 days each. There were 148 machines used in underground mining of anthracite in 1915, and 57 steam shovels were used on the surface, 1,001,431 tons having been taken from steam-shovel pits during the year. The steam shovels are nearly all used in the Schuylkill and Lehigh regions, and the mining machines in the Wyoming re¬ gion. Ground has recently been broken for the building of the Museum of the American Indian in New York City. Mr. Archer M. Huntington has given to the institution a site with a frontage of sixty-five feet on Broad¬ way, just south of 155th Street and adjacent to the group of buildings of which the His¬ panic Museum is the center. The plans for the proposed museum provide for a structure with a basement and four stories, which will be in the same style as that of the building of the American Geographical Society. Friends of Mr. George G. Heye, who has gathered the notable collection which is to be placed in the structure, have subscribed $250,000 for the building, and arrangements are now being made to raise the additional $100,000 for the equipment. The collection itself, which in¬ cludes 400,000 specimens and is valued at $500,000 is to be turned over in a few days to a board of trustees, who are also to take title to the real estate. Marshall H. Saville, of Columbia University, has been the scientific adviser of Mr. Heye for many years, and will be the director of the museum. Among the courses in scientific field work provided for the coming summer quarter by the University of Chicago is one in geology 56 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1124 conducted in the region of Devils Lake, Wis¬ consin, the area studied covering about 300 square miles. The party is to camp at the north end of Devils Lake, near the center of the area studied, and the field work continues a month. After the field work a report is made, after the general plan of the United States Geological Survey. Another region for field work in geology is to be Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri, where are shown a large number of geological phenomena in a small area, as many as twenty distinct formations being exposed. Collections of fossils from the various formations will be made, which later may be used as the basis for laboratory study at the university. Another area designated for geological study during the summer quarter is that part of the Cascade Range between Mt. Hood and the Columbia River, where may be had first-hand acquaintance with valley gla- ciers, a great volcanic cone, recent lava flows and the records of at least six geological epochs. This course is open only to men who can “ rough it,” and the party is to meet at Portland, Oregon, on August 1, for a month’s work. A field course is also to be given in the Lower St. Lawrence Valley, one of the most interesting regions geographically in eastern North America, where plain, highland and maritime conditions are often found in close proximity. Scenically also the region is fa¬ mous, and Montreal, Quebec, French Canada and the eastern provinces afford many oppor¬ tunities to relate geography to history as well as to present conditions. September will be given to this course and only graduate students can enter it. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS At Yale University, Harry Nichols Whit- ford, B.S., Ph.D., has been appointed assistant professor of tropical forestry in the Forest School, and Alois Francis Kovarik, to be as¬ sistant professor of physics in the Sheffield Scientific School. Dr. Percy Edward Raymond, assistant pro¬ fessor of paleontology in Harvard University, has been promoted to an associate professor¬ ship. Dr. Cecil Kent Drinker, of the Johns Hopkins Medical School, has been appointed instructor in physiology in the Harvard Med¬ ical School. At Cornell University, the following pro¬ motions to the grade of professor have K'en made by the trustees: Sidney G. George, C.E., from assistant professor of applied mechanics ; Frank 0. Ellenwood, A.B., from assistant pro¬ fessor of power engineering ; Calvin D. Albert, M.E., from assistant professor of machine design; Albert E. Wells, from assistant pro¬ fessor of machine construction; Lewis Knud- son, Ph.D., from assistant professor of botany; Ralph W. Curtis, M.S.A., from assistant pro¬ fessor of landscape art; E. Gorton Davis, B.S., from assistant professor of landscape art. Four graduate students of psychology have been appointed as fellows for the coming year in the Bureau of Salesmanship Research affil¬ iated with the Carnegie Institute of Technol¬ ogy, as follows : Dwight L. Hoopingarner, of the University of Texas; C. P. Stone, Univer¬ sity of Minnesota; Russell L. Gould, Colum¬ bia University; Edward S. Robinson, Univer¬ sity of Cincinnati. In addition to these ap¬ pointments, Dr. Kurt Th. Friedlaender, of San Francisco, has received appointment as honorary fellow. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE RESULTS OF A STUDY OF DOLOMITIZATION The writer believes that most dolomites were formed in the sea. Facts favoring this view are: (1) Dolomites and limestones are fre¬ quently interstratified. (2) Dolomitization is often related to original structures such as bed¬ ding, worm borings, etc., but rarely to faults and joints and other secondary structures. (3) Both mineralogical and chemical studies of limestones and dolomites show that limestones free or nearly free from dolomite, and dolo¬ mites nearly free from calcite are vastly more common than beds composed of mixtures of limestone and dolomite. If most dolomites had resulted from the action of underground waters, gradations between limestone and dolo¬ mite ought to be common. (4) Calcite fossil casts are often embedded in dolomite. Hollow casts are frequently enclosed by perfect dolo- July 14, 1916] SCIENCE 57 mite molds. In either case the calcitic shells evidently were deposited in a dolomite ooze. (5) Perfect dolomite rhombs are sometimes embedded in compact, horn-like calcitic beds. (6) Dolomitization bears no relation to the present pore space of beds as it probably would if it had been affected by underground waters. That replacement was an important process in dolomitization is shown by the bunchy dis¬ tribution of dolomite in mixed beds of dolo¬ mite and limestone, by the invasion of cal¬ citic fossil casts by dolomite rhombs, and by local dolomitization adjacent to or within pervious marine structures, worm borings, shell cavities, etc. Dolomite grains in contact with calcite were all rbombobedral, but bad no calcite inclusions. Anbedral form was the rule for dolomite grains in contact with their own kind. Certain facts suggest that dolomitiza¬ tion may take place by direct precipitation near the sea bottom, and by recrystallization of magnesia-bearing skeletons. Proof for the latter processes was not obtained. Fossils and the shallow water structures of most dolomites show that, like most limestones, they were laid down in shallow warm seas. Salinity seems to have favored dolomitization, since dolomites are common in the enclosed basin deposits. Chemical and mineralogical studies show that dolomites contain isomorph- ously combined ferrous oxide. This shows positively that dolomites were laid down under reducing conditions. The writer was able to differentiate calcite from dolomite very successfully with a modi¬ fied form of the Lemberg solution consisting of 4 grams of fresh A1CL crystals, 6 grams ex¬ tract of logwood, 1,400 grams of water, boiled for 20 minutes with constant stirring and then filtered. Dolomite turns blue in a dilute solu¬ tion of HC1 about 1/10 normal with a few drops of freshly prepared potassium ferricya- nide because of its ferrous iron content. Sedimentary calcite in all cases did not show a trace of ferrous iron. Edward Steidtmann Geological Department, University op Wisconsin CELLOIDIN PARAFFIN METHOD Many of the difficulties encountered in sec¬ tioning hard and brittle objects (chitin, eggs with yolk, etc.) may be overcome by the use of a method which I find is not generally known or used in this country, and which I have been asked to publish in Science. It is the celloidin- paraffin method of Apathy,1 published by him in detail in 1912. Although long, this method combines the advantageous qualities of both the paraffin and celloidin methods, without in¬ troducing any disadvantages of either of these methods. There is no shrinkage as in the cool¬ ing of paraffin; ribbons can be cut and spread out on the slide by warming as with paraffin; thin sections may be cut even in warm weather, due to the firm nature of the infiltrated cel¬ loidin. The method consists of embedding the object in celloidin, clearing and dehydrating the hardened celloidin block, and then in¬ filtrating with paraffin the celloidin block with its contained object. The chief advantage of Apathy’s technique lies in the use of his oil mixture, which is given below. The method is as follows: 1. Fix, wash and dehydrate material in the usual way, finally putting through three changes of absolute alcohol. 2. Put into a tube of ether-alcohol at least 5 hours, keeping the object high in the tube. (Test tubes of various widths serve nicely for this, the object being held wherever desired by a loose plug of dry cotton wool inserted in the liquid.) 3. Two per cent, celloidin for twenty-four hours, deep in the tube. 4. Four per cent, celloidin for twenty-four hours, deep in the tube. 5. Put object into paper embedding box (or small dish) of four per cent, celloidin, and harden in chloroform vapor twelve hours. 6. Quickly trim excessive celloidin from the object, leaving a few millimeters on each side, and put deep into tube of chloroform for 12 hours. 7. Put into a tube of Apathy’s oil mixture i Apathy, S., 1912, “Neuere Beitraege zur Schneidetechnik, ’ ’ Zeitschr. wiss. Hilcr., Bd. XXIX., S. 449-515, 4 textfiguren. 58 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1124 until the block becomes clear and sinks; this may take from three days to a week. The oil mixture is as follows: Chloroform by weight . . 4 parts Origanum oil by weight . 2 parts Cedarwood oil by weight . 4 parts Absolute alcohol by weight . 1 part Carbolic acid crystals by weight . 1 part Put some dried sodium sulphate into the bot¬ tom of the tube to take up the water brought into the mixture by the celloidin. 8. Wash cleared block in three or more changes of benzol ; this takes out oils and alcohol, and prepares for paraffin infiltration. 9. Infiltrate in paraffin, and embed. The temperature of the bath and long duration of infiltration will not cause shrinkage, as Apathy states that blocks left in a bath at 70° C. for a week showed no shrinkage. To insure good ribbons I find a paraffin of medium hardness satisfactory in most cases, and leave a margin of pure paraffin about the celloidin-paraffin block when trimming. Where hard chitin is to he cut and the firmest possible block is desired, I use hard paraffin to infiltrate, and cut with a slanting knife on a sliding microtome. 10. Section and mount, using Mayer’s fixa¬ tive; then spread out and affix by warming as for paraffin sections. In staining on the slide, avoid leaving for any great length of time in xylol or absolute alcohol, as these liquids will dissolve the celloidin. A clearing oil instead of xylol may be used to advantage before the balsam. When objects stained in bulk are used, merely remove the paraffin in xylol and mount in balsam. S. I. Kornhauser Zoological Laboratory, Northwestern University THE ASPHYXIATION OF CANCER Granting, at the present time, that early surgical removal is the most satisfactory method of curing cancer, there still remains the “ hope which springs eternal in the human breast ” of the scientist that a day will come when a successful non-surgical treatment of cancer may be realized. For centuries compe¬ tent investigators have been seeking this goal, but without avail. With the exception of toxic gases, practically all of the possible chemical. physical and biological agents have been tried, including cell poisons, caustics, electricity, heat, light (visible and invisible rays), “vac¬ cines,” sera, and cell or organ extracts. The chief difficulty has been the finding of an agent which has a specific destructive action on the cancer cell without an injurious effect upon the surrounding healthy tissues. It must be admitted that a rational non-surgical treatment awaits the demonstration of a spe¬ cific causal agent, or of a logical explanation of such an abnormality based on a thorough study of the chemistry and physics of proto¬ plasm in general and of the living cell in par¬ ticular. A working hypothesis concerning the cause of cancer has been formulated by the writer after several years of theoretical and practical study. According to this hypothesis cancer is the result of localized, unchecked, over-com¬ bustion, or hyperoxidation, in epithelial cells; this condition is brought about by the con¬ centrated, accelerated and uninhibited action of intracellular oxidizing enzymes, or their coenzymes, as a result of various injurious agents. Based upon this theory, a rational treat¬ ment of the disease involves the inhibition of such “ hyper-oxidations,” or the complete asphyxiation of the cancer cells. This may be attempted indirectly by attacking the intra¬ cellular oxidizing enzymes (upon which cell oxidations, growth and multiplication so largely depend) or by renewing those enzymes in the body whose function it is to combat injurious cell oxidations. The direct asphyxi¬ ation of the cancer cell involves (1) the with¬ holding of oxygen (so necessary for cell life) either by cutting off the blood supply or by absorbing the oxygen itself before it can be of service to the tumor cells; or (2) the intro¬ duction of sufficient carbon dioxid, or other toxic gases, to cause the suppression of oxida¬ tions in the tumor cells. It is evident that such a treatment must be confined to the can¬ cer cells, for the general effect would be to kill all of the body cells. Herein lies the chief difficulty in its practical application. Experimental work, involving the above July 14, 1916] SCIENCE 59 ideas, is now being carried on — the results of which will form the basis of future communi¬ cations. L. D. Bristol University of North Dakota, April 28, 1916 QUOTATIONS BUSINESS MEN WHO WANT THE METRIC SYSTEM Nothing gives so much hope that the metric system will some day be adopted in America as the work now being done in its behalf by the National Wholesale Grocers’ Association. It is their type of support which alone can clinch the case in favor of the simpler stand¬ ard. The theorists have done their best. They have proved conclusively what saving in time and labor, what gain in foreign trade, would follow upon the adoption of the metric system. Meanwhile, however, the country has been gen¬ erally given to understand that practical men opposed the change, that they thought it would involve, while it was being made, insuperable ■difficulties to trade and manufacture. The wholesale grocers are practical men. In countless daily transactions their business would be directly affected by the change; they would have to undergo whatever hardships may accompany the shift in all its early days. And yet the grocers say they want the metric system. Nor are the grocers content with wanting. They are also doing all they can to hasten the system’s adoption, and in the measures they are taking, the country can see what ways may be followed in order to prepare for the change and make it, when it comes, less difficult. In pursuance of a report submitted by a special committee to the convention in Boston, every wholesale grocer is urged to print on the labels of all canned and boxed good not only the weight in English pounds and ounces, but also the metric equivalent. This custom will have two values. It will help to educate the Ameri¬ can people in the metric system, and it will be¬ gin at once to reap the benefits for American goods abroad, especially in the South American countries, which a general adoption *of the metric system promises. Furthermore, the grocers are preparing for their membership complete and easily used tables of equivalents, and are doing their utmost to show how the first year or two of the change might be rend¬ ered less difficult by their use. Psychologically, also, the study which these practical men are making has its value to help explain why the American passion for liberty has never extended to open revolt against slavery to the old English tables. They show that children everywhere are being given a dis¬ taste for the metric system by the way it is presented to them in their study of arithmetic. Since the schoolbooks necessarily present it in relation to its equivalents in English weights and measures, it means no more for them than a new instrument of mental torture. Learned for itself alone, it would offer no more diffi¬ culty than the American money system gives the boy who learns it in a day, and almost without trying. Harnessed to the old English equivalents, its true simplicity is not revealed. From this poor start in school days, the Amer¬ ican public appears to continue in amazing ignorance of the metric system’s real value. Very few men know, says the report to the grocers, what time it would save in commercial arithmetic and very few know the increasing pressure for its adoption brought by the needs of trade with countries which have it. If this be so, then the grocers’ committee’s proposal, that to their practical efforts there should be added an organization exclusively designed to educate the public on this subject, ought surely to be furthered. — The Boston Transcript. SCIENTIFIC BOOKS Who is Insane ? By Stephen Smith, A.M., M.D., LL.D. The Macmillan Co., 1916. Not the least remarkable thing' about this very readable book is the fact that its author is a nonagenarian. Dr. Smith was the state commissioner in lunacy of New York from 1882 to 1888, and the present work largely em¬ bodies his observations during those years, to¬ gether with the deductions of his long experi¬ ence concerning the big questions of the pre¬ vention and treatment of mental disease. The word of criticism which might be offered 60 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1124 that some of the clinical cases cited for illus¬ tration contain insufficient data to make them entirely convincing, loses some of its force perhaps, when it is recalled that the book is intended primarily for popular instruction, and to that end lapses naturally into the anecdotal style. The author is delightful in his incorrigible optimism as to the hopefulness of treatment of insanity, crime and feeblemindedness under more rational conditions of organization and classification, and by more scientific methods than have hitherto existed. The general treat¬ ment of insanity he considers under three pe¬ riods corresponding to the three tenses. The past was the period of mechanical restraint. The present is the period of custodial care. The future will be the period, let us hope, of curative treatment. The present, with all its humanitarian ideals and active therapeutic efforts is still the period of custodial care. We must perhaps admit it. But the author looks ahead to the time when the state hospitals shall no longer be in the main simply repositories for the mentally in¬ firm. He suggests that these institutions should comprise five definitely organized de¬ partments: (1) research, (2) curative, (3) in¬ dustrial, (4) custodial, (5) hospital. The re¬ search and curative departments he would have under one administration consisting of an alienist, a physiologist, a pathologist, and a psychologist, together with field-workers and such other assistants as might be required. The plan as outlined is admirable, and already partially operative in many institutions. But Dr. Smith’s forecast culminates in an ultra¬ optimism. “ Might not the per cent, of ‘ dis¬ charged as cured ’ from our asylums be raised from twenty-five or thirty-three per cent, to eighty or ninety per cent., if all the resources of science, art and humanity were brought into requisition immediately on admission of each person legally committed as insane ? ” In the author’s discussion it might seem that the environmental factors, important as they are unquestionably, are stressed too much, or rather that the endogenic factors are insuffi¬ ciently stressed. Excellent is the author’s insistence upon the value of the work-cure in mental disease, and of the work-habit as prophylaxis, maintained onward into old age. “ Retirement from busi¬ ness at this period, to enjoy the fruits of a life of toil, is to turn one’s face towards the ceme¬ tery to which he will hasten with ever quicken¬ ing step.” The nonagenarian physician evidently prac¬ tises his own gospel, for now at ninety-three comes from his pen a book full of valuable and interesting material and fruitful suggestion, reflecting the youthful spirit of hopefulness and progress, rather than the retrospective sadness of a less efficient old age. C. B. Farrar Beekeeping. By E. E. Phillips, Ph.D. Rural Science Series. Hew York, Macmillan & Co. Pp. xxii + 457. 190 figs. Price $2.00. We are living in an age of applied science; but the student of animal behavior is perhaps little concerned with the possible application of his branch of scientific inquiry. On this account the author’s fundamental conception and mode of treatment are of particular inter¬ est. Beekeeping is applied animal behavior. As the author suggests, the well-informed beekeeper probably has a wider and more accurate knowledge concerning bees than have many students of animal behavior concerning the species with which they work. The suc¬ cessful beekeeper is, as we are told, the man “ who has a knowledge of the activities of bees, whereby he can interpret what he sees in the hives from day to day, and who can mould the instincts of the bees to his convenience and profit.” In this volume, therefore, the bee is treated as a living animal and special stress is laid upon its behavior and physiology in so far as investigations have thrown light upon these processes. The United States Department of Agricul¬ ture is singularly fortunate in having as its chief expert in bee culture one so well fitted by the character of his training as Dr. Phillips, who has approached, from the stand¬ point indicated above, a subject which is per¬ haps more liable than most branches of agri- July 14, 1916] SCIENCE 1 cultural activity to be governed by individual preferences than by methods based on definite scientific principles. This is well illustrated in the case of the wintering of bees, which constitutes one of the most important ques¬ tions for the practical beekeeper, particularly in the more northerly regions. As a result of the elaborate investigations which the author and his associates have conducted, the activ¬ ities of the bees in the winter cluster and the factors affecting such activities have been brought out of the darkness, which heretofore, both literally and metaphorically, has hidden them from view, to the light of day so that they can now be described intelligently and the knowledge so acquired can be put to the great¬ est possible practical use. The fact that the temperature reactions of bees are so strong and so important from the practical standpoint demonstrates the value of the “ behavior ” point of view. That a thorough knowledge of the behavior of the bee is essential is indicated by the fact that although bees have been kept by man from time immemorial they have not been domesticated; they have not, as Langstroth maintained, been tamed, but their natural in¬ stincts have remained unmodified. Conse¬ quently, the beekeeper must direct their in¬ stincts along the lines best adapted to his own ends. It is to the credit of American bee¬ keepers that they have been so successful in this line of effort, for although it is un¬ doubtedly true that, up to within recent years, the scientific knowledge of bees has been largely due to the work of European investi¬ gators, commercial beekeeping on a large scale is, as the author claims, “ an American institution.” The development of practical beekeeping began with the invention of the movable frame hive by Langstroth, the father of American beekeeping (1810-1895), and a comparison of the prevailing type of American hive, which is simple and useful for work, with the more elaborate British hive is signif¬ icant. All the important lines of work in the man¬ agement of bees are fundamentally dependent upon a knowledge of their behavior. Honey production is the beekeeper’s object, conse¬ quently he must so manipulate his bees that, when the nectar is available near his apiary, the bees may be in a condition to secure the maximum quantity. In this connection he should also possess some knowledge of the nectar-producing plants occurring in his neighborhood and in the localities in which he establishes his “ out apiaries,” and the pe¬ riod of their flowering, for this reason an annotated list of considerable length of nectar- producing plants is given and constitutes a valuable section of the book. Ever since Dzierzon announced his theory that the drone is a product of an unfertilized egg, parthenogenesis in the bee has afforded both beekeepers and scientific workers a theme for much disputation. In beekeeping the ques¬ tion is of no little practical significance, espe¬ cially to the breeder. The conclusion of Dr. Phillips on this point is of value, as he has devoted particular attention to the problem of parthenogenesis for a number of years. He does not feel that Dzierzon’s conception that all the eggs in the ovary of the queen are male eggs is correct, but thinks that it is not im¬ probable that the eggs destined to be females, that is, queens or workers according to their post-natal treatment, die for want of fertiliza¬ tion, while eggs destined to be males, not re¬ quiring fertilization, are capable of develop¬ ment. In view of what we now know con¬ cerning the biochemistry of fertilization the author’s suggestion deserves serious thought. In no other insect is the question of sex deter¬ mination of greater importance since the value of race is as important in beekeeping as in any other form of breeding. With a few exceptions the existing^ books on beekeeping are little more than works of refer¬ ence or books of rules. There was a distinct need for a work that was readable, based on scientific principles and eminently practical. Dr. Phillips has satisfied these requirements to a degree that it would be most difficult to surpass. His work is as admirable in the method of presentation as it is in the well- balanced treatment of all the many aspects of the subject. The illustrations are well chosen, 62 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1124 largely original and advisedly subordinated to the text. The Rural Science Series contains many valuable treatises, and although com¬ parisons are invidious, none shows greater evi¬ dence of most careful writing in the face of an obvious necessity for compression. Bee¬ keepers, both amateur and commercial, and teachers in agricultural colleges, are under a debt of gratitude to the author of this book; if it does not come to be regarded as the standard handbook on the subject on this con¬ tinent we shall be greatly surprised. C. Gordon Hewitt A VALUABLE UNPUBLISHED WORK ON POMOLOGY Most horticulturists are doubtless familiar with “ A View of the Cultivation of Bruit Trees of America,” published in 1817 by William Coxe, of Burlington, H. J., who has been called “ The Father of American Pomol¬ ogy, ’’ but probably few are aware of the exist¬ ence of an unpublished book of colored draw¬ ings of the fruits that were illustrated in this work by wood cuts. On pages 225-226 of the Country Gentleman, of Albany, H. Y., for April 2, 1857, there was published by E[dmund] L[aw] R[ogers], Baltimore, Md., an account of the activities of Mr. Coxe, in which it is stated that he had intended pub¬ lishing a second edition of the work, accom¬ panied by colored engravings for which nat¬ ural-size water-color drawings had been pre¬ pared by his daughters. The publication of this second edition was prevented by Mr. Coxe’s death in 1831. About twenty years ago this article came to the attention of Mr. William A. Taylor, then assistant pomologist of the IT. S. Department of Agriculture, and a number of letters were written in an effort to locate the colored drawings, but without success. The matter was then dropped until the spring of 1915 when, in a conversation re¬ garding some old horticultural catalogs, Mr. Taylor related these facts to the writer who suggested that it might still be possible to locate the unpublished colored plates through methods used by genealogical research workers. The search was begun by looking up at the Library of Congress historical and genealog¬ ical works which might give information re¬ garding the descendants of William Coxe, with the result that a list of his children was obtained, with some of their marriages. From this it was learned that Philadelphia and vicinity was at present the most likely local¬ ity to search for his descendants. Addresses were obtained of several of the Coxe family in that vicinity and a form letter sent to all of them giving the object of the inquiry, with the result that a chart of this branch of the family, only recently published, was secured by the writer. This gave the names of all descendants to date, but without addresses, although the places of births were usually given. With this clue several city and tele¬ phone directories were consulted and addresses of most of the descendants obtained. About twenty-five copies of the form letter were then sent to these addresses with the almost imme¬ diate result of six replies giving the address of the probable possessor of the work, followed the next day by a letter from one of the twenty- five addressed acknowledging the possession of the work. It is with great pleasure that announcement is made of the donation of the unpublished colored drawings of fruits to the Library of the IT. S. Department of Agriculture by the grandchildren of Mrs. Elizabeth (Coxe) Mc- Murtrie, a daughter of William Coxe, by whom most of the paintings were made. The drawings are bound and in an excellent state of preservation. The character of the work shows a high degree of skill on the part of the artist in depicting fruits; and the positive identification of all the earlier descriptions and illustrations, some of which have long been in doubt, will now be possible. The work has been placed in a fireproof building and it is expected that the additional safeguard of a fireproof safe for this and similar books will be provided at an early date. The drawings are accompanied by the bound manuscript upon which the published work was based, to which have been added numerous notes intended for a second edition. Many of July 14, 1916] SCIENCE 63 the notes bear dates ranging from 1810 to 1828 and it probable that the water-color work was largely done in the early part of this period, for several varieties are illustrated which accord¬ ing to the manuscript did not live long, or were destroyed as being of little value or particularly subject to disease. In this connection it may be of interest to pathologists to call attention to early records which the manuscript and drawings contain relating to plant diseases, some of which were not described or apparently were but little known at that time to botanists or mycol¬ ogists, and one of which at least was not recognized until fifty years later. There were few mycologists in this country or Europe at that early period and many diseases were not of sufficient economic importance to attract their attention. In fact most of the growers, if they paid any attention to fruit spots at all, considered them a part of the fruit. Many of the diseases now well known were doubtless of common occurrence even then, and perhaps much earlier. Microscopes of any decided magnification were then unknown, and scien¬ tists of those days can hardly be blamed for failing to make such observations. In Coxe’s published work of 1817 but one disease is mentioned, the fire blight of the pear ( Bacillus amylovorus (Burr.) De Toni) which evidently then as now was a serious dis¬ ease towards the eradication of which but little progress apparently has been made in the 100 years which have followed. In the season of 1915 which was unusually wet, this disease swept over a large part of the apple-producing section of the country, doing great damage to the trees. Stevens and Hall state1 that this has been known over 100 years. It is probable that much earlier records could be found by the examination of older literature. The or¬ ganism that causes the blight was not de¬ scribed until 1888. In the unpublished colored drawings and the. manuscript accompanying them are found descriptions or very accurate colored illustra¬ tions of the following fungous diseases: i Stevens, F. L., and Hall, J. G., “Diseases of Economic Plants,” 101, 1910. Leaf Blight { Fabrcea maculata {Lev.) Atk.). — The species was first issued in exsiccati by Leveille in 1843 as Entomosporium maculatum and described somewhat later. The character¬ istic fruit spots are well depicted on both the pear and apple. Pear Scab {Venturia pyrina Aderh.). — This was for many years confused with the apple scab and was not separately described until 1896. Apple Scab {Venturia incequalis {Cooke) Winter). — This was first described under Sphcerella by Cooke in 1871. Flyspeck of Apple {Leptothyrium pomi {Mont. & Fr.) Sacc.). — This was first de¬ scribed under Labrella in 1834. The sooty blotch {Pliyllachora pomigena (Schw.) Sacc.) according to Duggar is only one stage of the flyspeck, and was first described by Schweinitz under Dothidea in 1832. Both are well illus¬ trated on a number of varieties of apples. Bitter Rot {Glomerella rufomaculans {Berk.) Spauld. & Von Schrenk). — This was first described by Berkeley under Septoria in 1854. Spaulding and Yon Schrenk did not discover an earlier reference to the disease. In the Coxe manuscript under date of May 30, 1829, the bitter rot is referred to as com¬ mon, with the statement that the author had been told by John Hoskins the elder that slaked lime was a good remedy for the dis¬ ease. In accordance with this suggestion he spread a peck of slaked lime around each of 21 apple trees and worked it into the soil. No notes were made as to results, owing to his early death. Fruit Spot {Cylindrosporium pomi Brooks). This disease is well illustrated on several vari¬ eties of apples and has been identified beyond question by Mr. Brooks. The disease was first discovered by Brooks in 1896. He states that it was first reported in Germany by Sorauer in 1879 and in this country by Jones in 1891. It was evidently not previously distinguished from the bitter rot. Peach Scab {Cladosporium carpophilum Thum.). — This was first described by von Thiimen in 1879. Probably other fungi are figured on the vari- 64 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1124 ous fruits but none that can be identified with accuracy. A reference is also made in the manuscript to worms around the roots of peach trees which are said to cause an exudation of gum. This probably refers to the larvae of some boring insect. An attempt was made to get rid of them by applying a handful of salt around the roots once or twice a season with the only re¬ sult, however, that the larvae were more nu¬ merous after the application than before. P. L. Ricker Bureau of Plant Industry SPECIAL ARTICLES THE INVERSION OF MENTHONE BY SODIUM, POTASSIUM AND LITHIUM ETHYLATES, AND A METHOD OF ANALYSIS FOR METHONE IN PINE OILS The work of Tubandt1 has shown that the reaction Z-menthone d-menthone can be followed polarimetrically, is mono- molecular and is catalyzed by acids and bases. The present study has involved the measurement of the velocity of the inversion when brought about by sodium, potassium and lithium ethylates in absolute ethyl alcohol at 25° ; a special constant temperature bath, hold¬ ing silver-plated copper polarimeter tubes, has been employed. The molar constant, Kn, found for the ac¬ tivity of the three ethylates at dilutions rang¬ ing from N/ 32 to 2V/512, were substituted in the equation KN = !£{<* -(- KOT(1 — °0> derived by one of us2 to express the activity of both the non-ionized molecules and the ions of a react¬ ing electrolyte, and gave series of satisfactory constants for the activity of both the ethylate ions, Ki, and the non-ionized molecules Km, of each ethylate. It was found that the constant expressing the activity of the ethylate ion was the same, whether calculated from the data for sodium, potassium or lithium ethylate: for JSTaOCJL, K| — 0.501 ; for KOC JI5, K 4 = 0.501, and for LiOC„H5, K * = 0.496. The constants for 1 Ann., 339, 41, 1904. 2 Am. Chem. Jour., 48, 359, 1912. the reactivity of the non-ionized ethylate were found to be very nearly the same for sodium and potassium ethylates, but somewhat lower in the case of lithium ethylate, as has been found to occur with other reactions. Thus, for NaOC2H5, Km = 0.693; for KOC^T., Km = 0.701, and for LiOC 2H5, K^ = 0.478. The relative magnitudes of these constants agree with the fact that the molar constant, Kn, drops off with dilution for sodium and potassium ethylates, but does not change with dilution in the case of lithium ethylate; that the molar constants for sodium and potassium ethylates are close to one another in value, but different from those for lithium ethylate; and, finally, that the reaction velocity constants be¬ come practically the same for all three ethy¬ lates in the very dilute solutions in which the metallic ethylate is nearly completely ionized. Having shown above that sodium, potassium and lithium ethylates cause the inversion of menthone, it was thought important to use this as an analytical method to determine the pres¬ ence of menthone, and its amount, in certain pine oils said to contain the levo form of this material. Eight per cent, absolute alcoholic solutions of pine oil and of several of its frac¬ tions were made. These contained also H/64 sodium ethylate. These solutions showed no appreciable change in optical rotation in about three hours. In order to prove that no Z-men- thone was present in the pine oil an alcoholic solution containing 2 per cent, of partly in¬ verted Z-menthone and 8 per cent, of the same pine oil, or of its fractions, and A/64 sodium ethylate, was found to give the usual change in rotation observed for alcoholic solutions of Z-menthone. It is clear, then, that pine oils have no appreciable influence on the change of rotation of admixed Z-menthone and that the amount and rapidity of change of rotation by a given concentration of sodium, potassium or lithium ethylate can be used as a measure of the amount of d- or Z-menthone in pine oil in excess of any amount of the equilibrium mix¬ ture of d- and Z-menthone. If there is an ex¬ cess of Z-menthone present its effect on the ro¬ tation may be offset by other constituents hav- July 14, 1916] SCIENCE 65 ing an opposite rotation. For example, Z-borneol acetate with a specific rotation of — 44.4° could yield ethyl acetate and borneol with a specific rotation of — 37.8° Z-menthol acetate, with a specific rotation of — 79.4°, yields Z-menthol having a specific rotation of — 50°. The change of rotation in these two cases is in the same direction as that of l- menthone and would be added to it. In other cases, however, the changes might be in the opposite direction. The change in rotation due to the borneol acetate, for example, can be calculated from the ester number, which is always determined, and the proper correction can be made. The same idea can be applied to the calcu¬ lation of the amounts of each of two esters whose identities are known and whose changes of rotation by sodium ethylate are different or of opposite sign. The ester number and change of rotation will give the amount of each. When the mixtures become complex the “ un¬ knowns” become too large and the method becomes only qualitative at best. W. A. Gruse, S. F. Acree Dept, of Chemistry of Forest Products, University of Wisconsin MEASURING BIOLOGICAL ACTIONS BY THE FREEZING-POINT METHOD DIRECTLY IN THE SOIL It has already been shown that the freezing- point method can be employed to measure (a) the concentration of the plant-cell sap directly in the plant tissue,1 (b) the concentration of the soil solution at different moisture contents, directly in the soil,2 and (c) the effect of application of soluble chemical compounds upon the soil solution.2 In the present note it is desired to announce that the freezing-point method can be used also to study biological ac¬ tivities, by measuring the products of decom¬ position of organic materials, directly in the soil. In conjunction with the experiments on the effect of the application of soluble chemical compounds upon the concentration of the soil 1 J. Am. Soc. Agr., Yol. 8, No. 1, 1916. 2 Tech. Bull. No. 24, Mich. Expt. Sta., 1916. solution, the effect of the decomposition of various nitrogenous substances was also stud¬ ied. It has been found that the products of decomposition of these nitrogenous substances increased markedly the concentration of the soil solution, and the magnitude of the increase varied with the nature of the compound and amount employed. In the following table there are presented the results of a single ex¬ periment which might serve to typify the char¬ acter of the general data obtained. This ex¬ periment consisted of mixing 0.5 and 1.0 grams of dried blood, cotton-seed meal and ani¬ mal tankage with 800 grams of soil (equivalent to about 1,250 and 2,500 pounds per 2,000,000 pounds of soil respectively), allowing the mix¬ ture to stand in room temperature for five weeks at optimum moisture content and then determining the freezing-point depression, ac¬ cording to the method already described in Tech. Bull. No. 24 of this Station. The per¬ centage of nitrogen contained by the materials is as follows : dry blood, 14.14 per cent. ; cotton¬ seed meal, 7 per cent., and animal tankage, 10 per cent. TABLE i Effect of Decomposition of Nitrogenous Sub¬ stances Upon the Freezing-Point Depression of the Soil Solution Substance Grs. Depression Due to Substance Dry blood . 0.5 .025° C. “ “ . 1.0 .050° Animal tankage . . . 0.5 .020° “ “ ... 1.0 .040° Cotton-seed meal ... 0.5 .017° “ “ “ ..1.0 .030° The depression in every case is the difference between the depression of the untreated soil or check and that of the treated. In other words, the check was used as a standard. It will be seen then that the decomposition of these nitrogenous materials increased the depression, and hence the concentration of the soil solution, markedly, and the magnitude of the increase seems to vary with the nature of the material and quantity employed. In some other experiments the amounts of these nitrogenous materials were used, not in equivalent weight but in equivalent nitrogen content and the freezing-point depression was 66 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1124 measured at various intervals. The results show that dried blood reached its maximum decomposition first, followed by animal tankage and cotton-seed meal, respectively. The study of soil bacteriology at present con¬ sists mainly of either measuring the number of bacteria in the soil, or the kind and inten¬ sity of functions of the bacteria. The former study is usually designated as taxonomic and the latter as •physiological. The taxonomic method is at present not much used in the bacteriological studies of soils, because it has failed to furnish very sat¬ isfactory results. The physiological method, however, has proven more successful, at least from the practical standpoint, and is conse¬ quently more widely employed. As already stated, the physiological method aims to measure the kind and physiological efficiency of the organisms by measuring the product of their action upon nitrogenous sub¬ stances. The products resulting from the de¬ composition of the nitrogenous materials con¬ sist principally of ammonia, nitrite, nitrate amino compounds, etc. Unfortunately the present methods for measuring these end products are for the most part unsatisfactory. From the results obtained thus far by the freezing-point method on the decomposition of organic materials in soil, it seems pos¬ sible that this method may be used to great advantage in conducting physiological studies. It is true that the method gives only the total amount of the decomposed soluble material and tells nothing as to the composition of the product. But is not the amount of ammonifi- cation, nitrification, etc., taken as criterion of the decomposibility of the substance and the physiological efficiency of the organisms? So may the total depression be taken to represent the same criterion. The decomposition prod¬ ucts will undoubtedly exert a solvent action upon the mineral constituents of the soil, and thus influence the total depression. There are evidences, however, which go to indicate that this influence is small (aside from the chem¬ ical combination) and consequently the error would be comparatively insignificant. On the other hand, the study will be only comparative. It appears that the freezing-point method may be used to great advantage in making comparative studies of the decomposibility of various organic substances, in the same kind of soil, or the decomposing power of different classes of soil on the same organic substance, or of the same soil differently treated, etc. Such studies can be conducted very con¬ veniently, under the most natural conditions, and the results thus obtained will doubtless lead to very important and true conclusions concerning the availability of various nitro¬ genous materials, decomposing power of soils, etc. Studies along these lines are now being con¬ ducted in the laboratory. George J. Bouyoucos Research Soil Laboratory, Michigan Experiment Station THE SYNONYMY OF OXYURIS VERMICULARIS, THE PIN WORM OF THE HUMAN INTESTINE In 1758 Linnaeus described the pin worm of man under the name of Ascaris vermicularis. In 1803 Zeder transferred it to the genus Fusaria ( Ascaris renamed). In 1819 Bremser placed it in Oxyuris (type 0. equi ). Baird in 18531 published a manuscript name of Leach’s Enterobius vermicularis. The species has been generally called Oxyuris vermicularis until Stiles in 1905 gave it the generic name of Oxyurias, overlooking Leach’s name. Now Seurat in 19162 proposes the name Fusarella , evidently being unaware of the gen¬ eric names it has received subsequent to Oxyuris. The species clearly does not belong in the same genus with Oxyuris equi, and as Ente¬ robius is the earliest generic name available, the name of the species is Enterobius vermi¬ cularis (Linnseus, 1758) Leach, 1853. Albert Hassall Zoological Division, Bureau of Animal Industry, U. S. Department of Agriculture 1 ‘ ‘ Catalogue of the Species of Entozoa, or In¬ testinal Worms, Contained in the Collection of the British Museum,” p. 108. 2 Compt. rend. Soc. de biol., Far., Yol. 79, p. 67» July 14, 1916] SCIENCE 67 THE IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE The Iowa Academy of Science held its thirtieth annual session with Drake University, Des Moines, April 28 and 29, 1916. In the number of papers presented this meeting exceeded any previous ses¬ sion, a fact which speaks well for the scientific ac¬ tivity of the students and investigators of the state. The academy followed the plan instituted last year of having most of the papers presented before sectional meetings, of which there were three — 1, Chemistry; 2, Physics; and 3, Botany, Geology and Zoology. In the evening of the twenty-eighth Dr. Louis Kahlenberg of the University of Wisconsin gave the annual address before the Academy on “Some Results from the Experimental Study of Osmosis. ’ ’ The Iowa and Ames sections of the American Chemical Society met with the Academy and an Iowa section of the Mathematical Association of America was organized during the meetings. The following were the officers elected to serve during the coming year. President: G. W. Stewart, State University. First Vice-president : L. S. Ross, Drake Univer¬ sity. Second Vice-president: Miss Alison E. Aitchison, State Teachers College. Secretary: James H. Lees, Iowa Geological Sur¬ vey. Treasurer: A. O. Thomas, State University. PROGRAM Abstracts are by the authors Barium in Tobacco and Other Plants: Nicholas Knight. A number of samples of tobacco were examined and a small quantity of barium found in each one. The samples were obtained from Sumatra, Cuba and from various sections of the United States. Thirteen samples of leaves of common trees were also examined, and a sample of the soil in which they grew. Pure Sodium Chloride: Nicholas Knight. Samples of common salt were made by four dif¬ ferent methods, and small amounts of potassium ■chloride were found in each sample. Similar re¬ sults were obtained from three samples of ‘ ‘ C.-P. ’ ’ sodium chloride. Some Pock Analyses: Nicholas Knight. An Improved Method of Determining Solubility: W. S. Hendrixson. Acid Potassium and Sodium Phthalates as Stand . ards in Acidimetry and Alkalimetry, II.: W. S. Hendrixson. Some Auxoamylases : E. W. Rockwood. Electromotive Forces and Electrode Potentials in Pure and Mixed Solvents, II.: F. S. Mortimore and J. N. Pearce. The Behavior of Solutions at the Critical Tempera¬ ture, a Preliminary Peport: Perry A. Bond. A Comparison of Barbituric Acid, Thiobarbituric Acid and Malonylguanidine as Quantitative Pre- cipitants for Furfural: A. W. Dox and G. P. Plaisance. An Accurate Aeration Method for Determining Alcohol in Fermentation Mixtures: A. W. Dox and A. R. Lamb. Pelative Influence of Bacteria and Enzymes on Silage Fermentation, Preliminary Peport: A. R. Lamb. Estimation of Calcium in Ash of Forage Plants and Animal Carcasses: S. B. Kuzirian. The Pleasant Pidge Group of Effigy Mounds: Ellison Orr. These mounds are included in the proposed Mississippi Valley National Park. This park will include a strip of land along the bluffs from a point about six miles south of McGregor, Iowa, to the mouth of Yellow River, about three miles north of McGregor. This group of mounds lies on a very high point of the bluff about half way be¬ tween McGregor and the mouth of Yellow River, and is comprised of some eight or nine animal mounds and three bird mounds, all in a good state of preservation. An Old Poman Coin in South Dakota: David H. Boot. Contributions to the Geology of Southwestern Iowa: George L. Smith. A Note on Fulgurites from Sparta, Wisconsin: W. D. Shipton. A New Stratigraphic Horizon in the Cambrian System of Wisconsin: W. D. Shipton. Pecords of Oscillations in Lake Level, and Pecords of Lake Temperature and Meteorology Secured at the Macbride Lakeside Laboratory, Lake Oko- boji, Iowa, July, 1915 : John L. Tilton. Tidal effects were almost zero, barometric effects too small to be detected without magnification, and intake and outflow about equal. Wind effects were noticeable and quickly compensated by movement in the lake. The wind directed the circulation in the lake. The division of the lake water into 68 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1124 epilimnion, thermocline and hypolimnion was pro¬ nounced, even after strong winds. Evaporation amounted to about two tenths inch per twenty-four hours. Rainfall caused an immediate rise in the hydrograph. The Mollusca of the Loess of Crowley ’s Ridge, Ar¬ kansas: B. Shimek. A discussion of the fauna of the loess of this ridge, with a list of species. Superimposition of Kansan Drift on Sub-Aftonian Drift in Eastern Iowa: Morris M. Leighton. During the reconstruction of the C. M. & St. P. Ry., new cuts were recently opened up in eastern Iowa, in the vicinity of Delmar Junction, showing a body of sub-Aftonian drift beneath Kansan drift. A soil zone, together with a mineralized stump and fragments of wood, separate the two drifts. The Aftonian interval is recorded also by several feet of leaching of the lower till which is in contrast to the calcareous portions of the over- lying till. These exposures are of unusual importance to the Pleistocene geology of Iowa in that they show that the sub-Aftonian ice-sheet as well as the Kansan invaded eastern Iowa, and they throw light upon the data of the superimposition of certain major streams in eastern Iowa. Pleistocene Exposures on Capitol Hill: James H. Lees. The area made classic in Pleistocene geology by the studies of McGee and Call is now exposing to even better advantage the relations of Wisconsin drift, pre-Wisconsin loess and Coal Measures. No pre-Wisconsin drift is present. Fifteen feet of loess, buff except as weathered to gray, is overlain by Wisconsin till, with a zone of mingled loess and fossil-bearing drift between. A great lens of sand lies within the loess. The possible relations of the strata are discussed. Progress Report of Geological Work in the Driftless Area: A. C. Trowbridge. The History of Devil’s Lake, Wisconsin: A. C. Trowbridge. An Outlier of the Clinton Formation in Dubuque County: J. Y. Howell. Describes an occurrence of an oolitic, ferrugi¬ nous layer at the Maquoketa-Niagaran contact seven miles west of Dubuque, Iowa. The material apparently is identical in lithologic character and stratigraphic position with the “Clinton” ore of eastern Wisconsin, which Savage and Ross have recently shown to be of Ordovician age. Geological Conditions Regarding Oil and Gas in Southeastern Ioiua: George F. Kay. The Super-Kansan Gumbo of Southern Iowa: George F. Kay. Progress Report on Studies of the Iowan Drift by the Iowa Geological Survey and the United States Geological Survey: George F. Kay. Bibliography of the Loess: E. J. Cable. A Correlation of Peneplains in the Driftless Area: Urban B. Hughes, presented by A. C. Trow¬ bridge. Major Discissive Lines in Prairie States: Charles Keyes. Decipherment of the geotectonic features of the Prairie region of the Continental Interior is at¬ tended by so many difficulties that little real ad¬ vance is recorded in a half century. Lately, how¬ ever, new data on the problems involved became available. Considering alone fault-lines of rela¬ tively large displacement the Iowa field affords some unusually instructive information. The great Cap-au-Grfes fault is found to extend into Iowa, where its greatest throw is not less than 100 feet. The remarkable Fort Dodge fault with a throw of about 125 feet has economic bearings of high im¬ portance. The Red Oak fault has a displacement of more than 350 feet. The famous La Salle fault seems to find expression near Dubuque and else¬ where in the northeastern part of the state. In western Iowa the fault-spacing appears to be quite regular with an approximate value of 25 miles. Recognition of this fact suggests the probable exist- ance of other notable faults of the series and fully explains many hitherto apparently incongruous rec¬ ords regarding the areal distribution of the various terranes of the region. Wide Areal Extent of Chouteau Limestone: Charles Keyes. Long prevailing misconceptions concerning the stratigraphic extent and relations of the Chouteau limestone, originally described by G. C. Swallow in central Missouri, and a manifest tendency of late years to disregard the terrane as a useful and valid mapping unit have recently led to a reexami¬ nation of the section at the type locality and a careful correlation of the formation as there ex¬ posed with other sections east and north. In the latter direction, it now appears that the Chouteau limestone retains its characteristic features and relationships to the Minnesota boundary, where, with other Paleozoic terranes, it rises against the old Siouan arch — a Triassic mountain axis of large proportions. Towards the east, by complete thin- July 14, 1916] SCIENCE 69 ning out, the Burlington limestone, which immedi¬ ately succeeds the Chouteau limestone at the orig¬ inal locality is, on the Mississippi Biver, made to rest unconformably upon the older Hannibal shales. Cirque Phenomena in British Columbia: Charles Keyes. From the banks of the Skeena Biver, which flows into the Pacific ocean a few miles below the south¬ ernmost point of Alaska, the coast ranges rise abruptly to elevations of 3,000 to 4,000 feet. The snow-line is here sufficiently low to render it easily accessible. Cirque phenomena are developed to a wonderful extent. Perhaps nowhere else in all the world are the various phases so well displayed. The glaciers are in all stages of disappearance, so that on every hand their work is left open to the most detailed scrutiny. Even from the railway train many of the different aspects are easily viewed. For a distance of more than 100 miles the rail journey is interruptedly in the midst of clearly observable cirque phenomena. In few places on the globe are all the details corroborating the Johnson hypothesis of cirque formation so well laid bare. The Lithogenesis of the Sediments: F. M. Van Tuyl. There are few lines of investigation in geology which promise more fruitful returns than the lithogenesis of the sediments. The importance of careful study of recent sedimentary deposits both of the continental and marine type as a basis for interpreting the history of the ancient sediments can not be too strongly emphasized, as was pointed out recently by Andree. Indeed, some of the great¬ est contributions to stratigraphy have already come through such studies. It is believed that more careful and systematic examination of the sediments with the aid of the microscope would aid greatly in interpreting the conditions of their deposition as well as the nature of their source. Here lies a great field almost un¬ touched, although its possibilities have been shown by the studies of Sorby, Cayeux, Mackie, Bogers, Goldman and others. The Western Interior Geosyncline and its Bearing on the Origin and Distribution of the Coal Meas¬ ures: F. M. Van Tuyl. Some New Niagaran Corals from Monticello, Iowa: A. O. Thomas. The coral reef near Monticello is rich in the more common species of Niagaran corals. Careful col¬ lecting extending over a number of years has re¬ sulted in the discovery of a few new and instructive species. Among them are several commensals ex¬ hibiting some interesting relations. Descriptions and illustrations. A Highly Alate Specimen of Atrypa Beticularis ( Linne ) : A. O. Thomas. Specimens of Atrypa reticularis preserving the fragile excrescences about the margins of the shell are uncommon. A fine specimen from the Devonian at Independence, Iowa, illustrates this feature bet¬ ter than any figured in the literature at present, as far as known. The Effect of Temperature upon the Elasticity of Tungsten: H. L. Dodge. On the Variation of the Reflecting Power of Iso¬ lated Crystals of Selenium with the Azimuth of the Incident Polarized Light: L. P. Sieg. A Physical Representation of the Summation of Certain Types of Series: L. P. Sieg. A Study of Some of the Torsional Elastic Proper¬ ties of Phosphor-Bronze Wires: A. J. Oehler, introduced by L. P. Sieg. An Electrical Apparatus for securing and main¬ taining Constant High Temperatures : W. E. Tisdale. The Tungsten X-Ray Spectrum: Elmer Dershem. Why Hot-Water Pipes in Household Plumbing burst more frequently than Cold Water Pipes: F. C. Brown and Waldemar Noll. A Bibliography of the Literature bearing on the Light Sensitiveness of Selenium and a Statement of Outstanding Problems: F. C. Brown. A Curve of Moisture Condensation on Glass Wool: L. E. Dodd. The Stroboscopic Effect by Direct Reflection of Light from Vibrating Membranes : L. E. Dodd. A New Tonoscope: L. E. Dodd. Certain Conclusions in Regard to Audition: G. W. Stewart. A New Method of Identification of Polarized Light Reflected from Small Opaque Crystals: LeBoy D. Weld. A Sheep’s Brain without a Corpus Callosum, a Demonstration : H. A. Scullen. Recent Theories of Heredity in relation to the Theory of Natural Selection: C. C. Nutting. The paper discusses briefly the theories of Weis- mann, Mendel, de Vries and Bateson with the defi¬ nite contribution of each to our knowledge of heredity, together with its net result as affecting our attitude towards natural selection. Trophospongium of Crayfish Nerve Cell (illus¬ trated) : L. S. Boss. 70 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1124 “ Axone Hillock” of Crayfish Nerve Cell (illus¬ trated) : L. S. Ross. A Malignant Tumor of a Chiclcen Liver, a Demon¬ stration: L. S. Ross. Notes on Two Strawberry Slugs: R. L. Webster. An account of two strawberry insects that have been frequently confused in the literature of eco¬ nomic entomology. A Method of Preparing Studies of Trichinella spiralis Owen: Dayton Stoner and Thesle T. Job. Life History and Habits of the Gold-banded Paper Malcer, Polistes metricus Say: Frank C. Pellett. Distributional Notes on Some Iowa Pentatomoidea: Dayton Stoner. An Hermaphrodite Crayfish: Ivan L. Ressler. The White Admiral or Banded Purple Butterfly in Iowa: B. O. Wolden. Notes on the Little Spotted Skunk: B. H. Bailey. Successful Mink Farming in Iowa: B. H. Bailey. A Handy Device for Staining Slides: E. Lawrence Palmer. The simple staining apparatus demonstrated was devised to take the place of the more expensive staining jars sold by most of the scientific supply houses. Besides the cheapness of the outfit, which fits into any tumbler, there is the added advantage that all of the slides being stained may be removed from the jar at once and may be rinsed while still in the frame. Fourteen slides may be inserted into the frame at one time, which is four more than the average staining jar holds. The device is made by bending eight strips of zinc 15 X 200 mm. into the channels (a). These are soldered to the 20 X 140 mm. zinc strip (&) which is then bent into a rectangular form with the channels on the inside. The strip (c) 1 X 26 cm. is then soldered to the ends of the strip ( b ), form¬ ing a handle with which to lift the frame, and a guard to prevent the slides from falling out at the bottom. This piece of apparatus has proved particularly handy in staining work where most of the slides require the same treatment. A Seed Key to Some Common Weeds and Plants: E. L. Palmer. This preliminary key to the seeds and fruits of one hundred and eighteen of the common weeds and plants of northeastern United States uses ex¬ ternal characters as a basis for classification and arranges the seeds according to size. Most keys are made on a strict dichotomous plan. In this case, however, those seeds whose length is between 1 and 2 mm., between 2 and 3 mm., etc., are con¬ sidered separately. After this step, one finds the key on a strict dichotomous plan. The possibility of entering the key at a number of places lessens the number of decisions to be made in determining the individual and consequently increases the prob¬ ability of correct determination. Besides detailed descriptions of all the seeds mentioned in the key, there are pen and ink sketches of forty-one of the more typical forms considered. The Growth of Legumes and Legume Bacteria in Acid and Alkaline Media: R. C. Salter. A Forest Census in Lyon County, Iowa: David H. Boot. The Preservation of Fleshy Fungi for Laboratory Use: Guy West Wilson. Notes on some Peliate Hydnacece from Iowa: Guy West Wilson. Scleroderma vulgare and its Allies: Guy West Wilson. Some Observations on California Plants: L. H. Pammel. Some Observations on the Weeds of California: L. H. Pammel. A Becord of Fungus Diseases: L. H. Pammel and Charlotte M. King. How a Tree Grows: Fred Berninghausen. Notes on the Pollination of Some Plants: Robert L. Post, presented by L. H. Pammel. Notes on Anatomy of the Leaves of Some of the Conifers of North America: L. W. Durell, pre¬ sented by L. H. Pammel. Notes on the Flora of Sitka, Alaska: J. P. Ander¬ son. Notes on a Cultivated Elodea: R. B. Wylie. Insect Pollination of Fraser a stenosepala: L. A. Kenoyer. Insect Pollination of Timber Line Plants in Colo¬ rado: L. A. Kenoyer. Pioneer Plants on a New Levee, II.: Frank Thone. The paper is a condensed summary of late de¬ velopments on the area discussed in a paper pre¬ sented at the 1915 meeting of the academy. The Control of the Oats Smut by Formalin Treatment : J. A. Krall. Late Blight Epidemics in Iowa as Correlated with Climatic Conditions : A. T. Erwin. July 14, 1916] SCIENCE 71 The Sand Flora of Eastern Iowa: B. Shimek. The sandy areas in Muscatine and Louisa coun¬ ties are chiefly discussed. The number of species peculiar to the sands of this region is small, the greater part of the flora being that of the prairies. Notes on seasonal succession on these areas are in¬ cluded. The White Waterlily of Iowa: Henry S. Conrad. The paper describes the variations of Nymphcea odorata, and gives in parallel columns the distinc¬ tions between this species and Nymphcea tuberosa. It questions the identification of all the waterlilies from the Great Lake region and the Central States, and asks for fuller study to determine the taxonomic value and the range of these forms. A Section of Upper Sonoran Flora in Northern Oregon: Morton E. Peck. The paper gives first a brief account of the cli¬ matic conditions, topography, etc., in the neighbor¬ hood of Umatilla, Oregon. The several plant as¬ sociations, with the areas they cover, are next de¬ scribed. The discussion closes with a complete annotated list of the species of seed plants known to inhabit the area under consideration. James H. Lees, Secretary Des Moines, Ia. THE KENTUCKY ACADEMY OF SCIENCE The Kentucky Academy of Science held its third annual meeting at Lexington, in the lecture room of the physics department, University of Ken¬ tucky, May 6, 1916, President N. F. Smith in the chair. After a business session at which a number of new members were elected, and among other things a resolution was passed favoring the adoption of the bill now before Congress requiring the use of the Centigrade thermometer scale in government publications (H. R. 528), the following program was carried out: President’s Address — Problems and Progress of Twentieth-century Physics: N. F. Smith. Twentieth-century physics had its birth in the year 1895, when Roentgen discovered the new . form of radiation known as X-rays. There fol¬ lowed rapidly after this a succession of impor¬ tant discoveries chiefly connected with radio-activ¬ ity. From the many new facts discovered there has gradually developed the electronic theory of matter and electricity. It has been definitely es¬ tablished that every electric charge is made up of an exact number of elementary electric charges or atoms of electricity. The magnitude of this ele¬ mentary electric charge has been determined with great accuracy. From the value of this elemen¬ tary charge other important physical constants can be accurately determined, among them the mass of an electron, and the masses of different atoms. It has been shown that every electric current is a convection current; the inertia of matter is prob¬ ably entirely due to its electrical nature and is analogous to self-induction. It has been shown that X-rays are of the same character as light, but with a wave-length about one-ten-thousandth part as great. This has been established by the use of crystals as a diffraction grating. A reasonable theory of the structure of the atoms of the dif¬ ferent elements has been established which is in close agreement with observed facts. The electro¬ magnetic theory, as worked out by Maxwell, is in¬ complete and requires important modification to account for the facts of radiation. On the whole, remarkable progress has been made in the develop¬ ment of physical theory. Astronomy Applied in Archeological and Historical Research: Henry Meier. The author had collected a large number of events and circumstances mentioned in works on ancient history and given in ancient Greek or Ro¬ man classics, which events referred to a probable total eclipse of the sun or moon taking place about the time given and visible in the regions referred to. He then calculated the times of all possible eclipses for the time and place of each event and having thus established accurately the year, month and day of the event given by history he was en¬ abled to determine with certainty other historic dates related to the event. Likewise from the accurately measured orienta¬ tions of certain ancient temples in Upper Egypt dedicated either to the sun or to a well-known star, he determined, based upon the facts that the ob¬ liquity of the sun’s ecliptic is a variable quantity and that the declinations of fixed stars change from year to year, the probable time of construc¬ tion of each temple, and thus he was able to fix chronologically the events related through inscrip¬ tions in each temple. Some Historic Fish Remains: Arthur M. Miller. When the wwiter took charge of the department of geology, State College, in 1892, he found stored in the basement of the old Chemistry Building, some interesting fossil fish remains. He later found that 72 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1124 the labels pasted on them containing the initials “J. S. N. ” were placed there by J. S. Newberry and that these were the identical specimens de¬ scribed in Yol. 1, Paleontology of the Ohio Geo¬ logical Survey, under the names Orodus and Ctencicantlius from the “Waverly Shale” exposed at Vanceburg, Ky. It was the finding in this de¬ posit of the teeth of the fish which had been named Orodus in such close juxtaposition with the spines of the fish which had been named Ctenacanthus, that led Professor Newberry to conclude that these two structures belonged to one and the same spe¬ cies. Reference was made to a previous account of these remains given by Professor Andrews in a volume of the Ohio Survey published in 1870 on work done in 1869, in which these specimens were credited to a Captain James Patterson, who found them in the Upper Black Shale (Sunbury Shale) at Yanceburg, Ky. — presumably in the course of quarrying the shale for oil distillation, an indus¬ try started in this country in the fifties or sixties of the last century, but speedily abandoned, when the discovery by Silliman, of Yale, led to the ob¬ taining of paraffin more cheaply from petroleum. Comment was made in this connection on how paleontology is indebted to commercial operations for some of its more interesting fossil remains. A New Form of Frequency Meter : N. F. Smith. A rotating disc marked off in sectors alter¬ nately black and white is illuminated by an A. C. arc light. Since the light comes principally from the positive carbon, the illumination of the disc is intermittent. Therefore a stroboscopic effect is produced, and with proper speed of rotation the disc appears to stand still. From the rate of ro¬ tation of the disc, the frequency of the current is at once determined. The Dr. llobert Peter Herbarium of the University of Kentucky : Frank T. McFarland. The paper shows the value of the Peter Her¬ barium as compared with the herbarium of the University of Kentucky. In the University of Kentucky Herbarium are 4,106 specimens, of which 3,157 were collected by Dr. Robert Peter and Dr. Charles W. Short, of Lex¬ ington, from 1832 to about 1835. For the state, Dr. Peter has listed a total of 1,205 species, but only 470 mounted species are in the Herbarium. Only 592 species for the state are listed in the University of Kentucky Herbarium, with which the Peter Herbarium is consolidated, much fewer than the actual number in the state. “ Stem Pot” of Alfalfa and Clovers Caused by Sclerotinia Trifoliorum, Erik: Alfred Holley Gilbert. The paper contains reference to previous obser¬ vations, as reported in Kentucky Experiment Sta¬ tion Circ. No. 8, 1915; also a brief resume of the history of the disease in Europe and America, and a report of a recent attack upon crimson clover in Kentucky. Since the causal organism is a soil fungus and sclerotia may remain in the soil, retaining their vitality, possibly, for several years, a rotation of crops in which no one of the several legumes which serve as hosts for the fungus is grown for at least three years, is recommended as a control measure. The host plants so far as known are all the culti¬ vated clovers and alfalfa. A common weed, Abutilon, was also observed to act as a host plant. On the Distribution of Phosphorus in a Section of Bluegrass Soil: Alfred M. Peter. Analyses of soil samples from each 6 inches, from the surface to the rock, showed strikingly different percentages of phosphorus, ranging from 0.258 in the second to 6.692 in the twentieth 6 inches, with other maxima in the fifteenth and twenty-fifth 6 inches. These differences are similar in degree to those existing between different layers of the phos- phatic Lexington limestone, and are accounted for by supposing that the calcium carbonate of the limestone has been dissolved away, leaving most of the phosphate in layers of greater or less rich¬ ness, according as the limestone layers were more or less phosphatie. Precipitation of Cobalt and Nickel Salts in Gels: C. A. Nash and John Ardery. The following paper was read by title: “Note on a Specimen of Radioactive Mineral,” by J. W. Pryor. At the afternoon session Dr. F. R. Moulton, of the University of Chicago, delivered an illustrated lecture on “Some Recent Discoveries in the Sider¬ eal Universe,” in which the present methods of determining the distances and motions of the fixed stars were explained in a popular way. The election of officers was as follows: Pro¬ fessor A. M. Miller, president; Dr. Garnett Ryland, vice-president;- Professor P. P. Boyd, treasurer; Dr. A. M. Peter, secretary. About forty members of the academy were in attendance and a large number of guests. A. M. Peter, Secretary SCIENCE Friday, July 21, 1916 CONTENTS The Nature, Manner of Conveyance and Means of Prevention of Infantile Paralysis: Dr. Simon Flexner . 73 The Basis of Individuality in Organisms — a Defense of Vitalism: Professor H. Y. Neal. 82 Gustav Schwalbe: Dr. Henry Pairfield Os¬ born . 97 The Rural Roadsides in New York State .... 97 The New York Meeting of the American Chemical Society . 98 Scientific Notes and News . 98 University and Educational News . 101 Discussion and Correspondence : — Bees and Mendelism: Professor William E. Castle. A Moraine in Northwestern New England: Prank J. Katz. Neptu¬ nium: J. P. Couch . 101 Scientific Books: — Dodge and Benedict on the Psychological Effects of Alcohol: Professor W. H. R. Rivers. Pearce on Typical Flies: Dr. Charles H. T. Townsend . 102 Special Articles: — The Study of Respiration by the Detection of Exceedingly Minute Quantities of Carbon Dioxide: A. R. Haas . 105 MSS. intended for pablioation and books, etc., intended for review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Qarrison- on-Hadson. K. Y. THE NATURE, MANNER OF CONVEY¬ ANCE AND MEANS OF PREVENTION OF INFANTILE PARALYSIS1 The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research has been appealed to by so many physicians and laymen for information and advice on the subject of infantile paral¬ ysis, that it has seemed desirable to relate the facts of present knowledge concerning certain highly pertinent aspects of the dis¬ ease, together with deductions of practical importance derived from them. Nature Infantile paralysis is an infectious and communicable disease which is caused by the invasion of the central nervous organs — the spinal cord and brain — of a minute, filterable microorganism which has now been secured in artificial culture and as such is distinctly visible under the higher powers of the microscope. Location of the Microorganism or Virus in the Sick The virus of infantile paralysis, as the microorganism causing it is termed, exists constantly in the central nervous organs and upon the mucous membrane of the nose and throat and of the intestines in per¬ sons suffering from the disease; it occurs less frequently in the other internal organs, and it has not been detected in th'e general circulating blood of patients. Location of the Virus in Healthy Persons Although the microorganism of infantile paralysis is now known, the difficulties at¬ tending its artificial cultivation and iden¬ tification under the microscope are such as i Substance of an address before New York Academy of Medicine, July 13, 1916. 74 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1125 to make futile the employment of ordinary bacteriological tests for its detection. Nevertheless, the virus can be detected by inoculation tests upon monkeys, which ani¬ mals develop a disease corresponding to in¬ fantile paralysis in human beings. In this manner the fact has been determined that the mucous membrane of the nose and throat of healthy persons who have been in intimate contact with acute cases of infantile paralysis may become contami¬ nated with the virus, and that such con¬ taminated persons, without falling ill themselves, may convey the infection to other persons, chiefly children, who develop the disease. Relation of Virus to Types of the Disease The virus has, apparently, an identical distribution irrespective of the types or severity of cases* of infantile paralysis. Whether the cases correspond with the so- called abortive forms of the disease in which definite paralysis of the muscles does not occur at all, or is so slight and fleeting as often to escape detection; whether they correspond with the meningeal forms in which the symptoms resemble those of acute meningitis wflth which muscular paralysis may or may not be associated ; or wThether they consist of the familiar para¬ lytic condition, the virus is present not only within the nervous organs, but also upon the mucous membranes of the nose, throat and intestines. Escape of the Virus from the Body Microorganisms which convey disease escape from the body of an infected indi¬ vidual in a manner enabling them to enter and multiply within fresh or uninfected individuals in such a manner as to cause further disease. The virus of infantile paralysis is known to leave the infected human body in the secretions of the nose, throat and intestines. It also escapes from contaminated healthy persons in the secre¬ tions of the nose and throat. Whether it ever leaves the infected body in other ways is unknown. At one time certain experi¬ ments seemed to show that biting insects and particularly the stable fly might with¬ draw the virus from the blood of infected persons and inoculate it into the blood of healthy persons. But as the virus has never been detected in the blood of human beings and later experiments writh the stable fly have not confirmed the earlier ones, this means of escape of the virus must be considered doubtful. On the other hand, it has been shown by experiments on animals, so that the same facts should be regarded as applicable to human beings, that the virus seeks to escape from the body by way of the nose and throat, not only when inoculation takes place through these membranes, but also when the inocu¬ lation is experimentally made into the ab¬ dominal cavity, the blood, or the brain itself. From this it is concluded that the usual means of escape of the virus is by wray of the ordinary secretions of the nose and throat and, after swallowing these, with the discharges of the intestines. Entrance of the Virus into the Body The virus enters the body, as a rule if not exclusively, by way of the mucous membrane of the nose and throat. Having gained entrance to those easily accessible parts of the body, multiplication of the virus occurs there, after which it pene¬ trates to the brain and spinal cord by way of the lymphatic channels which connect the upper nasal membrane with the interior of the skull. Whether the virus ever enters the body in any other way is unknown. Certain experiments already alluded to make it possible that it may be inoculated into the blood by insects, and other experi¬ ments have shown that under peculiar and extraordinary conditions, it may in mon- July 21, 1916] SCIENCE 75 keys enter through the intestines. But while the latter two modes of infection may operate sometimes, observations upon hu¬ man cases of infantile paralysis and upon animals all indicate that the main avenue of entrance of the virus into the body is by way of the upper respiratory mucous mem¬ brane — that is, the membrane of the nose and throat. Resistance of the Virus The physical properties of the virus of infantile paralysis adapt it well for con¬ veyance to the nose and throat. Being con¬ tained in their secretions, it is readily dis¬ tributed by coughing, sneezing, kissing, and by means of fingers and articles contami¬ nated with these secretions, as well as with the intestinal discharges. Moreover, as the virus is thrown off from the body mingled with the secretions, it withstands for a long time even the highest summer tempera¬ tures, complete drying, and even the action of weak chemicals, such as glycerin and carbolic acid, which destroy ordinary bac¬ teria. Hence mere drying of the secretions is no protection; on the contrary as the dried secretions may be converted into dust which is breathed into the nose and throat, they become a potential source of infection. The survival of the virus in the secretions is favored by weak daylight and darkness, and hindered by bright daylight and sunshine. It is readily destroyed by exposure to sunlight. Conveyance by Insects Since epidemics of infantile paralysis al¬ ways arise during the period of warm or summer weather, they have been thought of as possibly being connected with or depend¬ ent on insect life. The blood-sucking in¬ sects have especially come under suspicion. Experiments have been made with biting flies, bed-bugs, mosquitoes, and with lice. Neither mosquitoes nor lice seem able to take the virus from the blood of infected monkeys or to retain it for a time in a living state. In one instance, bed-bugs have been made to take up the virus from the blood of monkeys, but they did not convey it by biting to healthy monkeys. Certain experi¬ ments did indicate that the biting stable fly could both withdraw the virus from the blood of infected and reconvey it to the blood of healthy monkeys, which became paralyzed. But more recent studies have failed to confirm the earlier ones. More¬ over, experimentally inoculated monkeys differ in one way from human beings suf¬ fering from infantile paralysis, for while the virus may appear in the blood of the former, it has never been detected in the blood of the latter. The ordinary or domes¬ tic fly may become contaminated with the virus contained in the secretions of the body and serve as the agent of its transporta¬ tion to persons and to food with which they come into contact. Domestic flies experi¬ mentally contaminated with the virus re¬ main infective for 48 hours or longer. While our present knowledge excludes in¬ sects from being active agents in the dis¬ semination of infantile paralysis, they nevertheless fall under suspicion as being potential mechanical carriers of the virus of that disease. Conveyance by Domestic Animals The attention which the recent epidemic of infantile paralysis has drawn to the dis¬ eases attended by paralysis has led to the discovery that domestic animals find pets are subject to paralytic diseases. The ani¬ mals which have especially come under sus¬ picion as possibly distributing the germ of infantile paralysis are poultry, pigs, dogs, and cats. But in isolated instances, sheep, cattle, and even horses have been suspected. All these kinds of animals are subject to diseases in which paralysis of the legs and other parts of the body sometimes 76 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1125 appear. In not a few instances, paralytic diseases among poultry or pigs have been noted to coincide with the appearance of cases of infantile paralysis on a farm or in a community. Experimental studies have, however, excluded the above-mentioned animals from being carriers of the virus of infantile paralysis. The paralytic diseases which they suffer have long been known and are quite different from infantile paralysis. Their occurrence may be coincidental; in no instance investigated has one been found to be responsible for the other. Routes of Travel Studies carried out in various countries in which infantile paralysis has been epi¬ demic all indicate that, in extending from place to place or point to point, the route taken is that of ordinary travel. This is equally true whether the route is by water or land, along a simple highway or the line of a railroad. In other words, the evidence derived from this class of studies confirms the evidence obtained from other sources in connecting the distributing agency inti¬ mately with human beings and their activ¬ ities. Survival of the Virus in the Infected Body The virus of infantile paralysis is de¬ stroyed in the interior of the body more quickly and completely than, in some in¬ stances, in the mucous membrane of the nose and throat. It has been found in monkeys, in which accurate experiments can be carried out, that the virus may dis¬ appear from the brain and spinal cord within a few days to three weeks after the appearance of the paralysis, while at the same time it is still present upon the muc¬ ous membranes mentioned. The longest pe¬ riod after inoculation in which the virus has been detected in the mucous membrane of the nose and throat of monkeys is six months. It is far more difficult to detect the human than the monkey carriers of the virus since, as directly obtained from hu¬ man beings, the virus displays a low degree of inf ectivity for monkeys ; while, once adapted to monkeys, the virus becomes in¬ credibly active, so that minute quantities are capable of ready detection by inocula¬ tion tests. Yet in an undoubted instance of the human disease, the virus was detected in the mucous membrane of the throat five months after its acute onset. Hence we possess conclusive evidence of the occur¬ rence of occasional chronic human carriers of the virus of infantile paralysis. Fluctuation in Epidemics Not all epidemics of infantile paralysis are equally severe. Indeed great varia¬ tions or fluctuations are known to occur not only in the number of cases, but also in the death rate. The extremes are repre¬ sented by the occasional instances of in¬ fantile paralysis known in every consider¬ able community and from which no exten¬ sion takes place, and the instances in which in a few days or weeks the number of cases rises by leaps and bounds into the hundreds, and the death rate reaches 20 per cent, or more of those attacked. While all the factors which determine this dis¬ crepancy are not known, certain of them have become apparent. A factor of high importance is the infective power or po¬ tency, or technically stated the virulence, of the microorganism or virus causing the disease. This virus is subject to fluctua¬ tions of intensity which can best be illus¬ trated by an example. The virus as ordin¬ arily present in human beings even during severe epidemics has low infective power for monkeys. But by passing it from monkey to .monkey, it tends to acquire after a variable number of such passages an incredible activity. However, occa¬ sional .samples of the human virus refuse to be thus intensified. But once rendered July 21, 1916] SCIENCE 77 highly potent, the virus may be passed from monkey to monkey through a long hut not indefinite series. Finally, in some samples of the virus at least a reverse change takes place — the virus begins to lose its virulence until it returns to the original or even to a diminished degree of infective power. In this respect the be¬ havior of the virus corresponds to the on¬ set, rise and then the fall in number and severity of cases as observed in the course of epidemics of infantile paralysis and other epidemic diseases. Hence either a new active specimen of the virus may be introduced from without which, after a certain number of passages from person to person, acquires a high potency ; or a speci¬ men of virus already present and left over from a previous epidemic after a resting period and similar passages, again becomes active and reaches an infective power which equals or even exceeds that originally pos¬ sessed. Another but more indefinite factor relates to the degree of susceptibility among children and others affected which at one period may be greater or less than at another. Varying Individual Susceptibilities Not all children and relatively few adults are susceptible to infantile paraly¬ sis. Young children are more susceptible generally speaking than older ones ; but no age can be said to be absolutely insuscep¬ tible. When several children exist in a family or in a group, one or more may be affected, while the others escape or seem to escape. The closer the family or other groups are studied by physicians, the more numerous it now appears are the number of cases among them. This means that the term infantile paralysis is a misnomer, since the disease arises without causing any paralysis whatever, or such slight and fleeting paralysis as to be difficult of detec¬ tion. The light or abortive cases, as they are called, indicate a greater general sus¬ ceptibility than has always been recog¬ nized ; and their discovery promises to have far-reaching consequences in respect to the means employed to limit the spread or eradicate foci of the disease. Period of Incubation Like all other infectious diseases, in¬ fantile paralysis does not arise at once after exposure, but only after an interven¬ ing lapse of time called the period of incu¬ bation. This period is subject to wide lim¬ its of fluctuation: in certain instances it has been as short as two days, in others it has been two weeks or possibly even longer. But the usual period does not exceed about eight days. Period of Infectivity Probably the period at which the danger of communication is greatest is during the very early and acute stage of the disease. This statement must be made tentatively since it depends on inference, based on general knowledge of infection, rather than on demonstration. Judging from ex¬ periments on animals, the virus tends not to persist in the body longer than four or five weeks except in those exceptional in¬ stances in which chronic carriage is de¬ veloped. Hence cases of infantile paraly¬ sis which have been kept under super¬ vision for a period of six weeks from the onset of the symptoms may be regarded as practically free of danger. Protection by Previous Attack Infantile paralysis is one of the infec¬ tious diseases in which insusceptibility is conferred by one attack. The evidence de¬ rived from experiments on monkeys is con¬ clusive in showing that an infection which ends in recovery gives protection from a subsequent inoculation. Observations upon human beings have brought out the same 78 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1125 fact, which appears to be generally true, and to include all the forms of infantile paralysis, namely the paralytic, meningeal, or abortive, which all confer immunity. Basis of the Immunity The blood of normal persons and mon¬ keys is not capable of destroying or neu¬ tralizing the effect of the virus of infantile paralysis. The blood of persons or mon¬ keys who have recovered from the disease is capable of destroying or neutralizing the -effect of the virus. The insusceptibility or immunity to subsequent infection, whether -occurring in human beings after exposure -or monkeys after inoculation, rests on the presence of the destroying substances, the so-called immunity bodies, which arise in the internal organs and are yielded to the blood. So long as these immunity bodies persist in the body, protection is afforded; and their presence has been detected twenty years or even longer after recovery from infantile paralysis. Experiments have shown that the immunity bodies ap¬ pear in the blood in the course of even the mildest attack of the disease, which fact explains why protection is afforded irre¬ spective of the severity of the case. Active Immunisation Protection has been afforded monkeys against inoculation with effective quanti¬ ties of the virus of infantile paralysis by previously subjecting them to inoculation with sub-effective quantities or doses of the virus. By this means and without any evi¬ dent illness or effect of the protective in¬ oculation, complete immunity has been achieved. But the method is not perfect since in certain instances not only was im¬ munity not obtained, but unexpected paralysis intervened. In the instances in which protection was accomplished, the im¬ munity bodies appeared in the blood. Passive Protection By transferring the blood of immune monkeys to normal or untreated ones, they can be rendered insusceptible or immune, and the immunity will endure for a rela¬ tively short period during which the pas¬ sively transferred immunity bodies persist. The accomplishment of passive immuniza¬ tion is somewhat uncertain, and its brief duration renders it useless for purposes of protective immunization. Serum Treatment On the other hand, a measure of success has been achieved in the experimental serum treatment of inoculated monkeys. For this purpose blood serum derived either from recovered and protected mon¬ keys or human beings has been employed. The serum is injected into the membranes about the spinal cord, and the virus is in¬ oculated into the brain. The injection of serum must be repeated several times in order to be effective. Use of this method has been made in a few instances in France where the blood serum derived from per¬ sons who had recovered from infantile paralysis has been injected into the spinal membranes of persons who have just be¬ come paralyzed. The results are said to be promising. Unfortunately, the quantity of the human immune serum is very lim¬ ited, and no other animals than monkeys seem capable of yielding an immune serum and the monkey is not a practicable animal from which to obtain supplies. Drug Treatment The virus of infantile paralysis attacks and attaches itself to the central nervous organs. Hence it is reached not only with difficulty because nature has carefully pro¬ tected those sensitive organs from injurious materials which may gain access to the blood, but it must be counteracted by sub¬ stances and in a manner that will not them- July 21, 1916] SCIENCE 79 selves injure those sensitive parts. The ideal means to accomplish this purpose is through the employment of an immune serum, since serums are among the least injurious therapeutic agents. The only drug which has shown any useful degree of activity is hexamethylenamin which is itself germicidal, and has the merit of en¬ tering the membranes, as well as the sub¬ stance of the spinal cord and brain in which the virus is deposited. But experi¬ ments on monkeys have shown this chemical to be effective only very early in the course of the inoculation and only in a part of the animals treated. Efforts to modify and im¬ prove this drug by chemical means have up to the present been only partially success¬ ful. The experiments have not yet reached the point where the new drugs are applica¬ ble to the treatment of human cases of in¬ fantile paralysis. t Practical Deductions and Applications 1. The chief mode of demonstrated con¬ veyance of the virus is through the agency of human beings. Whether still other modes of dissemination exist is unknown. According to our present knowledge, the virus leaves the body in the secretions of the nose and throat and in the discharges from the intestines. The conveyers of the virus include persons ill of infantile par¬ alysis in any of its several forms and irre¬ spective of whether they are paralyzed or not, and such healthy persons who may have become contaminated by attendance on or association with the ill. How nu¬ merous the latter class may be is unknown. But all attendants on or associates of the sick are suspect. These healthy carriers rarely themselves fall ill of the disease ; they may, however, be the source of infec¬ tion in others. On the other hand, the fact that infantile paralysis is very rarely com¬ municated in general hospitals to other per¬ sons, whether doctors, nurses or patients, indicates that its spread is subject to ready control under restricted and supervised sanitary conditions. 2. The chief means by which the secre¬ tions of the nose and throat are dissemi¬ nated are through the act of kissing, coughing or sneezing. Hence during the prevalence of an epidemic of infantile par¬ alysis, care should be exercised to restrict the distribution as far as possible through these common means. Habits of self-denial, care and cleanliness and consideration for the public welfare can be made to go very far in limiting the dangers from these sources. Moreover, since the disease attacks by preference young children and infants, in whom the secretions from the nose and mouth are wiped away by mother or nurse, the fingers of these persons readily become contaminated. Through attentions on other children or the preparation of food which may be contaminated, the virus may thus be conveyed from the sick to the healthy. The conditions which obtain in a house¬ hold in which a mother waits on the sick child and attends the other children are directly contrasted with those existing in a well-ordered hospital : the one is a menace, the other a protection to the community. Moreover, in homes the practise of carrying small children about and comforting them is the rule, through which not only the hands, but other parts of the body and the clothing of parents may become contami¬ nated. 3. Flies also often collect about the nose and mouth of patients ill of infantile par¬ alysis and feed on the secretions, and they even gain access to the discharges from the intestines in homes unprotected by screens. This fact relates to the domestic fly, which, becoming grossly contaminated with the virus, may deposit it on the nose and mouth of healthy persons, or upon food or eating utensils. To what extent the biting stable 80 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1125 fly is to be incriminated as a carrier of in¬ fection is doubtful ; but we already know enough to wish to exclude from the sick, and hence from menacing the well, all ob¬ jectionable household insects. Food exposed to sale may become con¬ taminated by flies or from fingers which have been in contact with secretions con¬ taining the virus ; hence food should not be exposed in shops and no person in at¬ tendance upon a case of infantile paralysis should be permitted to handle food for sale to the general public. 4. Protection to the public can be best secured through the discovery and isola¬ tion of those ill of the disease, and the sani¬ tary control of those persons who have as¬ sociated with the sick and whose business calls them away from home. Both these conditions can be secured without too great interference with the comforts and the rights of individuals. In the first place where homes are not suited to the care of the ill so that other children in the same or adjacent families are exposed, the parent should consent to removal to hospital in the interest of the sick child itself, as well as in the interest of other children. But this removal or care must include not only the frankly par¬ alyzed cases, but also the other forms of the disease. In the event of doubtful diag¬ nosis, the aid of the laboratory is to be sought since even in the mildest cases changes will be detected in the cerebro¬ spinal fluid removed by lumbar puncture. If the effort is to be made to control the disease by isolation and segregation of the ill, then these means must be made as in¬ clusive as possible. It is obvious that in certain homes isolation can be carried out as effectively as in hospitals. But what has been said of the small inci¬ dence of cases of the disease among the hos¬ pital personnel and those with whom they come into contact, indicates the extent to which personal care of the body by adults and responsible people can diminish the menace which those accidentally or un¬ avoidably in contact with the ill are to the community. Care exercised not to scatter the secretions of the nose and throat by spitting, coughing and sneezing, the free use of clean handkerchiefs, cleanliness in habits affecting especially the hands and face, changes of clothes, etc., should all serve to diminish this danger. In the end, the early detection and isola¬ tion of the cases of infantile paralysis in all of its forms, with the attendant control of the households from which they come, will have to be relied upon as the chief measure of staying the progress of the epidemic. 5. The degree of susceptibility of chil¬ dren and other members of the community to infantile paralysis is relatively small and is definitely lower than to such com¬ municable diseases as measles, scarlet fever, and diphtheria. This fact in itself consti¬ tutes a measure of control ; and while it does not justify the abatement of any prac¬ ticable means which may be employed to limit and suppress the epidemic, it should tend to prevent a state of over-anxiety and panic from taking hold of the community. 6. A percentage of persons, children particularly, die during the acute stage of the disease. This percentage varies from five in certain severe epidemics to twenty in others. The average death rate of many epidemics has been below 10 per cent. A reported high death rate may not be actual, but only apparent, since in every instance the death will be recorded, while many cases which recover may not be reported at all to the authorities. In the present instance it is too early in the course of the epidemic to calculate the death rate, which may prove to be considerably lower than it now seems to be. July 21, 1916] SCIENCE 81 7. Of those who survive, a part make complete recoveries, in which no crippling whatever remains. This number is greater than is usually supposed, because it in¬ cludes not only the relatively large num¬ ber of slight or abortive cases, but also a considerable number of cases in which more or less of paralysis was present at one time. The disappearance of the paral¬ ysis may be rapid or gradual — may be complete in a few days or may require several weeks or months. The remainder, and unfortunately not a small number, suffer some degree of per¬ manent crippling. But even in this class, the extent to which recovery from the par¬ alysis may occur is very great. In many instances the residue of paralysis may be so small as not seriously to hamper the life activities of the individual; in others in whom it is greater it may be relieved or minimized by suitable orthopedic treat¬ ment. But what it is imperative to keep in mind is that the recovery of paralyzed parts and the restoration of lost muscular power and function is a process which ex¬ tends over a long period of time — that is, over months and even years. So that even a severely paralyzed child who has made little recovery of function by the time the acute stage of the disease is over, may go on gaining for weeks, months, and even years until in the end he has regained a large part of his losses. Fortunately, only a very small number of the attacked are left severely and helplessly crippled. Lamentable as it is that even one should be so affected, it is nevertheless a reassur¬ ance to know that so many recover alto¬ gether and so much of what appears to be permanent paralysis disappears in time. There exists at present no safe method of preventive inoculation or vaccination, and no practicable method of specific treat¬ ment. The prevention of the disease must be accomplished through general sanitary means ; recovery from the disease is a spon¬ taneous process which can be greatly as¬ sisted by proper medical and surgical care. Infantile paralysis is an infectious disease, due to a definite and specific microorgan¬ ism or virus; recovery is accomplished by a process of immunization which takes place during the acute period of the dis¬ ease. The tendency of the disease is to¬ ward recovery and it is chiefly or only because the paralysis in some instances in¬ volves those portions of the brain and spinal cord which control respiration or breathing and the heart’s action, that death results. Finally, it should be added that not since 1907, at which time the great epi¬ demic of infantile paralysis, or poliomye¬ litis, appeared in this country, has the country or this state or city been free of the disease. Each summer since has seen some degree of accession in the number of the cases; the rapid rise in the number of cases this year probably exceeds that of any previous year. But it must be remem¬ bered that in 1908 several thousand cases occurred in the greater city — possibly in¬ deed many cases of and deaths due to the disease were never reported as such. Hence the present experience, severe and serious as it is, is not something new; the disease has been severely epidemic before and was brought under control. The knowledge regarding it now is far greater than it was in 1908 ; and the forces of the city which are dealing with the epidemic are probably better organized and in more general cooperation than ever before. The outlook, therefore, should not be regarded as discouraging. Simon Flexner The Rockefeller Institution for Medical Research 82 SCIENCE [N. S. VOL. XLIV. No. 1125 THE BASIS OF INDIVIDUALITY IN ORGANISMS. A DEFENSE OF VITALISM 1 In his presidential address before the Zoological Section of the British Associa¬ tion for the Advancement of Science, Pro¬ fessor D’Arcy W. Thompson (’ll) said: While we keep an open mind on this question of vitalism, or while we lean, as so many of us now do, or even cling with a great yearning, to the be¬ lief that something other than the physical forces animates the dust of which we are made, it is rather the business of the philosopher than of the biologist, or of the biologist only when he has served his humble and severe apprenticeship to philosophy, to deal with the ultimate problem. It is the plain bounden duty of the biologist to pur¬ sue his course unprejudiced by vitalistic hypoth¬ eses, along the road of observation and experiment, according to the accepted discipline of the natural and physical sciences. ... It is an elementary scientific duty, it is a rule that Kant himself laid down, that we should explain, just as far as we possibly can, all that is capable of such explana¬ tion, in the light of the properties of matter and of the forms of energy with which we are already acquainted. This quotation will serve as a text for, and the keynote of, the remarks I shall make this morning. For to Professor Thompson’s thesis I heartily subscribe. And if in what I say any statement seems irreconcilable with his assertions, such in¬ consistency is unintentional and, as I be¬ lieve, apparent rather than real. But that all will follow me as sympathetically as I assume you have listened to the remarks I have quoted is more than I venture to hope. As I interpret the topic under discussion, two main problems are involved : 1. The scientific problem of vitalism and mechanism. i An address delivered before the American So¬ ciety of Zoologists and Section F (Zoology) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at Columbus, Ohio, December 29, 1915, in a symposium upon ‘ ‘ The Basis of Individuality in Organisms.” 2. The philosophical problem of idealism and materialism. I. THE SCIENTIFIC PROBLEM OF INDIVIDUALITY — VITALISM VS. MECHANISM The scientific problem of vitalism vs. mechanism has recently been formulated by Jennings (’14, p. 17) as follows: “Is individuality a phenomenon not determined by the perceptual conditions, but requiring to account for it the agency of a non-perceptual agent?” To the dis¬ cussion of this problem we shall first turn. The analysis of the concept of individual¬ ity — at least human individuality — reveals that individuality presents itself in two aspects, distinguishable in thought if not in reality : 1. The objective or physical aspect of indi¬ viduality ; 2. The subjective or psychical aspect of individuality. Turning our attention, then, to 1. The Objective or Physical Aspect of Individuality . — In this aspect, the organic individual is a persistent, complex, coherent and spatially-distinct whole, consisting of interdependent parts. The organic indi¬ vidual is distinguishable from the inorganic individual by the chemical process of pro- teid metabolism, growth by the intussuscep¬ tion of new material, and by the process of reproduction. In the higher animals and man integration of the highly differentiated body is effected through the mechanism of a central nervous system and the secretions (hormones) of certain glands. As a phys¬ ical body the organic individual is sub¬ servient to the laws of sequential mechan¬ istic causation, and derives all its energy directly or indirectly from the sun. 2. The Subjective or Psychical Aspect of Individuality. — Each organic individual — at least in the case of man — is directly aware of a series of “states” or “moments” July 21, 1916] SCIENCE 83 of consciousness, determined directly or in¬ directly through the agency of the various senses. Within this “wave of conscious¬ ness” are presented all of the experiences which together make up the drama of life of the individual. While consciousness may not be defined (except in terms of itself), it may be described. To other individuals this “inner life” of each individual is non-perceptual, but may — in the case of man — be described through language or other physical expression. To the fact of its non-perceptuality to others is due the “seeming unreality of the inner life.” All the “data” of science are data of conscious experience. The “experiences” of the individual fall into two chief classes : (a) Those experiences which appear as manifestations of the properties of matter and which may be described or interpreted in terms of matter in motion — spatial phe¬ nomena. (&) Those experiences such as emotions which do not have spatial attributes — non- spatial phenomena. But consciousness — the psychical aspect of the individual — is not merely a string of sequential “moments” of consciousness. Its most essential characteristic is its pur¬ poseful unity. There is something which unifies, relates and orders the states of con¬ sciousness in each individual. This “some¬ thing” — the “Ego” or “Will” — is able to dislocate in time the order of sequence of past experiences. Although mind and body — the physical and psychical — are distinguishable in thought, there is no scientific evidence that they are separate in reality. The laws of sequential causation apply to mental states just as to physical ones. Mental processes are among the most reliable phenomena in Nature (Glaser, ’12). The problem of vitalism is : How are we to interpret the behavior of this psycho¬ physical individual? Two historical answers have been given to the scientific problem of vitalism — (1) the answer of mechanism; (2) the answer of vitalism. 1. The Mechanistic Interpretation of In¬ dividuality. — Mechanism is the doctrine that all phenomena — living and lifeless — are manifestations of the properties of mat¬ ter in motion. According to mechanism, sequential physical causation is universal and involves only those forms of energy recognized by physics and chemistry. Such sequences may be either (a) mechanical or reversible, like those of machines; or, (&) physical or non-reversible, like the radia¬ tion of heat. According to mechanism, all vital sequences conform to one or the other of these two types. Individual behavior is — directly or indirectly — the expression of the energy liberated during the chemical process of metabolism. Mechanism recog¬ nizes no alien influx or interference of “souls” or “entelechies” in the endless series of physical sequences. If we let B represent the body (physical individual), and ( w ) represent the mechan¬ istic view of will (consciousness) as an epiphenomenon, the mechanistic formula of the individual is B(w). 2. The Vitalistic Interpretation of In¬ dividuality. — According to vitalism the me¬ chanistic formula is inadequate to nature and to life. In the living body — at least in the case of man — sequential causation in¬ volves another factor or agency than those recognized by chemists and physicists. This non-physical (non-spatial) “vital¬ istic” agency modifies the behavior of the living organism so that, from a knowledge of the physical conditions only, “it would be impossible to predict what will happen under any given set of physical condi¬ tions.” According to vitalism, the will or 84 SCIENCE [N. S. VOL. XLIY. No. 1125 other vitalistic agency “so interacts with physical conditions as to give a physical result that is diverse from the result that would he produced under the same ante¬ cedent conditions without consciousness” (Jennings). According to vitalism the formula for the organic individual is either (a) the dualistic formula W -f- B (W represent¬ ing the will or vitalistic agency, and B the body or physical aspect of individuality) ; or, (&) the idealistic formula W (5) ( W representing the will or vitalistic agency, and (5) the phenomenal body). The divergence between the mechanistic and the vitalistic interpretation of individ¬ uality is, therefore, very great, constituting in fact “the greatest schism in human thought. ” “ The vitalist sees in individual¬ ity — personality or the self — a coordinating center and synthetic activity contrasted with all other agencies in nature — a real creative power. While the mechanist sees only what he sees in any other receptive object, a center where many forces cross, checking, intensifying, neutralizing or transforming one another without loss or addition” (Palmer, ’ll). Which of these two interpretations are we to accept? Are the two views wholly irreconcilable? Is the problem of individ¬ uality, after all, an insoluble one? Opinions differ. The literature is vol¬ uminous, for this is the problem of the ages. Wholly unprejudiced discussion is rare. Among scientific men the cause of vitalism has suffered because of its associa¬ tion historically with theological dualism, while on the other hand many vitalists have opposed mechanism upon the mistaken belief that mechanism is identical with — • or demands the postulate of — philosophical materialism. Among the divergent views expressed, a few may be mentioned which are indicative of the trend of present opinion concerning the problem of individuality — the problem of vitalism and mechanism. Professor L. J. Henderson finds that the discussion of the vitalistic problem has led to the following dilemma : Assertion 1. — Common sense — as repre¬ sented by those who make a study of the movements of physical bodies — leads to the conclusion that all physical events are sub¬ ject to the laws of physical causation. Assertion 2. — Common sense — as repre¬ sented by those who make a study of the behavior of men in history — leads to the conclusion that some physical events are not subject to the laws of physical causa¬ tion alone, but that will or caprice has af¬ fected the course of historical events. Now since both assertions appear to be equally valid in common sense experience, and as both opinions can not be true at the same time, and as there seems to be no im¬ mediate prospect of their reconciliation, Professor Henderson turns away his atten¬ tion to more promising lines of investigation. William MacDougall (’ll) discovers the same dilemma. On the ground, however, that the issues involved are too important to admit of neutrality, he casts in his lot with the vitalists. His book on “Body and Mind” is a strong defense of the vitalistic thesis. Other recent valuable contributions to the formulation and elucidation of the vitalistic problem have been made by Ward (’03), Driesch (’14), Biitschli (’01), Palmer (’ll), Bergson (’ll), Jennings (’14), Lovejoy (’09), Spaulding (’09), Sumner (’10), Woodruff (’ll), Bitter (’ll), Glaser (’12), E. McDougall (’13), R. S. Lillie (’14), A. J. Balfour (’79), Stout (’05),. Lloyd Morgan (’05), Paulsen (’95), Hoffding (’05), Haldane (’08), Ladd (’09), Bosanquet (’12), Strong (’03), Conklin (’15), Loeb (’ll), James (’07). July 21, 1916] SCIENCE 85 Jennings (’14, p. 20), taking np the problem as a scientific problem by the method of radically experimental analysis, reaches the following conclusion: The phenomena of life require nowhere the dif¬ ferential action of a non-physical agent. Their occurrence is bound up throughout with that of physical and material phenomena. Diversities in them are determined by antecedent physical and material diversities. They show, therefore, the same type of relations to each other, to physical conditions, and to matter, as do the phenomena called physical. But they include phenomena not found in the non-living, and therefore to be known only through study of the living. Such is con¬ scious individuality, the highest manifestation from the interwoven tissue that makes up the ex¬ perienced universe. That is to say, Jennings comes to the con¬ clusion that the problem of vitalism has no experimental meaning. With this opinion presumably the majority of biologists will agree. Is this, then, the final answer of science (physical science) to the problem of the ages? Is the case of Vitalism vs. Mechan¬ ism closed and the verdict rendered in be¬ half of the defendant? Will the vitalist accept the verdict? We may anticipate that he will not, if we are to judge on the basis of past experience. In the past when verdicts have been rendered against him — as in the Vital Spirits Case, the Urea Case, the Vital Force Case, etc., he has always shifted his ground, and although defeated in every trial, he has always been able to secure a rehearing of his case in the same court — the court of physical science. Will he do so now ? I am of the opinion that he will. But on what grounds can he make an ap¬ peal ? He can scarcely convince a scientific jury that his case has not been heard in all fairness and impartiality upon the basis of the premises made. He may not fairly claim that the experimental and analytical logical methods have been inadequate or in¬ conclusive. So far as I can see, his only chance of securing a rehearing at the court of science or in the higher court of philos¬ ophy (as suggested by Professor Thomp¬ son, ’ll) would be to demonstrate that the fundamental postulates upon which his case has been previously tried have been in error, and that the conclusions reached have been based on false premises. On this ground there would seem to be sufficient justification for taking his case to the higher court of philosophy, which has juris¬ diction over matters relating to funda¬ mental postulates. If, then, the vitalist can show that his case has been prejudiced by the philosoph¬ ical assumptions made in previous trials, if it must be admitted that it makes a differ¬ ence to the case of the vitalist whether it be based upon materialistic, or dualistic or idealistic postulates, and if it can be shown that the basis upon which the case has been tried has not been the only possible basis upon which it might be tried and that, in fact, it has been tried upon a wholly false basis, then the vitalist is justified in de¬ manding a rehearing in the higher court of philosophy, which has jurisdiction over such cases. Such considerations are, I infer, the reasons for the selection of this morning’s topic. And if the outcome of the discussion be the decision that the case of vitalism has been prejudiced in the past by the false premises made by the attor¬ neys who have handled the case in the court of science, then in all fairness the vitalist should be granted the rehearing he now demands. It has been frequently assumed in the discussion of vitalism by scientific writers that the formula of mechanism is adequate to experience. This, for example, appears to be the assumption which underlies the argument of Jennings (’14). Shall this assumption pass unchallenged? Certainly 86 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1125 not by the vitalist. He has challenged it again and again, holding that it is not justified in experience. This is the argu¬ ment of the vitalist in brief : He asserts : The case of vitalism is not one to be tried in the court of physical science, for it does not come within the jurisdiction of that court, since the mechanistic formula is in¬ adequate to life. For Physical science treats of only a part of human experience — viz., that part of hu¬ man experience having spatial attributes, or which may be interpreted in terms of matter in motion. But human experience includes phenom¬ ena without spatial attributes — phenomena which may not be interpreted in terms of matter in motion. This is recognized by the division of the sciences into the physical sciences, which deal with those phenomena having spatial attributes (or which are the manifestations of the attributes of matter in motion) ; and the mental sciences — psychol¬ ogy and philosophy and ethics — which deal more especially with non-spatial experi¬ ence. But individuality (human personal¬ ity) includes both classes of phenomena. The court of physical science, therefore, in trying the case of individuality is dealing with one which does not strictly come within its jurisdiction. Hence, vitalism — the case of personality — now appeals to the higher court of philosophy which tries cases relating to the fundamental postulates of both mental and physical sciences. But is the vitalist justified in his asser¬ tion that physical science — mechanism — is inadequate to experience? Here there is decided difference of opinion. Dr. Jen¬ nings supports the “mechanistic dogma” of the universal applicability of mechan¬ istic interpretation. For he says ( ’14, pp. 6-5) that mechanism is a “purely descrip¬ tive account of what is found to hold in ex¬ perience.” “There is no ground, theoret¬ ical or practical, for limiting scientific treatment to diversities of any particular kind (as diversities of motion),” that, in other words, the field of physical science includes the entire field of human experi¬ ence. “Mechanism,” therefore, is ade¬ quate to nature and to individuality. Con¬ sequently, if this position be taken, there would appear to be no reason for continu¬ ing the case of vitalism further. I am unable to discover that any consid¬ erable number of psychologists accept Dr. Jennings’s assumption. On the contrary, the great majority seem to agree with Pro¬ fessor Ladd when he says ( ’09, p. 884) : Thinking and the cognitive judgment can never be explained — and, indeed, the facts can not even be stated — in terms of either neururgics or the mechanism of presentations. In other words, there is doubt that psy¬ chologists would accept the assumption of Jennings of the adequacy of mechanism to experience. For the same reason, his further assumption — underlying his whole argument — that “every diversity in con¬ scious states is accompanied by a diversity in physical conditions” may be challenged as far transcending our present knowledge. The vitalist may call attention to the fact that Dr. Jennings assumes as the basis of his argument the very point under discus¬ sion— the question in litigation— viz., the adequacy of the mechanistic formula. But I am of the opinion that the vitalist has the best of reasons for appealing his case to a higher court on the ground that the basic philosophical assumptions upon which his case has been argued have preju¬ diced the case against him and have been philosophically unsound. For all who have discussed the case of vitalism in re¬ lation to individuality (personality) have made implicitly or explicitly philosophical assumptions. Indeed, the problem of the psycho-physical individual can not be dis- July 21, 1916] SCIENCE 87 cussed otherwise. W. MacDougall (’ll) argues the case for vitalism on the basis of philosophical dualism. The dualistic as¬ sumption appears to underlie the ‘ ‘ common sense” argument advanced by Professor Henderson. James Ward (’03) advocates the case of vitalism on the basis of a critical idealism (spiritualism). That Jennings (’14, p. 18) accepts the postulate of materialism is clear from his assertion that “when the set of phenomena we call matter reaches a certain complexity, it gives rise to this particular manifestation that we call personality.” In other words, unconscious matter in the course of evolu¬ tion produced consciousness. Before this stage of material evolution consciousness did not exist — there was no consciousness. Matter exists before mind, but later gives rise to consciousness as a quality of an underlying substance. The real thing then is matter which indeed once existed inde¬ pendently of any consciousness at all. Whether there were any consciousness or not, matter would still persist. The real organic individual is the physical individ-* ual, and all its qualities — psychical and other — are manifestations of this basic ma¬ terial body. This tacit assumption was presumably behind the declination of Jen¬ nings ( ’14) to accept the two classes of con¬ scious experience mentioned above. Is the materialistic assumption lion- valid? Does its postulation by Jennings prejudice the case of vitalism? Is the case of vitalism “ruled out of court” and com¬ pletely subverted if the materialistic pos¬ tulate is admitted? Unquestionably it is. For materialism (philosophical, not scien¬ tific) is the one philosophy with which vital¬ ism is wholly irreconcilable. To assume it, therefore, is to deny vitalism (neo-vitalism). The case doesn’t have to be tried at all. But the whole contest which has been waged by vitalism has been against materialism. In opposing mechanism the vitalist has been “barking up the wrong tree.” His mistake has been due to the inexcusable identification of mechanism with philo¬ sophical materialism. Vitalism has no real issue with mechanism — not at least with mechanism as a scientific method of inter¬ pretation of spatialized phenomena. But with philosophical materialism as a postu¬ late of science the vitalist may for the best of reasons take issue. Therefore, as Paul appealed to Csesar and to the higher court of Rome, the vitalist may with justice ask for a continuation of his case in the higher court of philosophy. What then is the philosophical standing- of the materialistic postulate ? What really is basic to individuality (human personal¬ ity) ? Of what are we more certain — of an external world independent of conscious¬ ness and consisting of atoms or electrons in motion, or of a world of ideas, of purposes and of emotions? We therefore are com¬ pelled to consider the philosophical prob¬ lem of reality and the case of vitalism be¬ comes in the higher court of philosophy the Case of Idealism (or Dualism) vs. Mate¬ rialism. To this, the second point of the topic under discussion, we may now turn our attention. II. THE PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM OF INDIVID¬ UALITY — IDEALISM (OR DUALISM) VS. MATERIALISM The problem which is now before us is the central problem of philosophy — the prob¬ lem of reality. Is the materialist correct in holding that the organic individual (human personality) is in reality an aggregate of atoms or electrons which might exist inde¬ pendently of consciousness? Is, therefore, the formula for the individual B(w)1 Is the dualistic philosopher correct in as¬ serting that the individual consists of two realities — body and mind — which are not only distinguishable in thought, but also separate in reality, although united tern- 88 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1125 porarily in human individuality ? Is, there¬ fore, the formula for the individual B -f- Wf Or is the idealist correct in maintaining that the individual is in reality spiritual — a Will or “Ego” with physical manifesta¬ tions ? Is the body of the organism an ideal (though none the less real) body — a mech¬ anism through the agency of which the will or Ego operates? Is, therefore, the formula of individuality W (b) ? Upon the answer given to these questions by the philosopher will depend the future standing of vitalism in science. The considerations which have led most philosophers and many men eminent in sci¬ ence to repudiate the materialistic assump¬ tion and to conclude that in ultimate anal¬ ysis and in reality our world and the indi¬ vidual is spiritual are in brief as follows : In the first place, the data of science are phenomena in consciousness. For any¬ thing to be outside of consciousness, there¬ fore, is to be unknown, and hence outside of the field of science which deals with the known. To postulate an external world of atoms and electrons independent of — or outside of — consciousness is to postulate an unknowable world — a metaphysical world. It is a wholly erroneous notion that this conclusion of philosophy involves the denial of an external world — the ‘ ‘ permanent pos¬ sibility of sensation.” There is indeed — to the idealist not less than to the realist — an external world which is the cause of our ideas. But this external world of ours must be a world of ideas — that is, if it is like our ideas as we believe it is. But if the objects in this external world are like our ideas, then they must be ideas. Therefore, “either the real external world is a world of ideas — an outer world of mind which each of us may in a measure comprehend through experience, or — so far as it is ex¬ ternal and real — it is wholly unknowable” (Royce, ’92). “It was Berkeley,” says Lloyd Morgan (’05), “who knocked the bottom out of materialism as a philosophy so that no amount of tinkering can make it again hold water. ’ ’ Materialism, therefore, as a philosophy, has long been in disrepute among philosophers. It is, therefore, almost incomprehensible why an outworn and dis¬ carded philosophy should be made the basis of a scientific discussion of the problem of individuality. Are we to assume that “one assumption is just as good as an¬ other” and that it is impossible to distin¬ guish between true and false assumptions? Does it not matter to us whether our basic assumptions are philosophically sound or not? Are the conclusions reached by mod¬ ern philosophy of no concern to the biol¬ ogist in the discussion of the problem of individuality ? The acceptance of the materialistic postu¬ late by scientific men notwithstanding its philosophical disrepute appears to be due in part to the confusion of philosophical with scientific materialism, and in part to the strong prejudice against philosophical views owing to the excesses of philosophers dur¬ ing the romantic period. The combination 9 of this prejudice with that against philos¬ ophy as the “handmaid” of religion makes it to-day almost impossible for philosophical arguments to receive a fair hearing in the court of physical science. How in the his¬ tory of human thought the mechanistic in¬ terpretation of the phenomena of the exter¬ nal world became gradually transformed into a philosophy of life may best be under¬ stood by a brief statement of its genesis in the thought of the individual. The untrained person considers the world to be just about what his senses tell him it is. Later, however, he learns to distinguish between an internal reality and an “exter¬ nal” reality and he finally comes to ask, “How much can I know of external real¬ ity?” He soon learns that all he can know July 21, 1916] SCIENCE 89 of the “external” world must be acquired through the senses, i. e., through the physio¬ logical-psychological process. This process involves three steps: (1) The stimulus (the object in the external world) ; (2) The nerve disturbance (caused by the stimulus) ; (3) The sensation or sense impression (the result of the nerve disturbance). Through the discoveries of the chemist and the physi¬ cist he learns that all of the phenomena of the external world may be reduced to or expressed in terms of atoms or electrons in motion, rapidly in gases, less so in liquids and still less so in solids; that all chemical change involves a rearrangement of atoms, and finally that all forms of energy depend on the rapid movement of atoms. More¬ over, the physiologist assures him that these assertions hold true for the living as ■well as for the lifeless. Thus the physical (external) universe appears to be a uni¬ verse of atoms or electrons in motion. Up to this point in his thinking our hy¬ pothetical friend has been standing on per¬ fectly sound ice. With his conclusion there is not the slightest reason to disagree. This — the mechanistic interpretation of the physical universe — is the accepted interpre¬ tation of our generation. Its validity as a scientific hypothesis stands unchallenged. There is no reason whatever to believe that in principle it will ever be overthrown. The mechanist gets on very thin and very treacherous ice (where the philosopher is unable to follow him) when he infers that when electrons come together in certain propositions and under certain conditions consciousness would be the result. Thus he might reach the conclusion of the material¬ ist that whether there were any conscious¬ ness at all, the dance of atoms and the mate¬ rial universe would go on just the same. The universe, then, he concludes, is in real¬ ity a universe of atoms and electrons inde¬ pendent of consciousness. Some such proc¬ ess of reasoning as this appears to be the usual method of the transformation of the mechanistic thinker into a materialistic philosopher. The considerations which ap¬ pear to invalidate his conclusion have al¬ ready been stated above. The disproof of materialism (as a philos¬ ophy — not as a working scientific hypoth¬ esis) is at the same time the argument ad¬ duced in support of philosophical idealism (spiritualism), the status of which is so unquestioned that it has become the domi¬ nant philosophy of the twentieth century. Many scientific investigators impressed by its logical soundness have adopted it as the basis of their thought and of their interpre¬ tation of nature and of life. That the world of science is withal a world of ideas has been appreciated by scientific thinkers scarcely less than by philosophers. “Our one certainty is the existence of the mental world,” writes Huxley. “Ego is the only reality and everything else is only Ego’s idea,” says Charles Sedgwick Minot. “The sole real¬ ity that we are able to discover in the world is mind,” says Verworn. “Our world is after all a world of individual conscious¬ ness and ideas,” says Crampton. “The field of science is essentially the contents of the mind, ’ ’ says Karl Pearson. 1 ‘ The world of knowledge is of such stuff as ideas are made of,” writes Josiah Royce. Thus the basis of modern critical ideal¬ ism is so sound that its position has come to be regarded as impregnable, and the argu¬ ments now used against it are not 'directed at its foundations, but at certain supposed logical consequences of its acceptance. Many of the arguments raised against crit¬ ical idealism are based on misunderstand¬ ing. One of these is the erroneous inference that idealism is subversive of a mechanistic interpretation of the physical universe. To hear some of the arguments used against it 90 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1125 one would think that ^neither philosophy nor theology had advanced during the develop¬ ment of human thought. Idealism is not a doctrine of those who “wish to lay the in¬ tellect to rest on a pillow of obscure ideas, ’ ’ nor is it an attempt to undermine mechan¬ istic hypotheses. Many of the objections are made by those who confuse modern crit¬ ical idealism with solipsism or subjective idealism. The limits of this paper do not admit the presentation of these objections and their rebuttal. I search in vain, how¬ ever, for a real, valid, scientific objection to the postulate of modern critical idealism. That it is the dominant philosophy of our generation has already been asserted. I shall not attempt to discuss the dual- istic postulate, since it has little standing among philosophers and none at all among men of science — except upon such illogical grounds as even scientific men are capable. The dualistic hypothesis, therefore, doesn’t interest us. But if one were compelled to choose between the postulate of dualism and that of materialism the adoption of the former would appear to be far more ra¬ tional. It is well recognized that epiphenomenal- ism is but thinly disguised materialism and the arguments against the latter apply equally against the former. Of epiphenom- enalism Minot (’02, p. 3) says: An epiphenomenon is something superimposed upon the actual phenomena having no causal rela¬ tion to the further development of the process. There is no idea at all underneath the epiphenome¬ non hypothesis of consciousness. The hypothesis is simply an empty phrase, a subterfuge — which amounts to this — we can explain consciousness very easily by merely assuming that it does not re¬ quire to be explained at all. Says W. McDougall (’ll, p. 150) : Epiphenomenalism, though it may perhaps be consistent with the law of the conservation of energy, offends against a law that has a much stronger claim to universality, namely the law of causation itself; for it assumes that a physical process, say a molecular movement of the brain, causes a sensation, but does so without the cause passing over in any degree into the effect, with¬ out the cause spending itself in any degree in the production of the effect, namely, the sensation. Consequently, in our discussion of the problem of individuality, we are compelled, I believe, to make our choice between philo¬ sophical materialism and idealism (spir¬ itualism), that is to say, between mind and matter (independent of mind) as the basis of individuality. Our choice is to be made between a postulate which is philosophically disreputable and one which has been ac¬ cepted by the great philosophers of recent times from Berkeley and Kant to Emer¬ son, Royce and James; between the assump¬ tion of a wholly unknowable and metaphys¬ ical wrorld and the indisputable assumption that our one surest reality is consciousness ; between the Haeckelian riddle and the as¬ sumption that our world has moral and spiritual meaning; between a wrorld in which the wrnrds and gestures of every indi¬ vidual “would have been just what they have been, the same empires vrould have risen and fallen, the same masterpieces of music and poetry would have been pro¬ duced, the same indications of friendship and affection would have been given in the absence of consciousness” (C. Lloyd Mor¬ gan, ’05), and the “common sense” view of the historian that human motives and purposes have affected the course of human events; between a fatalistic vmrld of illu¬ sion, on the one hand, and a world in which choices are real and ideals count; between an assumption which renders untenable the great human ideas of God, freedom and im¬ mortality and one which gives these unques¬ tionable validity. That modern philosophy has repudiated the materialistic postulate is not surprising in the light of the considerations presented above. Its adoption by biologists as the July 21, 1916] SCIENCE 91 basis of their interpretation of personality and of life is incomprehensible unless it be assumed that biologists are strongly prej¬ udiced against the idealistic philosophy through misunderstanding. But, since the materialistic postulate is not only philosoph¬ ically unsound and wholly unnecessary for any ends which the mechanist has in view, and since it is metaphysical, unscientific and irrational — wholly inconsistent with the lives of those who make it, as Conklin ( ’15) has said — biologists must reject it and ac¬ cept the idealistic assumption as modern philosophy has done. We need to bring back our scientific postulates to the touch¬ stone of fact. Our biological premises have been too narrow. We live in a larger scheme of things than mechanism has been able to discover. There is more in life than is dreamed of in the materialistic philos¬ ophy. The world of space and time, of physical cause and effect, matter and finite mind is but a very subordinate part of reality (Eoyce). The way out of the blind alley into which materialism has led us is, as D. G. Brinton has said, “not by the assumption of an entity apart from attributes; but by the indisputable truth that the laws of mechan¬ ics and motion themselves are in final anal¬ ysis nothing else but laws of thought of the reasoning mind, and derive their first and only warrant from the higher reality of that mind. ’ ’ In the light of such considerations and in view of the fact that the materialistic pos¬ tulate has usually been the basis of the bio¬ logical discussion of the problem of individ¬ uality, and in view of the fact that upon the materialistic assumption the vitalistic interpretation of life is wholly excluded and therefore has no experimental meaning, the vitalist seems not unreasonable in his de¬ mand for a rehearing of' his case upon an idealistic basis. For, upon this basis, the possibility of a vitalistic interpretation is not excluded as it actually is upon the materialistic basis. Upon the idealistic premise the possibility is open that not all of individuality (personality) is spatially expressed, that is to say, mechanized. In other words, upon this assumption the con¬ tention of the vitalist may be valid — viz., that from a knowledge of the physical con¬ ditions alone “it would be impossible to predict what will happen under any given set of physical conditions.” The case of the vitalist depends wholly upon the overthrow of philosophical materialism. The problem of vitalism has thus become a philosophical one. Many of the arguments used by vitalists do not appeal to the writer as intrinsically sound. I fully agree with R. S. Lillie ( ’14) and 0. Glaser (’12) that the argument of the insufficiency of mechanism to “explain” everything has been much overworked. And yet there are a few considerations of this sort which seem to me to have some weight. Of these I will mention only two. The first is the difficulty of explaining the synthetic activity of’ the conscious mind on the basis of brain structure. One of the greatest weaknesses of mechanism in the field of physiological psychology is the lack of appreciation of the synthetic and corre¬ lating activity of human consciousness (will). The other difficulty relates to the phylo¬ genesis of the rational human individual. Is it possible for us to believe that a chaos has become a cosmos without th’e effective cooperation of a directive intelligence or will? Is it possible to believe on rational grounds that a material universe devoid of mind has produced a mind capable of judging mechanism? Says J. J. Putnam: If this were true it would seem possible for a man to lift himself by his boot-straps. But if it be impossible for mechanism (unguided by in- 92 SCIENCE [N. S. VOL. XLIV. No. 1125 telligence) to produce the mind of a person capa¬ ble of judging mechanism, it is clear that mechan¬ ism has not been the only principle at work in the evolutionary process. If Dr. Putnam’s contention is sound, it becomes possible to understand the point of view of the modern theologian when he says: Never yet has something come out of nothing. Never yet has order arisen out of confusion or light out of darkness as a result of anything other than personality. Force, law, life and achievement carry the mind irresistibly to the supreme will, to the supreme life, to the personality of God. A universe teeming with mind, fired within and stamped without with intelligence is the attesta¬ tion of the living God. God is the meaning of the universe (Gordon, ’10). The acceptance of the idealistic postulate and of the point of view of the neo-vitalist make it possible to understand Dr. Gordon when he says further : Behind all human achievement we see the crea¬ tive spirit at work. Back of all achievement in literature we see the personality of Homer and yEschylus, Dante, Goethe and Shakespeare. Be¬ hind the achievements of the race in art we see the personality of Praxiteles, Raphael and Michael Angelo. For the entire high achievement of the race there is no explanation but the creative spirit of human personality. In our contemplation of nature and in our attempt to comprehend it we need to carry with us the sense of creation. The universe is the supreme achievement. Behind this achievement is the infinite soul and as our human world is a living and expanding achieve¬ ment, we must conclude that within it is the crea¬ tive spirit of God. That scientific men occasionally catch a glimpse of the theological viewpoint seems borne out by the following quotations: There is a wider teleology which is not touched by the doctrine of evolution, but is actually based upon the fundamental proposition of evolution (Huxley). We are beginning to see the ascent of the Ideal of evolution. Thus biological science must indeed become the handmaid of religion (Thomson and Geddes). Supposing that in youth we had been impreg¬ nated with the notion of the poet Goethe, instead of the notion of the poet Young, looking at mat¬ ter not as brute matter, but as the living gar¬ ment of God, is it not probable that our repug¬ nance to the idea of the primeval union between spirit and matter might be considerably abated® (Tyndall). I see everywhere the inevitable expression of the Infinite in the world (Louis Pasteur). In whatever direction we pursue our researches, whether in time or space, we discover everywhere the clear proofs of a Creative Intelligence (Sir Charles Lyell). We are unmistakably shown through nature that she depends upon one ever-acting Creator and Ruler (Lord Kelvin). I can not imagine the possibility of any one with ordinary intelligence entertaining the least doubt of the existence of a God (William Crookes). Matter and energy have an original property, as¬ suredly not by chance, which organizes the uni¬ verse in space and time. ... If life has originated by an evolutionary process from dead matter, that is surely the crowning and most wonderful in¬ stance of teleology in the universe (L. J. Hender¬ son). If then for the reasons advanced we are to accept the idealistic postulate as the basis of our discussion of individuality, what will be the elfect upon the mechanistic interpretation? How wide is the sphere of the mechanist? Just as wide as he used to think before he converted a method of investigation into a complete philosophy and interpretation of life. Most of our lives are mechanistic as we have always be¬ lieved them to be. A large part of that which is not mechanistic is deterministic. For we are bound by heredity, hormones and habit. Such limitation — such determinism— is the essential condition, as Palmer (’ll) has well said, of that little measure of vitalistic freedom which we actually enjoy. The laws of determinism rule our lives more than the vitalist has been willing to believe. But we are free to choose between two alter¬ native lines of necessity and to that extent at least our fates are in our own hands. July 21, 1916] SCIENCE 93 The study of animal behavior justifies the inference that consciousness is effective in them as in man. But to a far greater de¬ gree are their lives mechanized. Those of plants appear to be wholly so, whatever they may once have been. I have made this plea for a rehearing of the case of the vitalist, knowing full well that his is not a popular cause among my scientific colleagues. The reasons why I have done so have been presented. No one realizes more than I the liability of error involved, for I am far from familiar fields of investigation. If I am in error, past ex¬ perience has taught me that the error will soon be discovered and pointed out by those with whom I differ, and the truth which we all seek will be advanced. But by no means should men of science play the part of the theologians of the fifties. The spirit of science is not dog¬ matic. And yet extremes meet and some¬ times the spirit of the twentieth-century scientist matches that of the theological dogmatist of the nineteenth. For when Minot ( ’02) maintained the thesis that con¬ sciousness must have been a factor in evo¬ lution his paper aroused such bitter oppo¬ sition that one scientific colleague, who by his prejudices was wholly incapable of ap¬ preciating the fundamental strength of Minot’s position, had his copy of Science bound mutilated by leaving out the num¬ ber containing Dr. Minot’s address. He did this on the ground that as a friend of Dr. Minot’s he did not wish to perpetuate a paper which would undermine Dr. Minot’s reputation as a scientific man. The objectionable thesis of Minot’s was as follows : It seems to me inconceivable that the evolution of animals should have taken place as it actually has taken place unless consciousness is a real fac¬ tor and dominant. Accordingly I hold that it actually affects the vital processes. There is, in my judgment, no possibility of avoiding the conclusion that consciousness stands in immediate causal re¬ lations with physiological processes. To say this is to abide by the facts, as at present known to us, and with the facts our conceptions must be made to accord. In justice to the zoologist who did what he could to obliterate all traces of Dr. Minot’s paper, it is only fair to say that science has every reason on the basis of ex¬ perience to regard such ‘ ‘ vitalistic ” views as “dangerous” from the standpoint of mechanism, because of the constant tempta¬ tion to pass in explanation over into the psychological field — in other words, to re¬ vert to primitive modes of explanation. Therefore, to the person under discussion Dr. Minot may have seemed indeed a traitor to science. But this is, I am sure, a most exceptional case, and quite anachronous. The spirit of the scientist is not the intolerant spirit of the partisan. Every biologist may be ex¬ pected to treat the cause of the vitalist as if it were his own cause and grant him the rehearing in the court of philosophy which he now demands. In the discussion of this problem as believers in the scientific method it is our duty to set forth “that calm, fair- minded, tolerant spirit” which has charac¬ terized the thought of scientific men in the past. This — the scientific — spirit means, as President Vincent has said: an attitude of open-mindedness towards all truth; a determination to get all the essential facts be¬ fore forming a judgment; a willingness to aban¬ don a position when it is no longer intellectually tenable; a tolerance of the opinions of others which are to be accounted for rather tha;i derided or denounced. This spirit is free from acrimony, blind partizanship and prejudice — the spirit which seeks the truth which makes men free. If, then, the question of vitalism is to be discussed at all in our classrooms — I know of none where this interminable problem is not mentioned — and, if because of con¬ science’s sake we are unable to accept the postulate of idealism, we may nevertheless 94 SCIENCE [N. S. You XLIY. No. 1125 give the question fair, impartial and scien¬ tific treatment. Such treatment, I am com¬ pelled to believe, can not be given without full consideration of the basic principles upon which the discussion has been based. Adequate treatment it can not receive upon the materialistic assumption only. For, as has been shown above, the adoption of this postulate begs the whole question under discussion and precludes the possi¬ bility of a vitalistic interpretation of in¬ dividuality. Therefore, if we must adopt this postulate for ourselves, we ought at least to present the problem as viewed from the standpoint of idealism which clearly admits of the possibility of the vitalistic interpretation, and give our reasons for the rejection of the idealistic assumption. Moreover, failure to set forth the implica¬ tions which grow out of the acceptance of materialism or idealism would appear to mean the omission of considerations of great importance bearing on the question. But above all let us rid our minds of the wholly erroneous notion that the cause of mechanism demands the postulate of philo¬ sophical materialism; and, in case we are vitalists, let us free ourselves for the equally fallacious belief that the mechanistic inter¬ pretation of the physical aspect of individ¬ uality is irreconcilable with the vitalistic interpretation of life as a whole. Like the Darwinian and Lamarckian hypotheses the mechanistic and vitalistic hypotheses are complementary and not irreconcilable interpretations of individuality. The general purport of this paper, there¬ fore, is well expressed in the words of Pro¬ fessor H. W. Rand (’12, p. 850) : Science will never solve its problems — at most, it will never do more than think it has solved them — unless it constantly realizes its own limitations and unless it frequently assures itself of the se¬ curity of its foundations. Now, perhaps more than at any other time, the natural scientist stands in need of help which may well come from the philosopher. Is it not timely to raise the question as to the validity of the assumptions upon which science rests and the integrity of the methods by which we attempt to progress? Says Rogers ( ’09) : It is no unusual thing for human reason to complete its speculative edifice in such haste that it forgets to look to the stability of the foundation. SUMMARY A. The Scientific Problem of Individual¬ ity Vitalism vs. Mechanism. — As formu¬ lated by Jennings (’14, p. 17) the problem reads : Is individuality a phenomenon not determined by the perceptual conditions, but requiring to ac¬ count for it the agency of a non-pereeptual agent? There are two historical answers : 1. The Thesis of Vitalism. — That “in¬ dividuality is a phenomenon not determined by the perceptual conditions only.” 2. The Thesis of Mechanism. — That “in¬ dividuality is a phenomenon determined by the perceptual conditions only.” 1. The Argument of Vitalism is based on the assumption that either: (a) The organic individual is in reality monistic, spiritual, a “Will” of “Ego” having material (bodily) manifestations, integrated and individualized not only by a central nervous system and by hormones, but (in the case of human individuality) by a “Will,” also. “Will” is the unique characteristic of the individual (personal¬ ity) ; The formula for the individual is : W ( b ) ; or, as some vitalists assume, (b) The individual is in reality dual- istic, a united will and body. The dualistic formula for the individual is : W -f- B. The vitalist concludes that in¬ dividuality (personality) is a phenomenon not determined by the perceptual conditions alone, but requiring to account for it the agency of a non-perceptual agent. 2. The Argument of Mechanism is based upon the assumption that: July 21, 1916] SCIENCE 95 The organic individual is in reality mon¬ istic and material — a body with epiphe- nomenal mental manifestations. Unity is effected by means of a central nervous sys¬ tem and hormones uninfluenced by a “Will.” The formula for the individual is B (iv). The mechanist concludes that individual¬ ity (personality) is a phenomenon deter¬ mined by the perceptual conditions alone. Now, since obviously the conclusion of vitalist and mechanist is not logically de¬ duced, but simply restates the fundamental assumption made, and since the conclusion, therefore, is true only if the assumption is true, and, since the truth of the assumption is a philosophical problem. The Case of Vitalism vs. Mechanism must now be carried to the higher court of philosophy, which has jurisdiction over such cases. We are therefore compelled to take up — B. The Philosophical Problem of Indi¬ viduality — Idealism ( Spiritualism ) vs. Ma¬ terialism. — What in reality is the basis of individuality in organisms ? Is the individ¬ ual a material body of various properties, and nothing more? Is the basic principle of life spiritual, or material, in reality? 1. The basic assumption of mechanism (materialism) is, that — The individual (human personality) is in reality monistic and material, a body with epiphenomenal mental manifestations, and that individual¬ ity is expressed by the formula B(w). Now, since this assumption is found upon analysis by philosophers to be unscientific (unknowable), useless (to the mechanist as well as to others), unnecessary (on logical grounds) and metaphysical, and since it states or interprets the known (i. e., experi¬ ence) in terms of the unknown and know- able (real substance, independent of con¬ sciousness), this materialistic assumption is rejected by modern philosophers. Consequently, if the opinion of experts is to be respected, and if, therefore, we must regard the materialistic assumption as false, then we are compelled to reject the conclusion of the mechanists that an inter¬ pretation of individuality (personality) in mechanistic terms alone is adequate to ex¬ perience. For false premises mean false conclusions. The acceptance of the idealistic (spir¬ itualistic) assumption by modern philos¬ ophers compels us to accept it. It seems necessary, therefore, to conclude that the vitalist is correct in asserting that not all of personality is spatially expressed. In other words, Individuality (personality) is a phenomenon not determined by the perceptual conditions only, but requiring to account for it the agency of a non- perceptual agent. This agent is the ‘ ‘ Ego ” or “ Will. ’ ’ The formula of individuality therefore, is : W(b), and the vitalistic theory “ist noch nicht aus dem Welt geschafft.” And, unless by caprice or prejudice we refuse to trust the opinion of experts and adopt a discredited philosophy as the foun¬ dation of our thought, vitalism will con¬ tinue to be our interpretation of individual¬ ity in organisms, although not, of course, in the mechanistic aspects of individuality. H. V. Neal Tufts College LITERATURE CITED Balfour, A. J. 1879. A Defense of Philosophic Doubt. Balfour, A. J. 1895. The Foundations of Be¬ lief. Longmans. Balfour, A. J. 1914. Theism and Humanism. Doran. Bergson, H. 1911. Creative Evolution. Holt. Bosanquet, B. 1912. The Principle of Individ¬ uality and Value. Brooks, W. K. 1899. The Foundations of Zool¬ ogy. Macmillan. Buetschli, O. 1901. Meehanismus und Vitalis- mus. Leipzig. Conklin, E. G. 1915. Heredity and Environment. Princeton Univ. Press. Crampton, H. E. 1911. The Doctrine of Evolu¬ tion. Columbia Univ. Press. 96 SCIENCE [N. S. Yol. XLIV. No. 1125 DeLaguna, T. 1910. Dogmatism and Evolution. Macmillan. Dendy, A. 1915. Progressive Evolution. Am. Nat., 49. Driesch, H. 1908. Science and Philosophy of the Organism. A. & C. Black. Driesch, H. 1914. The Problem of Individuality. Macmillan. Edinger, L. 1908. Comparative Anatomy and Comparative Psychology. Jour. Comp. Neurol., 18. Glaser, O. 1912. Is a Scientific Explanation of Life Possible? Pop. Sci. Mo., 81. Glaser, O. 1912. Reflections on Autonomy of Biology. Am. Nat., 46. Gordon, G. A. 1910. The Appeal to Caesar. Con- gregationalist, 95. Griggs, E. H. 1908. The New Humanism. Huebsch. Haeckel, E. 1905. The Riddle of the Universe. Harpers. Haldane, J. S. 1908. Presidential Address: “Re¬ ports.” Brit. Asso. Adv. Sci. Henderson, L. J. 1913. The Fitness of the En¬ vironment. Macmillan. Herrick, C. J. 1915. Introspection as a Biolog¬ ical Method? Jour. Phil., Psych, and Sci. Method, 12. Herrick, C. J. 1915. Introduction to Neurology. Saunders. Hoeffding, H. 1905. The Problems of Philos¬ ophy. Macmillan. Holt, etc. 1914. The New Realism. Macmillan. Huxley, J. S. 1912. The Individual. Putnam. Huxley, T. H. 1893. Method and Results. Apple- ton. James, W. 1907. The Energies of Men. Sci¬ ence, 25. Jennings, H. S. 1906. Behavior of Lower Or¬ ganisms. Macmillan. Jennings, H. S. 1913. Doctrines held as Vital¬ ism. Am. Nat., 47. Jennings, H. S., 1914. Life and Matter. Johns Hop. Univ. Circ. 270. Judd, C. H. 1910. Evolution and Consciousness. Psych. Rev., 17. Ladd, G. T. 1909. Review of Marshall’s “Con¬ sciousness.” Science, 30. Ladd, G. T. 1913. The Study of Man. Sci¬ ence, 37. Lang, W. H. 1915. Plant Morphology. Science, 42. Lillie, R. S. 1913. Henderson’s “Fitness of the Environment.” Science, 38. Lillie, R. S. 1914. The Philosophy of Biology. Science, 40. Lillie, R. S. 1915. What is Purposive Behavior? Jour. Phil., Psych, and Sci. Meth., 12. Lodge, O. 1905. Life and Matter. Putnam. Loeb, J. 1900. Comparative Physiology of Brain. Putnam. Loeb, J. 1911. The Mechanistic Conception of Life. Chicago Univ. Press. Lovejoy, A. O. 1909. Review of Driesch ’s Sci¬ ence and Philosophy, etc. Science, 30. Macdougall, R. 1913. Neovitalism, etc. Sci¬ ence, 37. McDougall, W. 1911. Body and Mind. Methuen. Marshall, H. R. 1909. Consciousness. Macmillan. Mast, S. O. 1913. Review of Loeb’s “Mechan¬ istic Conception, etc. ’ ’ Biol. Centralhl., 33. Mast, S. O. 1914. Review of Henderson’s “The Fitness, etc.” Biol. Centralbl., 34. McCabe, J. 1910. The Evolution of Mind. Macmillan. Minot, C. S. 1902. The Problem of Conscious¬ ness. Science, 16. Moore, G. E. 1903. The Refutation of Idealism. Mind, 12. Morgan, C. L. 1905. The Interpretation of Na¬ ture. Macmillan. Morgan, C. L. 1903. Introduction to Compara¬ tive Psychology. Scribners. Morgan, T. H. 1910. Chance or Purpose, etc., Science, 31. Palmer, G. H. 1911. The Problem of Freedom. Houghton, Mifflin. Parker, G. H. 1914. Biology and Social Prob¬ lems. Houghton, Mifflin. Paulsen, F. 1895. Introduction to Philosophy. Holt. Pearson, K. 1892. The Grammar of Science. A. & C. Black. Perry, R. B. 1905. The Approach to Philosophy. Scribners. Putnam, J. J. 1915. Human Motives. Little, Brown. Rand, H. W. 1912. The Problem of Organiza¬ tion. Science, 36. Ritter, W. E. 1909. Life from the Biological Standpoint. Pop. Sci. Mo. Ritter, W. E. 1911. The Controversy between Materialism, etc. Science, 33. Rogers, A. K. 1909. A Student’s History of Philosophy. Macmillan. Royce, J. 1892. The Spirit of Modern Philos¬ ophy. Houghton, Mifflin. Royce, J. 1899. The World and the Individual. Macmillan. Schaefer, E. A. 1912. The Nature, Origin and Maintenance, etc. Science, 36. Schiller, F. C. S. 1907. Studies in Humanism. Macmillan. Shaler, N. S. 1901. The Individual. Appleton. Sherrington, C. S. 1906. The Integrative Action, etc. Constable. Spaulding, E. G. 1909. Review of Driesch ’s “ The ’Science, etc.” Phil. Rev., 18. Stout, G. F. 1905. Things and Sensations. Ox¬ ford. Strong, C. A. 1903. Why the Mind has a Body. Macmillan. Sumner, F. B. 1910. Review of Driesch ’s “The Science, etc.” Jour. Phil., Psych, and Sci. Meth., 7. Thompson, D’A. W. 1911. Magnalia Naturae. Science, 34. Thomson, J. A. 1913. Professor Henri Bergson’s Biology. Proc. Roy. Phys. Soc. Edin., 19. Thomson and Geddes. 1911. Evolution. Holt. Ward, J. 1903. Naturalism and Agnosticism. Macmillan. Warren, H. C. 1914. The Mental and the Phys¬ ical. Psych. Rev., 21. Watson, J. 1907. The Philosophical Basis of Re¬ ligion. Maclehose. July 21, 1916] SCIENCE 97 Wenley, E. M. 1910. Modern Thought and the Crisis, ^tc. Macmillan. Woodbridge, F. J. E. 1906. The Problem of Consciousness in ‘ ‘ Studies in Honor of C. E. Garman. ’ 1 Woodruff, C. E. 1911. Modern Vitalism. New York Med. Jour., Aug. 19, 26. GUSTAV SCHWALBE The death is announced of Professor Doctor Gustav Schwalbe, one of the most distin¬ guished anatomists of Germany, who, estab¬ lished in recent years his leadership in the subject of human anatomy through his broad and profound knowledge of comparative anat¬ omy. His analysis of the human remains of the Lower Paleolithic, beginning with the type Neanderthal skull, resulted in the recognition of Homo neanderthalensis as a distinct species of the human race. This has been followed by many other penetrating studies from which an entirely new system of cranial measurements has been deduced, namely, an internal system which takes account of the proportions of the brain in place of the external system of Brocca and the older anatomists based on the super¬ ficies of the skull. Following the lamented death of Eberhard Fraas, the paleontologist, the loss of Schwalbe will be severely felt in the University of Strassburg. All those who en¬ joyed the pleasure of the acquaintance of this distinguished anatomist and who recall his genial and modest personality will deeply la¬ ment his death. Henry Fairfield Osborn THE RURAL ROADSIDES IN NEW YORK STATE By investigations just completed by the New York State College of Forestry at Syra¬ cuse, it has been found that nine tenths of the roadsides in the rural districts of New York state are entirely void of shade trees. When this is considered along with the fact that last year New York state paid out of the state treasury about $30,000,000 for the con¬ struction and maintenance of roadbeds, it shows that the state is not yet awake to the great need and the great possibilities in rural roadside improvement. The preliminary survey which has just been made by H. R. Francis in charge of the landscape extension work of the College of Forestry, covered nearly 3,000 miles of the main lines of highways passing through such important points as Rochester, Buffalo, James¬ town, Olean, Hornell, Corning, Ithaca, Cort¬ land, Elmira, Binghamton, Oneonta, Kings¬ ton, Hudson, Albany, Schenectady, Glens Falls, Lake Placid, Malone, Potsdam, Water- town, Utica, Rome and Syracuse. During the survey studies were made of such important features in rural roadside im¬ provement and beautification as good and bad varieties of trees found along the highways, views and vistas obtained from the highways, the effects of the shade trees on crops in ad¬ jacent fields, the' possibilities of the covering of barren embankments and the planting of some desirable sort of vegetation where over¬ head wires are in large numbers. One of the principal features studied was the condition of the roadbed as affected by the presence or absence of shade trees. A detailed study of the main state highway east and west between Albany and Buffalo will be made immediately by the State College of Forestry. The observations which have already been made in all sections of the state together with the information obtained by the detailed study will be used as a basis for an educational publication to be issued by the college and distributed very widely to organi¬ zations in the state, such as the automobile clubs, women’s clubs, commercial associations, granges, farm bureaus and the State Forestry Association and other individuals interested in this development. This is the first comprehensive study to be made of the landscape treatment of the rural roadsides in the state and the • college pre¬ dicts a wider appreciation of the possibilities and the necessity for the planting and pres¬ ervation of forest trees along the rural road¬ sides. Few people in the state will be able to visit the wonderful national parks of the west, but an increasing number of people will own automobiles and use the highways of the state. Many if not all of these highways may easily become state park ways of beautiful trees and 98 SCIENCE shrubs. Trees grow like weeds under the climatic conditions existent in New York and with varied scenery of intense interest the highways of the state will eventually become as beautiful as those of any other state in the union. THE NEW YORK MEETING OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY A meeting of the American Chemical Soci¬ ety will be held in conjunction with the Second National Exposition of Chemical Industries, September 25 to 30, inclusive. A council meeting is called for Monday afternoon and Monday evening. A general meeting follows on Tuesday morning, and on Tuesday after¬ noon it is hoped to have a public meeting in the large hall at the City College, with ad¬ dresses by prominent men bearing upon “ Chemistry and the National Welfare.” On Tuesday evening a general “ get-together ” en¬ tertainment will be given by the New York Section complimentary to the parent society, to which visiting chemists will be invited. On Thursday evening the Electrochemical Society will give a smoker, to which the members of the American Chemical Society will be invited, and on Eriday evening a sub¬ scription banquet will be held in one of New York’s large hotels. Meetings of divisions will be held on Wed¬ nesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday morn¬ ings. One of the special features of the meet¬ ing will be general conferences on special sub¬ jects in which the chemists of the country are now interested. The idea of these confer¬ ences is to have some important topics such as Glassware and Porcelain, Steel Alloy Metals, Paper and its Utilization, Oils and Motor Fuels, Convertibility of Plant, Medicinal Chemicals, Dyestuffs and their Relation to Munition Factories, Industrial Alcohol, Acetone and Formic Acid, the discussion to be started by some well-known specialists in these lines. No set program is planned for these conferences, but it is believed from past experience that chemists interested [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1125 i M in these various lines will get together and many interesting points will be brought out which will be of mutual interest. The topics for these conferences have not as yet been determined upon, and suggestions are desired from members of the society. These sugges¬ tions will all be placed before the Program Committee, and some six or eight topics selected therefrom. It is anticipated that two conferences will be in session each afternoon at the same time, one in the lecture hall of the Grand Central Palace, where the Second Na¬ tional Exposition of Chemical Industries will he held, and one in the lecture hall of the Chemists Club. The president’s address will be one of the general papers at the public meeting on Tues¬ day. The division of biological chemistry, physical chemistry and industrial chemistry will hold a joint symposium on colloids on Wednesday and Thursday mornings. On Wed¬ nesday morning the symposium will be of a theoretical nature, in which the industrial division will not take part. On Thursday morning the symposium will be composed of industrial application of colloid chemistry. A symposium on occupational diseases is also planned and is to take up part of one of the morning sessions of the industrial division. SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS A memorial to Major Walter Reed, of the army, who demonstrated the transmission of yellow fever by mosquitoes, is planned for the campus of the University of Virginia, of which he was a graduate. Professor Julius Stieglitz, of the Univer¬ sity of Chicago, and Dr. Leo Baekeland, of New York, were given the honorary degree of doctor of chemistry by the University of Pitts¬ burgh at its recent commencement. The degree of D.C.L. has been conferred by the University of Oxford upon Douglas William Freshfield, M.A., University College, president of the Royal Geographical Society. Dr. Charles H. Mayo was the guest of honor at a banquet given on June 22, by the citizens of Rochester, in recognition of his July 21, 1916] SCIENCE 99 election as president of the American Medical Association. A silver loving cup was pre¬ sented to Dr. Mayo. Dr. Albert Shiels, director of the bureau of reference and research of the New York City Board of Education, has been elected city superintendent of schools of Los Angeles at a salary of $8,000 a year. The salary formerly paid the city superintendents there was $6,000 a year. Dr. A. A. Eisenberg, formerly pathological anatomist in the U. S. Army Medical Museum and School, Washington, D. C., has been ap¬ pointed pathologist at Charity Hospital, Cleve¬ land. Professor B. E. Livingston and Dr. H. E. Pulling, of the laboratory of plant physiology of the Johns Hopkins University, will spend the months of August and September in the region of Fort Churchill and Port Nelson, Hudson Bay. They will carry out field stud¬ ies of vegetation as related to soil and climate. Miss Alice Eastwood, curator of the botan¬ ical department of the California Academy of Sciences, spent five days, from June 15 to 20, collecting at the Grand Canyon of the Colo¬ rado. The Hermit Trail was traveled to the bottom of the canyon, and the Grand View or Berry Trail for about two miles down. The Bright Angel Trail had been explored pre¬ viously by Miss Eastwood. About 270 species were collected. Professor George Neill Stewart, director of the Cushing Laboratory of Experimental Medicine, Western Reserve University, will sail for England on July 22. Miss Ethel Gertrude Everest, of Chippens Bank, Hever, Kent, daughter of the late Colonel Sir George Everest, surveyor-general of India, has left the house on her estate to the National Trust to be used as a home of rest for tired brain-workers, particularly writers and artists. The land round the house has also been bequeathed to the National Trust to be used as a public park for the use of the na¬ tion, and as a “ bird sanctuary,” where bird- life shall be encouraged, together with £8,000 for the maintenance of the estate. During the week of September 25 the Second National Exposition of Chemical In¬ dustries will be held in New York. The Amer¬ ican Electrochemical Society will be one of the national societies which will meet in New York during the same week. Its meetings will be held on September 28, 29 and 30, and the outline of the program has just been an¬ nounced. It is as follows: Wednesday, September 27, evening: General re¬ ception, with registration at the Chemical Exposi¬ tion, Grand Central Palace. Thursday, September 28, forenoon: Reading and discussion of papers, general subject: “Made in America. ’ ’ Afternoon: Visiting the exposition. Evening: Complimentary smoker. An invitation will be extended to the members of the American Chemical Society and other visiting chemists and engineers. Friday, September 29, forenoon: Reading and discussion of papers. Afternoon: Visiting the exposition. Evening: Subscription dinner-dance. Saturday, September 30, forenoon: Reading and discussion of papers. Afternoon: Visiting the exposition. The graduates of the course in public hy¬ giene of the University of Pennsylvania have recently organized as an Alumni Association. The university was a pioneer in the field in this country and has been offering instruction for public health positions since 1906. In 1910 they graduated their first doctor of public hygiene, Dr.P.H., and at present the gradu¬ ates of this course number twenty-six physi¬ cians, with the degree Dr.P.H. and two engi¬ neers with certificates as certified sanitarians. Of the physicians three are women. These graduates are widely scattered, in India, Siam, China, Philippine Islands, Hungary and Eng¬ land, in the United States from California to New Jersey and in the U. S. Army and Navy medical services. Their occupations range from medical missionaries through scientific research, epidemiology, sanitary engineering, municipal health officers, labor departments, housing commission and tuberculosis preven¬ tion work to special hospital work and teaching in public health and allied lines. 100 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1125 Recent appointments to the Office of In¬ vestigations in Forest Pathology, Bureau of Plant Industry, are as follows : Samuel B. Det- wiler, formerly field superintendent of the Pennsylvania Chestnut Tree Blight Commis¬ sion, has been appointed forest inspector in charge of field work on the white pine blister rust. Reginald H. Colley, lately assistant pro¬ fessor of botany in Dartmouth College, and Minnie W. Taylor, lately assistant in botany in Brown University, have been appointed agents to assist Dr. Perley Spaulding in re¬ search on the white pine blister rust. Paul Y. Siggers, lately a graduate student in botany in the University of Michigan, and Gilbert T. Posey, research assistant in botany at the Ore¬ gon Experiment Station, have been appointed scientific assistants to Mr. Detwiler. George L. Barrus and Morton M. Goodyear, recently engaged in commercial forestry, have been ap¬ pointed agents also assisting Mr. Detwiler. In addition to these more or less permanent ap¬ pointments, about forty field agents have been appointed for temporary periods to work on the white pine blister rust in cooperation with various state officials. Field work on the white pine blister rust east of Ohio is organ¬ ized under the general direction of Mr. Det¬ wiler; west of and including Ohio, under the general direction of Mr. Roy G. Pierce. Sir Ernest Shackleton, who, on returning from the South Polar zone last April, left twenty-two of his companions on Elephant Island, sailed on July 18 from Punta Arenas, Chile, on a small schooner, hoping to rescue them. If conditions are favorable, Sir Ernest expects to relieve the explorers and to return to Chile in four weeks. The final meeting for the session of the Uni¬ versity of Pennsylvania Chapter of the Society of the Sigma Xi, was held in the electrical engineering department, President E. C. Kirk presiding. Addresses on “ Illumination ” were given by Professor C. L. Clewell, from the engineering standpoint, illustrated, and by Professor George E. de Schweinitz, from the standpoint of the ophthalmologist. The fol¬ lowing officers for 1916-17 were elected : Presi¬ dent, Warren P. Laird, professor of architec¬ ture; Vice-president, C. E. McClung; Treas¬ urer, J. Percy Moore; Recording Secretary, S. P. Shugert; Corresponding Secretary, W. H. F. Addison. Plans are now being completed for the eighty-sixth annual meeting of the British Association, this year to be held at Mewcastle- on-Tyne in the first week of September, as has been already noted in Science. Sir Arthur Evans, the archeologist, taking the chair in succession to Professor Arthur Schuster, will deliver his presidential address on September 5. This year’s sectional presidents will be: Mathematical and Physical Science, Professor A. 1ST. Whitehead, of the Imperial College of Science; Chemistry, Professor G. G. Hender¬ son, Glasgow; Geology, Professor W. S. Boul¬ ton, Birmingham; Zoology, Professor E. W. Macbride; Geography, Mr. D. G. Hogarth, keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Economic Science and Statistics, Professor A. W. Ivirkaldy; Engineering, Mr. G. G. Stoney, Newcastle; Anthropology, Dr. R. R. Marett; Physiology, Professor A. R. Cushny, Univer¬ sity of London; Botany, Dr. A. B. Rendle, of the British Museum ; Educational Science, the Rev. W. Temple, rector of St. James’s, Pic¬ cadilly, and formerly headmaster of Repton School, and Agriculture, Dr. E. J. Russell, di¬ rector of the Rothampsted Experimental Sta¬ tion at ILarpenden. Evening lectures will be given by Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, secretary of the Zoological Society, on “ Evolution and the War,” and by Professor W. A. Bone on “ In¬ tensified Combustion.” Major R. Tait Mackenzie, R.A.M.C., pro¬ fessor of physical education, University of Pennsylvania, opened a discussion on the ne¬ cessity for a national scheme of physical edu¬ cation, at a meeting of the Royal Sanitary Institute, at the Municipal School of Tech¬ nology, Manchester, on July 7. The collection of ethnological remains brought from South America by Dr. W. C. Farrabee will require more than three months to arrange, and therefore will not be on ex¬ hibition until next fall. The expedition, which was headed by Dr. Farrabee, extended over a July 21, 1916] SCIENCE 101 period of three years, and cost more than $100,000. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS The Yale University School of Medicine will receive $14,845 by the will of Norman B. Bayley. The new master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, Mr. A. C. Benson, has established a Charles Kingsley lectureship in natural sci¬ ence in the college with an income of £150. A school of applied social sciences will be opened at Western Reserve University, at the beginning of the nest academic year. It will be a graduate school with a two-year course, in which supervised field work will be an es¬ sential part of the plan. At the University of Cambridge the pro¬ posed grace relating to the admission of wo¬ men to the first and second M.B. examinations and the examination in architectural studies has been withdrawn, in order that reports on the subjects may be presented to the senate by the boards concerned. Mr. J. H. Hill has been appointed professor of mathematics at the Ohio Northern Univer¬ sity. B. L. Daugherty has been appointed pro¬ fessor of hydraulic engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He has for the past six years been assistant professor of hydraulics in Sibley College, Cornell University. He suc¬ ceeds at Rensselaer Professor Lewis F. Moody who has gone into private practise. Professor Daugherty is the author of “ Hydraulic Tur¬ bines,” “ Centrifugal Pumps ” and “ Hydraul¬ ics.” He graduated from Leland Stanford University in 1909 and was an instructor in experimental engineering there the following year. The following appointments have been made to the medical faculty of New York Univer¬ sity: clinical professors of surgery, Drs. Joseph B. Bissell, Thomas A. Smith, Walter C. Cramp and Arthur M. Wright; professor of clinical surgery, Dr. William C. Lusk; chief of clinic, department of surgery, college dis¬ pensary and instructor in surgery, Dr. W. Howard Barber; instructor in surgery, Dr. George Francis Cahill; clinical professor of medicine, Dr. Theodore J. Abbott; instructor in medicine, Dr. Hubert Y. Guile ; clinical pro¬ fessor of cancer research, Dr. Benjamin M. Levine ; assistant professor of bacteriology and hygiene. Dr. Charles Krumiede, and instructor in bacteriology, Miss Mary Smeeton. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE BEES AND MENDELISM Some confusion of thought as regards Men- delian expectations is apparent in Mr. Quinn’s article1 dealing with his interesting observa¬ tions on the inheritance of body color in crosses of Italian with Caucasian bees. Mr. Quinn considers that his observations are not in accord with those of Newell because the latter concluded that “the production of an Fj (heterozygous) drone seems to be an im¬ possibility and this, in turn, makes the pro¬ duction of a strict F2 generation look like an¬ other impossibility.” But Quinn reports ob¬ taining a typical 1:2:1 ratio of pure yellow : heterozygous yellow : pure gray queens in F,, which he considers evidence that the drones as well as the queens of the F, generation are heterozygotes. This would indeed be true if a single F1 queen mated with a single drone gave the result stated. But Quinn does not so re¬ port the facts. His statement apparently ap¬ plies to the F2 queens considered collectively, not to those produced by a single Fx mother. If, as both Newell and Quinn suppose, all Ft queens are heterozygotes and produce equal numbers of I and C gametes, and if they are mated some with pure I and others with pure C drones, then the expectation as regards their female offspring is that actually observed by Quinn. For a mating with a pure I drone should produce 1 II + 1 IC zygotes ; and a mating with a pure C drone should produce 1 IC -(- 1 CC zygotes; and if the two kinds of matings are equally productive, their com¬ bined result would be 1 11 + 2 IC + 1 CC, as reported by Quinn. It is therefore unneces- i Science, June 30, 1916. 102 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1125 sary to assume from the facts reported that the drones of the F, generation are heterozygous as regards color. If this fact were established, it would disprove the Dzierzon theory, which is supported by so many distinct lines of evidence and thus far contradicted by none. A very direct test of the assumption that F, males are heterzygous could be made by mating them with queens of pure race. Such matings should produce mixed broods, if the drones are indeed heterozygous, but otherwise not. We may conclude that the facts reported by both Newell and Quinn are credible since (1) they are really not at variance with each other, (2) they have been made independently by ex¬ perienced observers in the wonderfully favor¬ able environment of Texas and (3) their ob¬ servations accord with previous knowledge. The credibility of Quinn’s report is increased, not lessened, by the fact that he supposed his observations were at variance with prevalent theories. Quinn’s observations do not call in question the Mendelian inheritance of yellow body-color in crosses, but Newell reported some facts which might lead one to doubt the complete¬ ness of segregation in all cases, such as the production of drones of intermediate color. The orthodox Mendelian and the devotee of “ exact ” heredity will probably close his eyes to such troublesome facts, but the student of heredity who is not convinced of the finality of present knowledge might do well to keep them in view. William E. Castle Bussey Institution, July 1, 1916 NOTE ON A MORAINE IN NORTHWESTERN NEW ENGLAND1 A recessional moraine consisting of several separate segments disposed along a sinuous course lies near the Atlantic coast, and has been traced through 60 miles from Saco, Maine, to Newbury, Mass. It stands for the most part at about or less than 100 feet above sea level, but rises to 150 feet in Dover, N. H., and Newburyport, Mass., and to between 200 1 Published by permission of Director of U. S. Geological Survey. and 250 feet in Wells and South Berwick, and although not more than 40 to 100 feet higher than surrounding Pleistocene formations, it is topographically prominent. The moraine rests upon and is surrounded by a floor of ice- smoothed rock and of till. During the build¬ ing of the moraine the region was submerged so that the ice front stood in the sea. The moraine is the result of accumulation of glacio- fluvial detritus discharged directly into the sea; consequently in some places it is built up as broad, flat, delta-like plains. Clay (“ Leda clay ”) which is glacial outwash was continu¬ ously deposited in the sea both while the moraine was building and also after the ice retreated from the moraine, so that the younger clay beds in some places overlie the moraine. The moraine and the marine clay probably belong to a late Wisconsin sub-stage of the Pleistocene epoch. Further description and discussion of this moraine will appear in a paper to be published by the United States Geological Survey. Frank J. Katz NEPTUNIUM In response to Professor Emerson’s request for information concerning this element I beg to present the following: Neptunium was announced by Iv. Hermann in 1877 (Pharm. Central H., June 7, 1877, p. 186, through the Proceedings of the American Pharm. Assn., 1877, p. 268). It is described as belonging to the “ tanta¬ lum group,” of the atomic weight 118, and as occurring in certain rare earths associated with tantalum and niobium. J. F. Couch Des Moines, Iowa , SCIENTIFIC BOOKS Psychological Effects of Alcohol. An Experi¬ mental Investigation of the Effects of Mod¬ erate Doses of Ethyl Alcohol on a Related Group of Neuro-muscular Processes in Man. By Raymond Dodge and Francis G. Bene¬ dict, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington,- D. C., 1915. July 21, 1916] SCIENCE 103 There is no more unsatisfactory chapter in the history of physiological psychology than that concerned with the action of alcohol. Most of the work on this subject has been done in the interests either of temperance or “ beer,” and shows in a striking, at times even in a grotesque, manner the failure so frequent in scientific work carried out with an immediate practical aim. It is therefore a matter for congratulation that the investigation of the physiological and psychological effects of alcohol should have been undertaken by so wholly independent a body as the Carnegie Institution and by an investigator so evidently free from practical as opposed to scientific in¬ terest as the director of its department of nutrition. The book under notice, which is the first- fruits of this research, must be regarded as “ survey ” rather than “ intensive ” work, to borrow terms from another science. It covers an extensive field in which the action of ethyl alcohol is tested on a number of processes in¬ cluding the patellar and eyelid reflexes ; the re¬ action of the eye to peripheral visual stimuli and the reaction-time in reading; the psycho¬ galvanic reflex and the process of free associa¬ tion; the process of memorizing; the sensory threshold for faradaic stimulation, the velocity of eye-movements and of movements of the finger ; together with observations on pulse- rate made concurrently with the other investi¬ gations. The main result of the work is to show that wherever alcohol has an appreciable action, it is on the average depressing, and that this effect is greater on the simple motor, sensory and reflex processes than on those in which the higher parts of the nervous system are more directly involved. The aim of the work has been to test the in¬ fluence of alcohol upon a series of neuro¬ muscular processes. The authors have chosen for this purpose processes which they believe to be simple and customary with the avowed aim of excluding such factors as practise and interest. They hardly seem to have realized that the factors thus excluded are just those which from the title of the book we should expect to find the special object of study. The research is really one on neuro-muscular proc¬ ess preliminary to the study of the psycho¬ logical effects of alcohol rather than such a study itself. It is a question how far the authors have succeeded in their efforts to attain the simple. It is unfortunate, with this end in view, that they should have chosen the knee-jerk, for though this reaction is now generally regarded as a reflex, it is one of a very special kind, de¬ pending as it does upon a condition of mus¬ cular extension. Still less appropriate from this point of view are the observations which the authors have, not very happily, named after the process of reciprocal innervation and have regarded as tests of muscular coordina¬ tion. It is unfortunate that in their search for the simple they should have chosen a process in which the examination of reciprocal inner¬ vation in Sherrington’s sense involves a highly elaborate process of cortical activity. They have also departed widely from their principle of customary reaction for the movemenc of the finger which they measure is one of a highly artificial and unusual kind. The foregoing criticisms are concerned with the general choice of the means by which neuro-muscular activity has been tested. With regard to the methods employed for this pur¬ pose the chief criticism to be offered is that the authors have depended too much on the time-relations of the processes they study and too little on their accuracy and on the ade¬ quacy with which the movements fulfil their functions. Otherwise little objection can be raised to the technique of the observations. In such survey work in which a number of subjects were employed, it was perhaps im¬ possible to regulate their lives more completely and thus bring the research nearer to the ideal of the method of difference, but this regula¬ tion should not be neglected in more intensive work. Similarly, the disuse of control-mix¬ tures is of little importance in work from which psychological factors have been so largely excluded, but it is to be hoped that this precedent will not be followed when psycho- 104 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1125 logical processes become the special object of research. Less satisfactory than the experimental tech¬ nique is the statistical treatment of the results. Serious objection must be taken to the misuse of the average. It is wholly misleading, for in¬ stance, to give 22 as the average of the three measurements, +85, — 9 and — 11. This figure is held to show that three so-called psy¬ chopathic subjects, i. e., men who had been intemperate, did not differ to any extent from seven normal subjects. Really, the figures only show that of three formerly intemperate sub¬ jects one was far more sensitive than usual to the depressing effects of alcohol on the eyelid reflex, while the other two subjects resembled one out of the seven normal men in showing the stimulating effect of 30 c.c. of ethyl alcohol. This and other measurements on the intem¬ perate subjects serve to confirm the statements made in their personal histories, that one was unusually sensitive to the influence of alcohol, while the others were less sensitive than usual, not, it is probable, on account of psychopathy, but through their former habituation to the action of alcohol. In so far as any weight can be attached to the apparently stimulating effect of alcohol in these two subjects, it may have been due to the satisfaction of a craving. This work is the first contribution to an in¬ vestigation of the action of alcohol which it is to be hoped may extend over many years and go far to settle a number of obscure and diffi¬ cult problems. I have ventured to call atten¬ tion to certain points of methodology and workmanship which seem to require reconsid¬ eration because in such an investigation prin¬ ciples and methods can not be too closely scrutinized at the outset. The criticisms now offered must not be allowed to obscure the recognition of the great value and promise of the work. W. H. R. Rivers University of Cambridge Typical Flies — A Photographic Atlas of Dip- tera, including Aphaniptera. By E. K. Pearce. Cambridge (England), University Press, 1915. This royal octavo, bound in boards, contains 4 pages of preface, 4 pages of classification; 45 pages of half-tone reproductions from photographs, comprising 155 figures represent¬ ing 125 species distributed in various families, including 4 species of fleas, and 3 fly habitats ; concluding with 2 pages of index. Under the figures are given technical name of the species, common name, if any, length of body, wing ex¬ panse, with brief data on habits and habitats. The book is intended to fill the place of a pictorial elementary treatise. The plan is an excellent one, but difficult of proper execution. The author complains of the difficulties which he encountered in obtaining suitable material for photographic reproduction. Nevertheless, the figures are all quite recognizable, which is the main requisite to the success of the plan. The feature of including habitat photographs is commendable and might have been farther pursued. There is no doubt that the wings and legs of flies must be spread in order to photograph them to the best advantage, but care must be exercised to secure natural attitudes, just as in the mounting of birds, mammals and other animals. Otherwise the reproductions are not true to nature but leave a marred image upon the memory, which appreciably reduces facil¬ ity of recognition of the species in its habitat. Recommendations made by the author in his preface regarding methods of mounting are open to objection. Aside from material for photographing, and the proper setting of the proboscis and liypopygium for study in certain forms, the reviewer decidedly favors leaving all flies in the natural attitudes assumed by them in the killing bottle. Specimens too small to be pinned with a No. 2 pin should be mounted on minute wire elbows wound on No. 3 pins. Only 34 to 39 mm. pins should be used, longer sizes giving trouble in the standard-depth cases. Great care should be taken not to get the specimen too high on the pin, but to leave sufficient room for grasping the head of the pin with the thumb and finger without danger of contact with the wings or other parts. There should be left sufficient space on the pin below the specimen for several labels, which July 21, 1916] SCIENCE 105 should be right side up that they may be read without the necessity of removing the specimen from the tray or case. In no instance should flies be gummed or mounted in any manner on cards, which are certain to obscure important characters. Revision of other recommendations which occur in the preface should be made. Fine- mesh bobbinet is the proper material for nets; and white is the preferable color, facility of locating the fly in the net after capture out¬ weighing any element of alarm to the fly prior to capture. In fact, the white net is very at¬ tractive to many flies, rare species often alight¬ ing thereon voluntarily in the field. As to size, the 22-inch diameter bamboo ring set in an unjointed three-foot light wooden handle is the most effective, specimens rarely escaping it even if the cast is made during flight. This is the net used by the veteran English field- naturalist, Mr. A. E. Pratt, in South America and New Guinea. It is sufficiently light to be easily wielded in one hand, and performs ex¬ ceptional service. The fly is best transferred directly from the net to the cyanide vial. The latter should be the 25 x 100 mm. flat -bottom clear-white shell vial, the cyanide enclosed in a wad of tissue paper and tightly wedged into the bottom, shredded tissue paper being placed loosely in the vial to prevent undue rubbing and contact of specimens, and closed with a soft cork stopper. Large and small flies should go in separate vials; such forms as bombyliids with pile that is easily detached must be kept sepa¬ rate, as well as culicids and other forms that might be injured by stouter flies or that might mess others with their scales, pile, exudations, or pollen. The judgment of the collector must guide him, and he should carry a liberal supply of the vials. The specimens may be left all day in such vials without injury, but should be pinned the same evening or at latest next morning. In dry climates they will not last well over night. In giving measurements of flies, the length of one wing, and not the expanse, should be stated. The expanse is not a stable quantity, due to drying and faulty spreading; moreover, the wings of study material should not be spread. As to the classification adopted, it is espe¬ cially important to present a correct system in a work intended for beginners. Most sys- tematists will criticize the inclusion of the fleas with the Diptera. The superfamily Mus- coidea is made to include the entire calyptrate and acalyptrate divisions. The superfamily name Cypseloidea should be applied to the acalyptrate groups, while Muscoidea should be restricted to the higher calyptrates. The Mus¬ coidea of the author are stated to produce ova as a rule, but there are very extensive groups of the higher calyptrates that deposit larvae ; in fact, the larvipositing species of calyptrates will probably easily exceed in number the ovi¬ positing species. The Nematocera has re¬ cently been shown by Knab and others to be an unnatural group. In the pages of half-tone reproductions, the Cyclorrhapha are divided into Proboscidea and Eproboscidea, the latter comprising the Pupipara as opposed to all the other Cyclorrhapha ; an unnatural arrange¬ ment, since the main Pupipara show close affinity with the Cypseloidea and not with the Syrphoidea. The Phoridse are wrongly in¬ cluded in the acalyptrate series. The Bomby- liidse, and not the Braulidse, are commonly termed “ bee-flies.” With these few friendly criticisms, the book is commended as a very useful means of pre¬ senting objective instruction in dipterology. Charles II. T. Townsend SPECIAL ARTICLES A SIMPLE AND RAPID METHOD OF STUDYING RESPIRATION BY THE DETECTION OF EXCEEDINGLY MINUTE QUANTITIES OF CARBON DIOXIDE « In order to arrive at a satisfactory knowl¬ edge of life-processes, it is necessary to have accurate quantitative methods by which the measurement of these activities can be made. One of the best means of accomplishing this is found in the study of respiration. The pro¬ duction of C02 is regarded1 as the only reli- i Cf. Tashiro, S., Amer. Jour, of Physiology, 32: 107. 106 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1125 able universal expression of respiratory activity in anaerobic and aerobic tissues in normal con¬ dition. It is extremely important to possess a method of detecting very small quantities of C02 as it is given off by the organism in the normal en¬ vironment. The excellent methods devised by Tashiro2 for the detection of very minute quantities of CO, are unfortunately limited to the study of tissues which are not bathed by solutions. But many of the most important studies on respiration require that the tissues shall be immersed in solutions in order to measure the effect of dissolved substances on respiration. Moreover the methods of Tashiro do not enable us to determine the quantities of CO, produced from moment to moment as the reaction goes on and thus to construct the time curve, which is, in most cases, of primary importance. These difficulties are overcome by the method here described. The method consists in adding an indicator to the solution containing the tissue and observing its color changes. The indicator should possess the following qualities : (1) it should be non-toxic to the material; (2) it should not rapidly penetrate the tissues; (3) it should be sensitive to very slight increases in the hydrogen ion concentra¬ tion due to C02; (4) it should have a suitable working range. Phenolsulphone-phthalein with a range of color changes from PH+ 6.5 to PIP 8.5 but with extremely sharp differentiations in color between PEP 7.0 and PEP 7.5, has been found to be very satisfactory.3 Other indicators of various ranges of color change, such as phenol- phthalein, alizarin sodium sulphonate, etc. (sulphonic acid salts being not readily ab¬ sorbed by cells), are being studied as to their usefulness for such work. When salts occur in the solutions used, the salt error for the indicator should be taken into account. Some indicators can not be used with 2 Tashiro, S., Amer. Jour, of Physiology, 32: 137; Jour. Biolog. Cliem., 1914, p. 485. s Lubs, H. A., and Clark, W. M., Jour. Wash. Acad. Sci., Yol. V., No. 18, November 4, 1915. certain salts on account of being precipitated out of solution, but experimentation alone can tell which, in the large list of accurately de¬ scribed indicators,4 are best adapted to a par¬ ticular need. If the material is of the nature of seeds, algae, or aquatic animals, the whole of which can be submerged, the following procedure is followed : A tube of non-soluble or Pyrex glass of the desired diameter and length (for small seeds, algae, etc., 16 mm. diameter by about 4 to 5 cm. long is very satisfactory; tubes below 16 mm. diameter are not recommended) is closed at one end by fusion. A piece of rubber tubing about 7 cm. long is attached at the open end. It is best to boil the rubber tubing re¬ peatedly previous to using it, in order to insure thorough cleanliness. The rubber tube, while attached to the glass tube, is dipped a few seconds into hot paraffin so as to put a thin coat on both sides of the rubber. The best grade of paraffin (58°-62° C. melting point) is used, and serves to prevent the rubber from possibly giving off substances to the solution and also is advantageous in giving a seal against the CO, of the air. Ordinary soft glass tubing (which gives off alkali) or parawax (which gives off acid) is not suited for accu¬ rate work. Pyrex tubes, in the absence of Jena glass, can be used to advantage, especially be¬ cause all sizes can be obtained. The material to be studied is placed in the glass tube with a definite number of c.c. of solution containing a definite number of drops of an indicator of known strength. The vol¬ ume of solution used is always made as small as possible, consistent with the requirements for colorimetric work, but however small the volume of solution used, slightly more than enough to fill the glass tube must be taken. The paraffined rubber tube is then closed with two strong pinchcocks so as to exclude all air from contact with the solution. The paraffin on the rubber tube is prevented from becoming brittle before it is clamped, by working rapidly or if necessary by the use of a lukewarm water bath. In this case the C02 in the solution is 4 Hober, ‘ ‘ Physik. Chem. der Zelle und der Gewebe, ” 1914, p» 171. July 21, 1916] SCIENCE 107 in equilibrium with the C02 of the air before the tube is clamped. The closed tube is in¬ verted several times and the color of the solu¬ tion is compared with a series of buffer solu¬ tions of known hydrogen ion concentration and the acidity at the beginning of the experi¬ ment is recorded. The tube can be put on a shaker, should conditions require it, and after any interval whatsoever, the tube is inverted a few times in order to stir the liquid and to get a uniform color throughout the solution and then by comparing it with the buffer solu¬ tions, the increase in hydrogen ion concentra¬ tion is noted. This can be repeated any num¬ ber of times and at any interval of time. Changes in the hydrogen ion concentration as small as from 2 X 10"6 to 1 X 10“6 can be detected in this way. Much smaller differences in the hydrogen ion concentration of a solution can be detected by using distilled water nearly or entirely free from CO^ or by using solutions in which the hydrogen ion concentration is low. The pro¬ cedure when pure distilled water is used is the same as that just given except that while the tube is still in the bath ready for clamping, a C02-free gas is bubbled through the solution until, by comparison with the buffer solution, it is known that the solution in the tube is between PH+ 7.0 and PH+ 8.0. The tube is then clamped off as before and the hydrogen ion concentration is read at intervals by com¬ parison with buffer solutions. If the solu¬ tions, due to added reagents, are quite acid, then the smallest amount of C02 that can be detected is increased. However it is often possible to add the same amount of alkali to each tube so as to decrease the hydrogen ion concentration at the start and in this event the method can become extremely sensitive so as to detect minute traces of C02. This is also true of many solutions in which the hydrogen ion concentration is very small. When the respiration of roots is studied, the glass tube has both ends open and tubing on each end. The roots are inserted into one (very short) paraffined rubber tube, and by means of a pinchcock, the tube is clamped so that only a small space is left about the stalk as it protrudes. A low melting mixture is used to make the final seal about the plant. After the plant has been inserted, the paraffined tube is attached at the other end. The solution is then run in and the C02 expelled by bubbling hydro¬ gen through. The paraffin, before clamping takes place, should be rather soft and pliable, and should it tend to become brittle it can be kept soft by being kept inside of a tube open at both ends and which is kept warm by a sur¬ rounding water bath. After clamping, read¬ ings are made as usual. When the liquid used is pure distilled water, and is quite free from C02, a change in the hydrogen ion concentration as small as from 2 X to 3 X 10-8 can be noted. The smaller the hydrogen ion concentration of the solution at the start of the experiment, the more minute the differences which can be detected. If the experiment is started with the solution in equilibrium with the C02 of the air, it is pos¬ sible to ascertain whether or not the increased acidity has been due to the giving off of C02 or to acid excretions other than C02, by pour¬ ing the solution into another tube and (after shaking without the material) letting the solu¬ tion come again into equilibrium with the air, and noting whether or not the solution returns to its original hydrogen ion concentration. Furthermore, by bubbling a C03-free gas through the solution at the end of the experi¬ ment and through a sample of the original solution, it is possible to find out whether acids other than carbonic acid have been given off. If at the end of an experiment it is found that acids other than carbonic acid have been given off, or that an unequal ab¬ sorption of ions has taken place, so as to pro¬ duce acidity, then the increase in the'hydrogen ion concentration due to C02 can be obtained by subtraction. As it is important to know whether acids other than carbonic are given off by plant and animal tissues, experiments have been conducted upon the excretion of acids by plant tissue, the results of which will appear at a later time. When it is desirable not to have the indi¬ cator in the solution during the experiment, 108 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1125 the method can be modified as follows. One end of the glass tube has a paraffined plug hav¬ ing two holes, while the other end has the usual paraffined rubber tube. One hole can be sealed shut if no stem is to protrude, while in the other hole a small glass tube containing the required number of drops of indicator is in¬ serted with a solid glass plunger of equal diameter adjoining, and protruding from the plug. At the end of a given time the indi¬ cator is pushed into the solution by means of the airtight plunger and the reading is made rapidly. In such a modification, control tubes must be depended upon to give the hydrogen ion concentration of the solution at the start of the experiment, and, moreover, only one read¬ ing can be made from a single tube. Pure block tin collapsible tubes have been found to be very useful but are very difficult to seal as compared with the paraffined rubber which is easily sealed. Experiments with seeds were run for an hour without any change in the control, and even though it may be pos¬ sible to run experiments a much longer period without change in the control, yet it appears advisable to cut down the time of an experi¬ ment whenever possible; this the new method permits. In making up buffer solutions,5 the writer has found it advisable to recrystallize chem¬ ically pure salts several times, and whenever possible it is best to check up the accuracy of the buffer solutions with the aid of the hydro¬ gen electrode. The writer has found that a constant source of light such as has recently been described in Science6 is almost indispensable for this work. By using seeds with the coats removed and a relatively small amount of solution a color change can easily be detected within five minutes. By this method we can compare the respira¬ tion of organisms in different solutions with great accuracy without knowing the actual amounts of C02 given off. We need only to compare the times required to produce the 5 Michaelis, L., “Die Wasserstoffioneu-Konzen- tration. ’ ’ o Science, N. S., 42: 764, 1915. same change of color in the solutions. If we use a substance in solution which affects the change of color in the indicator, this substance must be added to the set of buffer solutions. If, for example, we are studying the effect of NaCI on the respiration of roots we put one lot of roots into a solution of NaCl and another lot into distilled water. We then prepare a set of buffer solutions to which we add NaCl so as to make its concentration the same as in the solution containing the roots. We add the same amount of indicator to the solution con¬ taining the roots and to the buffer solutions, and the changes of color are then comparable. We proceed in the same way with the distilled water or with any other solutions employed. If we wish to know the actual amounts of C02 given off we may calibrate the indicator by a very simple method, as yet unpublished, due to Henderson and Cohn. We may then use an indicator which passes through a well- defined series of color changes as the amount of CO, increases. By observing these changes we can plot the amount of C02 against time. The resulting curve enables us to study the dynamics of the reaction and this is of primary importance for an understanding of the proc¬ esses involved in metabolism. SUMMARY 1. Respiration may be accurately followed by observing changes in the color of indicators added to solutions which contain organisms. 2. Exceedingly small amounts of C02 may be determined in this way with great accuracy. 3. As changes in color often occur in five minutes, the experiments may be shortened so as to exclude pathological changes in the organisms. 4. The simplicity of the apparatus makes it possible to carry on a large number of experi¬ ments at the same time. 5. The amounts of C02 produced in succes¬ sive intervals can be determined without dis¬ turbing the organism. This enables us to study the dynamics of the process. A. R. Haas Harvard University, Laboratory of Plant Physiology SCIENCE Friday, July 28, 1916 CONTENTS The Contribution of Medical Science to Med¬ ical Art as shown in the Study of Typhoid Fever: Dr. Frederick P. Gay . 109 Charles Willard Hayes: Dr. David White .. 124 A School of Nursing and Health at the Uni¬ versity of Cincinnati . 126 Practical Work for Students of the New York State College of Forestry . 127 The Stanford University Arboretum . 128 Scientific Notes and News . 129 University and Educational News . 131 Discussion and Correspondence : — An Engineer’s Idea of Energy: Professor M. M. Garver. “Available Energy’’ vs. ‘ ‘ Energy ” : H. B. Pulsifer. ‘ ‘ Typus ’ ’ and ‘ ‘ Type ’ ’ in Taxonomy : Dr. Maynard M. Metcalf . 132 Quotations : — Scientific Development in Russia . 136 Scientific Books: — Bragg on X-rays and Crystal Structure: Professor B. A. Millikan. Fleming on Radio-telegraphy and Radio-telephony : Pro¬ fessor A. E. Kennelly. The Institutional Care of the Insane: Dr. F. H. Garrison. 137 The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Professor E. B. Wilson . 140 Special Articles: — A New Mite from the Hawaiian Islands: Dr. P. J. O’Gara. A Power Chisel for Paleontologic Laboratories: William C. Morse . 142 The Ohio Academy of Science: Professor Edward L. Bice . 143 MSS. intended for p»blioation and books, etc., intended for review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garneon- on-Hudson. N. Y. THE CONTRIBUTION OF MEDICAL SCIENCE TO MEDICAL ART AS SHOWN IN THE STUDY OF TYPHOID FEVER i I interpret the gratifying invitation of the Academic Senate to appear before you as faculty research lecturer for the current year not only as an opportunity of assem¬ bling and correlating a group of facts that I have been studying, but also as allowing me to attempt an explanation of the method by which such facts are obtained. I wish in particular to suggest how one of the more theoretic or so-called scientific branches of medicine is utilized in the prac¬ tical problem of preventing and curing disease. There is little reason that many of you should have attempted to differentiate be¬ tween medicine as an art and medicine as a science. Public interest and concern in medicine deals with it largely as it is ap¬ plied to the individual or community and little with the scientific and more theoretic investigations on which the progress of ap¬ plied medicine depends. Medicine to the layman is typified in the physician who at¬ tends him and it is the noble and satisfac¬ tory function of this individual to ease the mind and body of his patient and fre¬ quently so to apply his knowledge of human structure and function in health and dis¬ ease as to avert death and hasten recovery. The practitioner employs the art of medi¬ cine, that is to say he combines, modifies and adopts certain recognized means to i The annual faculty research lecture at the Uni¬ versity of California, delivered on Charter Day, March 23, 1916, on invitation of the Academic Senate. 110 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1126 effect a given end. There exists, however, a type of work in medicine with which the public comes less in contact and which concerns itself primarily with the funda¬ mental understanding and elaboration of those very means of prevention, relief and cure which the physician applies. It would naturally occur to you that the individual best fitted to discover means of understanding and thereby of combating disease, would be one fully conversant with its manifestations and results through con¬ stant and persistent contact with the sick. Such, indeed, was the development of med¬ ical science through many centuries. I need only mention categorically a few of the great discoveries that have been made during the centuries by practising physi¬ cians. Galen, in the second century of our era, showed that control of the muscles de¬ pends on integrity of the nerves that run to them, by the simple experiment of cut¬ ting certain of them in animals. In the six¬ teenth century Versalius not only founded the science of anatomy, but described the mechanism of breathing and introduced artificial respiration. Harvey in the seven¬ teenth century experimentally demon¬ strated the mode of circulation of the blood in the animal body. Thomas Young laid the foundation of physiological optics and explained the principle of color differentia¬ tion. Jenner showed conclusively that in¬ oculation with cowpox will protect against smallpox, and thereby laid the foundations of vaccination as a preventive of many in¬ fectious, parasitic diseases. Morton, in the last century, discovered the principle of an¬ esthesia, which has made surgery painless. You will notice that these examples con¬ sist entirely of contributions which may be regarded as fundamental principles rather than adaptations of such principles, how¬ ever practically valuable; in other words, it is a list of discoveries rather than of in¬ ventions ; on such basis I have omitted Lister’s great application of Pasteur’s prin¬ ciples of bacterial contamination in aseptic and antiseptic surgery. You may further observe that the contributors cited have worked on experimental rather than purely deductional lines; I have not, for instance, mentioned the important work of Auen- brugger, who associated certain percussion notes over the chest wall with diseased con¬ ditions in the lungs and heart. I trust I shall be able to convince you that essential advance in medicine, as in other biological sciences, lies in the development of prin¬ ciples through inductive experimentation. In the popular mind and in popular fic¬ tion it is still the well-known practitioner who is the great contributor to medical sci¬ ence. As a matter of fact to-day, and for many years, the progress has been largely due to a group of workers who are con¬ cerned little, or often not at all, with the care of the sick. Many major discoveries have been made by men with no medical training at all. I may simply mention among the latter Pasteur and Metchnikoff, whose contributions we shall later consider in more detail. This differentiation in medicine of a group of medical or even non¬ medical men from medical practitioners, is a specialization or division of labor that is unknown to or misunderstood not only by the general public, but even in the medical profession itself. Its development is, how¬ ever, quite logical and tending toward greater efficiency. Progress in medical treatment a hundred years ago, and to a great extent fifty years ago, depended almost entirely on deductions that were ingeniously made from personal experience with the sick. The greater such an experience was the greater and more complete the series of facts obtained, the more valuable the deductions from them. Nothing approaching a complete series of July 28, 1916] SCIENCE 111 facts, and particularly of facts in their chronological order, was possible until ex¬ perimental methods were employed. As Neuberger has stated, collection and ob¬ servation of fact constitute the first step in science, but not science itself. With the ap¬ plication of the methods that had already been utilized in the sciences of physics and chemistry to biology and medicine, it has often been possible not only to reproduce in animals some particular stage of a dis¬ ease that has been met with in man, but to study the preceding and succeeding stages in such a process with a completeness that could be afforded in the sick room only through unlimited experience. Any deduc¬ tions from the haphazard data of spontane¬ ous disease requires, moreover, unlimited skill in fitting each stage as it irregularly occurs, into its proper place. Deductions from a relatively complete and orderly series of experimental facts are at once more rapidly arrived at and more reliable than empiricism. They have the further advantage of suggesting in their genesis other questions that have perhaps never arisen in clinical experience, the answers to which may, however, greatly simplify the problems of medicine. When once the fruitfulness of the study of medical problems by methods already employed in the exact sciences became evi- $ dent to the thoughtful physician, innumer¬ able questions arose in his mind which he felt sure could now be answered. He felt, let us say, that animal experiments could tell him the exact relation between a shrunken and diseased kidney, a thickening of the arteries and an enlargement of the heart, a combination frequently found asso¬ ciated, and once the exact relation was known, particularly as to which came first, he felt some method of arresting or pre¬ venting the process might finally be ob¬ tained. At first the more ambitious and able practitioners endeavored to answer these questions for themselves, working in their laboratories into the still hours of a morning that ushered in another day spent at the bedside and the operating-table. These giants exist even to-day and it is owing to their example, enthusiasm and aid, that some of us are now able to carry on their work with greater single-minded¬ ness and under less heroic conditions of existence. As the facts have accumulated and the methods of these newer sciences have been elaborated, it has become in¬ creasingly more difficult for one with divided interest to understand and partic¬ ularly to add to them. Twenty-five years ago the professor of anatomy was a sur¬ geon; the professor of pathology a practi¬ tioner of medicine. These men were often able and brilliant teachers of subjects which were their avocations rather than their true professions. They were even contributors to sciences which in their incompleteness made the finding of new facts easy. As the mass of acquired facts became larger, the gaps between them shorter but more diffi¬ cult to fill, and the stimulus to further dis¬ covery greater, men one after another slipped from the beaten track of practise to become laboratory workers, usually at a financial sacrifice, because the work ap¬ pealed to them. It became evident that the medical sci¬ ences require whole-souled devotion. As Dietl expressed it in 1851, As long as medicine remains an art it will not be a science. As long as there are only successful physicians there will be no scientific physicians. It is the practitioner, however, who has created the field for this latter type of worker and who, to a large extent, has made his existence possible. We have had then for a number of years, two types of workers in medicine — the labo¬ ratory man and the practitioner; the 112 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1126 boundaries between them are by no means fast and one crosses readily from one into the other field, but with less and less fre¬ quency does one attempt to do both types of work at once. The relations between these workers are highly cooperative, and usually mutually appreciative. The practitioner, as the original patron of the medical sci¬ ences, was at first inclined to regard his laboratory colleague as a high-grade tech¬ nical assistant, and, being closer to the source .of human disease problems, he still at times assumes a somewhat ex cathedra attitude as to what problems the medical scientist should investigate. Concerning the actual method of investigation he has, through lack of experience, become tacitly acquiescent. The relation of these workers in regard to the problems themselves is an interesting one and worthy of fuller elabo¬ ration. It is obvious that the practitioner, through constant contact with the sick, knows of more problems that need solution, but through failure to appreciate the limitations of scientific method he does not usually appreciate those problems which can be solved. The clinician is constantly asking the laboratory man for explanations or help that can not as yet be given, and is often surprised when he asks whether A and B in conjunction will produce a condi¬ tion C to be answered evasively, or told that D equals E. The clinician has had the tables reversed on him and must perforce content himself with what is given him to apply and not ask for what he would like. A slight misunderstanding each in the other’s point of view must arise when we consider the differences in the material with which each man has to deal. The clinician is interested primarily with the needs of individuals, with the problem of a case ; the scientist with disease entities, with a com¬ plex composed of all the cases of a partic¬ ular malady that have existed, or that may exist, or frequently writh some more abstract line of investigation arising from them. In the first instance the problem, though acute, is a personal and passing one that in the particular case will disappear before the question that has arisen can possibly be an¬ swered,- in the latter case the solution is acceptable however long it may be in com¬ ing. It is easy to understand the impa¬ tience of the clinician who wishes results in order that he may apply them to Mr. A, and on the other hand it is reasonable to appreciate the refusal of the laboratory man to be dragged from a promising prob¬ lem of fundamental import to investigate superficially an ephemeral individual symp¬ tom. While it is still possible for the labo¬ ratory man to be influenced in choosing his problems, he travels fastest by following attentively those problems which his own work has suggested. It is often more prof¬ itable in the end to follow what appear to be irrelevant ramifications rather than to attempt direct determination, let us say of the cause of cancer, or a specific cure for tuberculosis. I venture to say that these questions will not be answered by what we consider direct attack, for it is the habit of nature to respond to our interrogations with apparent indirectness. The real indirect¬ ness of course lies in the wray we put our questions and not in nature’s response. We plan an experiment and await a result which shall be firmly yes or no ; the answer is neither of these, but something that throw’s no light on the original inquiry. Blessed is the man who sees in this incom¬ prehensible reply the starting-point of a new line of inquiry w^hich may take him far afield from the goal he had first in mind. We scientists are like rag-pickers, some fumble through masses of rubbish looking for a certain coin, while the true investigator takes up each object that is July 28, 1916] SCIENCE 113 turned over and asks himself what use he can make of it. Let me illustrate the stages in the evolu¬ tion of modern medical science from med¬ ical art by an outline of the development of our useful knowledge in respect to a single disease, namely, typhoid fever. Typhoid fever has been, and still re¬ mains, one of the significant causes of death and disability. So far as can be shown from the necessarily incomplete statistics of the Public Health Service, there were over 17,- 000 deaths from this disease in the United States in 1913, which means there were over 170,000 cases, since the mortality aver¬ ages ten per cent. It is a malady partic¬ ularly prevalent in crowded groups of men, such as armies and asylums. Sixty per cent, of all the deaths in the Franco-Prus- sian War were due to typhoid, and in the Spanish- American War one fifth of all the enlisted men contracted the disease, and there were seven times as many deaths from it as from implements of war. And typhoid fever is important not only as a cause of death, but particularly owing to its economic waste ; for an acute disease it has a particularly lengthened course and is followed by frequent sequels. It has re¬ cently been estimated that the economic loss in this country from typhoid is $50,000,000 annually, as a disease ranking second only to tuberculosis. Our interest in typhoid fever is height¬ ened by the fact that it is not only an im¬ portant disease, but one which can and will eventually be obliterated. Recent reports from the Surgeon-General of the United States Public Health Service show that the incidence of this disease is probably not more than half what it was thirty years ago, owing in large part to improved sanitation alone. Perhaps the one most significant line of advance in medicine has been the gradual recognition of disease entities. On the rec¬ ognition of separate diseases depends all measures of quarantine, prevention and ra¬ tional therapy. Diagnosis, the recognition of a disease entity, depends on the patient’s symptoms and these symptoms are of two classes; subjective, or those the patient him¬ self experiences as pain, chilliness, and the like; and objective symptoms which the physician can detect. Among the latter may be mentioned rapidity of the heart¬ beat, fever, eruptions, changes in blood pressure; changes in the blood and urine, and the like. Medical progress has been dependent on the methods of recognizing such constant variations from the normal as are found characteristic of a given type of disease. Such variations were detected at first by the unaided powers of observa¬ tion, and later by the employment of instru¬ ments and methods of precision introduced in the evolution of the medical sciences. One of the most important symptoms of the parasitic or infectious diseases is a rise in bodily temperature, or fever. A fever is a disease characterized by such a rise in temperature and some fevers continue over a period of days or weeks. The disease we now recognize as typhoid or enteric fever is one of these continued fevers and, al¬ though probably seen by Hippocrates, was for centuries confused with other lasting fevers of somewhat similar appearance. Recurrent fever, septic infections, and typhus fever in particular present pic¬ tures which even to-day in their beginnings and in their purely clinical aspects may be confused with typhoid. We owe our first full description of what was probably typhoid fever to an English physician, Thomas Willis, who in 1643 de¬ scribed an epidemic of the disease that oc¬ curred in the Parliamentary troops. Early in the eighteenth century Strother, another Englishman, described ulcerations in the 114 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1126 intestine and enlargement of the spleen in that slow nervous fever which we now recognize as typhoid. The effect of this dis¬ ease in producing a cloudiness or aberra¬ tion of the mind is what has given it its name, which is derived from the Greek t£<£os or cloud. Its particular nervous or mental effect was further observed by Huxham, who in 1737, on a purely symptomatic basis, separated cases of “putrid malignant fever” (or typhus) from the “slow nervous fever.” The final separation of these two Confused diseases did not come, however, until a century later and was dependent not unly on the recognized differences in the •contagiousness and course of the two dis¬ eases, but on the recognition of the char¬ acteristic and almost inevitable lesions or anatomical changes which are found in fatal cases of typhoid, but never in typhus fever. These lesions, ulceration of the in¬ testine and swelling of the spleen, liver and lymph nodes, mentioned by Strother, were described by Riedel in Germany (1748), Bailliein England (1761) and in particular by Roderer and Wagler (1762). We owe further descriptions of the clinical char¬ acteristics of typhoid fever to Bretonneau (1826) who called it “dothienenteritis,” or abscess of the small intestine, a name which it frequently bears in French literature, and to Louis (1829) who gave the name “fievre typhoide” to the malady. It is to the great credit of a Philadel¬ phian, William Gerhard, to have given in 1839 a convincing basis of separation be¬ tween typhus and typhoid fevers. He based this differential diagnosis on accurate de¬ scriptions of the greater contagiousness of typhus, the presence of characteristic lesions in typhoid, and on careful comparison of symptomatic differences between the two maladies. His observations, later confirmed in Germany and England, gave us the first basis on which to regard typhoid fever as a separate and distinct disease entity. The final chapter in the clinical or purely observational study of typhoid fever is rep¬ resented by two important observations in reference to its transmission from one hu¬ man being to another. The disease as con¬ trasted with typhus fever was regarded, and properly so, as only slightly contagious^ that is, directly transmissible from one pa¬ tient to another. In 1856 Budd pointed out that the danger of transmission in typhoid, the poison of the disease as he expressed it, lies in the patient’s excreta, and in 1873 Murchison actually traced an epidemic to a contaminated milk supply, and showed that the stools of typhoid patients are the principal source of danger in spreading the disease. This brief statement then outlines the significant advances that were made over a period of centuries in the differentiation and recognition of typhoid fever by purely observational methods, confined to the pa¬ tients themselves and made by practitioners of medicine. In so far as alleviation of the disease is concerned, there is little or noth¬ ing to report beyond purely symptomatic and palliative treatment, the most signif¬ icant point in which was the introduction of hydrotherapy by James Currie in 1770 and its rediscovery by Brand a century later. The recognition of the danger of spreading the disease through contamina¬ tion with typhoid excreta must be regarded as a great contribution to preventive medi¬ cine. We come now to a period, which may be roughly defined as the year 1880, which ushered in the two most productive of the medical sciences, bacteriology and its twin sister, immunology. Whereas the experi¬ mental sciences of chemistry, physiology, and some aspects of experimental pathology, were already established and had made, and continued to make, valuable contributions to human welfare, bacteriology was destined to explain the causation of a series of dis- July 28, 1916] SCIENCE 115 eases known as infectious, and immunology to utilize these discoveries in the specific prevention and cure of many of them. The infectious diseases are not only important in themselves, but are recognized as in¬ directly the cause of many of the chronic diseases, so called, which are slower in their course, but none the less health- destroying and fatal in their outcome. The growth of bacteriology has been coincident with the filling of the ranks of our present army of laboratory workers, many of whom have been primarily concerned in advancing this science. Bacteriology owes its stable beginnings to two men, Louis Pasteur, a chemist, and Robert Koch, for a brief time a country physician and later professor of hygiene in Berlin. Immunology, the sci¬ ence which explains natural protection to infectious disease and utilizes this knowl¬ edge in creating such conditions artificially, we owe first after Pasteur to Metchnikoff, a Polish biologist with no exact medical training. It is characteristic of these sci¬ ences that their problems, although arising in cases of human and animal disease, have been developed, in large part, away from the bedside, under the conditions of greater accuracy and completeness afforded by the experimental reproduction of the disease in animals. Such an experimental disease may be interrupted and attentively studied in its successive stages and its course may often be followed outside the animal body under conditions of greatest clearness. It was the great service of Pasteur, and particularly of Koch, to show that each one of an increasing number of infectious dis¬ eases is caused by a separate and identifi¬ able type of microorganism. Such a micro¬ organism is always found in each case of the disease in question, but in no other in¬ stance, and will give rise again to the same disease when reintroduced in a healthy animal of the same species. The first in¬ stances of infectious diseases studied, an¬ thrax, typhoid, chicken cholera, tubercu¬ losis, and others, were found to be due to minute plants called bacteria. Later ob¬ servers have described similar infectious diseases due to equally lowly animal para¬ sites, particularly to those known as pro¬ tozoa. Typhoid fever was one of the first of the human infectious diseases to yield the secret of its parasitic cause. The typhoid bacillus, B. typhosus, was first described by Carl Joseph Eberth in 1880, who found it microscopically in tissues from a patient that had died of typhoid fever. It was grown outside the body in pure culture four years later by George Gaffky. This organ¬ ism was soon recognized as the cause of typhoid fever, although the final postulate necessary to prove the etiological relation¬ ship to the disease was not fulfilled until 1900, when Metchnikoff and Besredka suc¬ ceeded in producing the disease experimen¬ tally with pure cultures in anthropoid apes. Of great corroborative importance in prov¬ ing the causative relationship of the typhoid bacillus was its presence in the stools and urine of cases of typhoid fever, which was demonstrated in 1885. In the same year Fraenkel and Simmonds found the micro¬ organism in the circulating blood of a case of typhoid fever, a condition which w7as later shown by the work of Kiihnan (1897), Castellani and Schottmiiller to be fairly constant during early stages of the malady. This observation not only proved finally and conclusively the etiological relation of the typhoid bacillus to typhoid fever, but led to a gradual reconstruction of our con¬ ception of the disease itself so that we have finally come to regard it primarily as a septicemia or blood infection rather than an intestinal disease per se, as the striking lesions in the small bowel had led us to assume. 116 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1126 A scientific discovery may be considered worth while if it merely gratifies intellec¬ tual curiosity and adds an apparently insig¬ nificant support to a structure, the totality of which makes for human knowledge and welfare. It is a characteristic of the med¬ ical sciences in general, and of bacteriology in particular, that the discovery of new principles has led very rapidly to practical results of the greatest significance to man¬ kind. In no instance is this characteristic more strikingly true than in the study of typhoid fever. The study of B. typhosus as the single and essential cause of typhoid fever led rather rapidly to important ad¬ vances in the prevention and cure of the disease. I have already referred to the valuable suggestions of Budd and Murchison that the potential danger of contagion in typhoid fever lies in the excreta from patients. In common with all empirical results arrived at by retroactive judgment between cause and effect, these suggestions were only partly convincing and led to only partial avoidance of the danger. Witness, for ex¬ ample the obstinate assertion of Petten- koffer, the great hygienist, who insisted that the contagion in this disease must pass through a ripening stage in the earth, and that its spread is dependent on the level of ground water. The demonstration that the typhoid bacillus was not only the cause of the disease, but that it is present in the stools and urine of typhoid patients, at once led to more logical and far-reaching avoidance of these sources of contagion. It was accepted not only that typhoid patients are a source of possible danger, but it was soon suggested that even after their re¬ covery they might continue to retain the germs of the disease in their urinary bladder or intestines (Horton-Smith, 1900; Koch, 1902). This led, at Koch’s suggestion, to a systematic investigation of the stools of re¬ covered cases of typhoid fever in certain parts of Germany where the disease was ■particularly prevalent, and showed that four per cent, of all recovered cases remain “carriers” of B. typhosus for varying lengths of time, some of them for years. In connection with this study Drigalski made the important observation that a few indi¬ viduals may harbor the typhoid bacillus in their intestines without ever having suffered from the disease, “healthy carriers” as they are called. Repeated observations in all parts of the world have shown that through contamination of foodstuffs, these carriers may produce not only a chronologically ex¬ tended series of cases, but actual acute epi¬ demics. The obvious remedy consists in detecting the innocent but dangerous indi¬ vidual and isolating or curing him. Food contamination occurs not only in its preparation by carriers, but sometimes through transfer of the bacteria by flies, as has been shown to be the case particularly in asylums and prisons where excreta have been left exposed in the neighborhood of kitchens. Reed, Vaughan and Shakespeare have particularly emphasized this danger of fly transmission in their careful study of the devastating effect of the disease among our troops in the Spanish-American war. Evidence of this sort has led to an apprecia¬ tion of the necessity of proper, protected latrines which can be rapidly built even in temporary camps. These and other real contributions toward the prevention of the spread of typhoid fever have been made by pure bacteriology. Let us now consider what the sister science of immunology has accomplished. I have only suggested how much the demonstra¬ tion of the typhoid bacillus in the blood or stools of a suspected case of typhoid may aid in diagnosis of the disease. As a matter of fact no diagnosis is complete or indeed certain without such examination. An even July 28, 1916] SCIENCE 117 simpler and almost as reliable method of laboratory diagnosis has been devised by Widal and by Gruber, depending on a principle that had been previously dis¬ covered in laboratory experiment. Bordet in particular is responsible for having shown that the blood serum of animals that have been given injections of a micro¬ organism may be distinguished from the serum of normal animals by the fact that it clumps the microorganism in question. This fact was applied by Widal in his now famous test for typhoid fever, which de¬ pends on the presence of this agglutinating substance in the serum of those that are suffering from typhoid fever. This sign occurs in nearly all cases of the disease, al¬ though more frequently in its later stages. Our present methods of protective vacci¬ nation against typhoid fever depend on principles that have been dimly appreciated but at times successfuly used by very primi¬ tive peoples throughout the centuries. It had been observed that those who recover from certain of the infectious diseases are thereafter protected from them. With this fact in mind the Orientals practised arm to arm inoculation with smallpox virus which usually produced only local evidence of the dread disease and was followed by protec¬ tion from it. Jenner made this haphazard and dangerous method of prophylaxis a safe one by utilizing virus from a modified form of smallpox, namely cowpox, which is not only harmless, but gives equally good protection. Full understanding of the prin¬ ciple involved and its application to other infections, however, was dependent on the advent of bacteriology a century later. Pasteur not only separated out the causa¬ tive agents of a number of diseases, but found that he could so modify their viru¬ lence that they no longer produced fatal or serious effects when reinoculated into ani¬ mals. Those that had been treated with these modified germ cultures were found, however, to be protected against fully viru¬ lent original growths of the microorganism. Facts such as these were early discovered in respect to the infections produced by the typhoid bacillus in small animals. Beumer and Peiper in 1887 found that mice that had recovered from a non-fatal dose of this organism would subsequently withstand doses that were fatal to their untreated brothers. Shortly after, following a very important discovery by two American scien¬ tists, Salmon and Smith, it was found that this same protection could be effected in animals by the previous injection of cul¬ tures of the typhoid bacillus that had actu¬ ally been killed by heat. In 1894 two German scientists, Pfeiffer and Kolle, on the basis of further theoret¬ ical studies, were led to try the effect of giving human beings small hypodermic in¬ jections of dead typhoid bacilli. They found that the doses they used produced certain uncomfortable but transitory symp¬ toms, but that the blood of such treated individuals when subsequently examined contained antibodies which indicated that they were protected against typhoid fever. At the same time, and independently, A. E. Wright began similar inoculations in Brit¬ ish soldiers who volunteered for the pur¬ pose. The inoculations did them no harm, and as larger ' and larger groups of these vaccinated men came into being and were subjected in war to the same dangers of typhoid infection as were untreated men in the same regiment, it became evident that they were much less likely to contract the disease than the uninoculated, and when such vaccinated men did at times come down with typhoid fever, the disease almost in¬ variably ran a milder course than in the unvaccinated and the mortality among them was distinctly lower. It took something over ten years to con- 118 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1126 vince the thinking world that preventive inoculation against typhoid fever is harm¬ less and that to a striking extent it does protect. The results attained in the Ger¬ man and English armies and among the personnel of hospitals have assured us that these classes of people, who are the most exposed to typhoid fever, become, when vaccinated, only one half to one sixth as liable to contract the disease as the un¬ treated. The protection, then, under these unfavorable conditions, is not absolute, but very evident. Much better results have been obtained in the last few years in the United States army, where, in spite of objection, typhoid vaccination has been made compul¬ sory since 1910 for all men under forty-five years of age. Whereas in the preceding nine years there were on the average 351 cases of typhoid annually, since compulsory vaccination the cases have sharply dimin¬ ished until in 1913 and 1914 there wrere only four and seven cases, respectively, a truly remarkable showing. These last results have been enough to convince the most skeptical, and have led to widespread adop¬ tion of the method, not only in armies, but in civil communities. These results in our army, life-saving, convincing and valuable as they have been, are open to a very slight objection in my opinion; they have led the public, and particularly the medical pro¬ fession, to a slight over-confidence in the efficacy of the method itself. These army results are essentially perfect, at least far nearer perfection than has ever been reached by any similar type of biological preventive or curative treatment, a fact which leads us to suspect that they are ex¬ ceptional and due to the operation of a set of conditions which, in spite of their exist¬ ence over a considerable period of time, are not to be counted on. Among the conditions that have oper¬ ated in making these conditions more per¬ fect is the vaccine employed and the method used in its administration. Army officials are, in my opinion, inclined to attribute an undue importance to this factor. They use a certain strain or race of the typhoid bacil¬ lus derived from England, to which they are inclined to attribute particular prop¬ erties of immunization. Results elsewhere have indicated, and we believe we have strong evidence from unpublished work in our own laboratory, to prove that a vaccine compounded of a number of strains of the organism is better. The army has intro¬ duced three instead of the two injections which were formerly used in England, and this is an undoubted advance. The fact remains, however, that the army vaccine, or at least vaccines prepared by commercial firms from the army bacillus under identical and simple conditions, do not invariably protect in civil life. Recent reports from the continental armies, each employing a different method, show that in none of them is the protection afforded nearly absolute, in spite of the fact that in parts of the French army four or five in¬ jections have been given. I am inclined to believe with Sawyer that the superior re¬ sults in our army are largely due to the fact that the entire body of men has been protected, that there has been no single unprotected spot for an epidemic to get a start and gain in violence, to use a vague and perhaps not wholly accurate simile. Some recent results in France certainly in¬ dicate that antityphoid vaccination is more effective in those groups with the higher percentages of assuredly vaccinated men. I have gone somewhat fully into this dis¬ cussion of the army typhoid vaccine for the purpose of indicating that their results, although exceptional, have by no means convinced other authorities that the meth¬ ods they employ are in detail the best. Let me emphasize again that we are not now July 28, 1916] SCIENCE 119 considering whether typhoid vaccination is of value, that you must accept as proved beyond peradventure, but just how valuable it is and in what way it may be further perfected. In other words I am leading you into those intricacies of detail which any scientific problem attentively consid¬ ered must present, and from the unraveling of which new and important issues may arise. Our former beloved professor of hygiene, George Reinhardt, came to me some three years ago and asked if I did not agree with him that the student body in this univer¬ sity should be offered the opportunity of being vaccinated against typhoid fever. With no hesitancy at all I answered “Yes.” When he pressed me further as to the best method of preparing and administering the vaccine I felt unwilling to decide so impor¬ tant a matter on the basis of literary knowledge alone. In association with the late Dr. Edith J. Claypole we undertook to arrive at some conclusions on the subject. We found that nearly twenty different preparations of typhoid vaccine had been suggested, and each regarded by its author as the best. Data, however, on which to compare one vaccine with another were al¬ most entirely lacking, that is to say a vac¬ cine was approved because it had worked well under a given set of conditions with a more or less considerable number of men without any direct comparison with other vaccines. Three distinct improvements in the vac¬ cines in vogue seemed possible. First: All vaccines were admitted to pro¬ tect, at best, for only relatively short pe¬ riods of time, say about two years. Second: Many of the vaccines advocated were admitted to give rise, on adminis¬ tration, to rather uncomfortable transi¬ tory symptoms. Third: The current method of administra¬ tion, three injections over a period of three weeks or more, seemed an unneces¬ sarily long period to wait for protection. It was with these questions particularly in mind that we began our experiments. Out of them have arisen innumerable fur¬ ther questions, some of which have given rise to investigations of theoretical and practical interest. In the first place there had been no convincing experimental method of comparing the relative protec¬ tive value of various vaccines. The only results of value seemed to be statistics from inoculated men obtainable only after years and under most uneven conditions. Cer¬ tain experiments of Metchnikoff and Bes- redka with anthropoid apes were suggestive, but impossible to carry further, owing to the expense of these animals. We finally adopted an experimental procedure in rab¬ bits that had been used for other purposes and which, with our modification of it, led us to conclusions that were rapidly ob¬ tained and apparently valid. It was found possible to compare several of the best typhoid vaccines in respect to the length of time they protected rabbits against infec¬ tion with living typhoid bacilli. As a re¬ sult of many experiments of this sort we came to the conclusion that a new type of “sensitized” vaccine, as it is called, gives rise to the most durable immunity. The word “sensitized” simply means that the bacteria in the vaccine have been treated with the serum of animals that have been highly immunized against them% It was furthermore found possible to remove cer¬ tain toxic elements (endotoxins) from these vaccines with a further increase in immu¬ nizing property. The final product, then, a “sensitized vaccine sediment,” as we call it, not only protects animals longer from infection than other vaccines, but is found when injected into human beings to produce little or no reaction. 120 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1126 Another improvement we have suggested is the administration of the customary three doses of vaccine within a week instead of the three weeks usually regarded as neces¬ sary. Here again careful experiments in rabbits showed us that this rapid method produces an equally efficient and lasting protection. The final proof of the value of a prepara¬ tion is of course in practise, that is to say, its actual protective value for human beings. The California State Board of Health has been supplying our vaccine for free dis¬ tribution to physicians for the past two years. Dr. Sawyer, of this board, under¬ took to find out the results of typhoid vacci¬ nation in this state about a year ago. He obtained records from over 5,000 cases that had been treated with our vaccine, and something over half that number that had been treated with various other vaccines, mostly of the army type, as dispensed by commercial houses. There vTere about the same actual number of failures to protect in both series, that is, there were twice as many cases of typhoid fever per thousand among those vaccinated with other vaccines as with our own. It is evident, then, from these results and from what I have said, that typhoid vacci¬ nation, at least in the general community, is relatively, but not absolutely, protective. It remains for future investigation to deter¬ mine in what way the percentages of fail¬ ures can be decreased. It seemed to us very important, in our investigations, to devise a method by which the duration of protection could be deter¬ mined in individual cases. It is all very well to know that on the average vaccina¬ tion will protect for about two years, but what of the exceptional individual, who from sad experience we have learned is not protected even for two months ? Dr. Force and I think we have a method for deter¬ mining the actual presence or absence of protection in the individual at any given time. This tests consists in rubbing a small amount of material from killed typhoid bacilli on the skin. We have found that nearly all those who have had typhoid fever in the past, and who are known to be usually protected from it, react to this test wTith the formation of a slight reddish blush about the abrasion. Most people who have been vaccinated within the last two years also re¬ act positively. Normal people do not react. We feel justified in assuming that the pres¬ ence of a positive reaction of this sort is evidence of protection. So far it has not failed us in practise, that is to say, no vacci¬ nated person who has given a positive test has shortly thereafter had typhoid, and conversely in two vaccinated cases where the tests were negative and doubtful, re¬ spectively, the individuals have shortly thereafter contracted typhoid fever. It is too early to speak authoritatively about the absolute value of this “typhoidin test,” as it is called, but at least we feel justified in urging our vaccinated students to be re¬ vaccinated when we find the test negative. I hope I have somewhere in my remarks suggested to you that results of direct prac¬ tical bearing are by no means always ar¬ rived at directly. In fact the experienced investigator comes to rely more and more on Pasteur’s adage of “Chance and the Prepared Mind,” and learns to seize chance happenings and turn them to his own ends. I think the evolution of a practical point out of theoretical studies may well be illus¬ trated by some of our recent work. The efficacy of various typhoid vaccines has been tested, as already mentioned, by the ability of each to protect rabbits in a given dose for a given number of weeks against infec¬ tion with a large dose of living typhoid bacilli. In unprotected animals, or in ani¬ mals insufficiently protected, these injected July 28, 1916J SCIENCE 121 bacilli go on increasing in numbers, and although the animal may live for a consid¬ erable period, the typhoid organisms per¬ sist in his blood; he has become, in other words, a permanent carrier. In perfectly protected rabbits the bacilli disappear from the circulation within a few hours. It in¬ terested us to trace the method by which the bacteria disappear in the protected animals, and we found that coincidentally with the disappearance of the infecting bacteria there occurs a sharp rise in the number of white blood cells in the periph¬ eral circulation. These white cells, leuco¬ cytes, or phagocytes, as they are called, are known through the work of Metchnikoff and others to be associated with defense of the body against invading bacteria. This leuco¬ cytic crisis, then, would seem reasonably to be associated with protection in these immu¬ nized animals. A moderate grade of leuco- cytosis occurs in the normal unprotected animal, but is apparently insufficient for the purpose. In tracing further the cause of the extreme grade of leucocytosis in the immunized animal, we found it to occur only under specific conditions, that is, only when typhoid bacilli are injected in typhoid immune animals, and not when typhoid bacilli are introduced in normal animals, or other bacteria in our immunized animals. It seemed reasonable, then, to think it might be due to the action of the specific immune bodies which circulate in immune animals and are known to increase phagocytosis by their action on the bacteria with which they unite and which they render more attrac¬ tive to the leucocytes. This hypothesis we were able to verify by injecting bacteria that had been previously treated with typhoid-immune serum into the circulation of normal animals. The same phenomenon of specific hyperleucocytosis also occurred under these conditions. Since this hyperleucocytosis is coincident with, and apparently the cause of, the body’s ridding itself of bacteria, it seemed possible that the artificial production of it in typhoid fever might cure or beneficially affect this condition, which is so character¬ istically accompanied by a proliferation of bacteria in the blood stream. We tried out this possibility in our carrier rabbits, those animals in which we had produced a septi¬ cemia by injecting living typhoid bacilli. In some cases we cured these animals of their septicemia, and then after testing the harmlessness of large doses of our sensitized vaccine in rabbits and monkeys, even when injected directly into the blood stream, looked forward to a cautious adaptation of our results in cases of human typhoid fever. It was nearly a year before we had an opportunity to try this method on human beings. In the meantime the results of other writers in essentially the same direc¬ tion came to our attention, and further en¬ couraged our hope in the proposed method. It will be necessary at this point to go back a step and consider preceding work that had been done in attempts at a specific cure in typhoid fever, that is to say, a cure at¬ tempted in full recognition of the cause of this disease, namely, the typhoid bacillus. Striking success in combating bacterial in¬ fections has been met with in certain cases by the application of one or more of three pretty definite methods. Some bacteria, like the diphtheria bacillus, produce their harmful effect in the body by the liberation of poisonous substances known .as toxins. In the case mentioned, the disease, when taken in time, can be cured in a really miraculous manner by injecting diphtheria antitoxin, which is simply the serum of horses that have been treated with repeated doses of diphtheria toxin and thereby made to produce antitoxins that neutralize the toxin. Other diseases produce their harm¬ ful results largely by multiplication of the 122 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1126 invading microorganism. Such diseases, for example, as epidemic meningitis, can be cured by inoculating serum from animals immunized against its causative agent, the meningococcus. Still other diseases, prin¬ cipally local affections, as, for example, carbuncles, may be treated with consider¬ able success by injecting the causative agent itself; in the example mentioned, staphylo¬ coccus. This latter form of treatment, or vaccine therapy, as it is called, builds up an active immunity and leads the animal so to muster his reactive, protecting, forces as to expel the invader. It is this latter method of vaccine therapy which alone has been used with any suc¬ cess in the treatment of typhoid fever. I have already referred to the hopelessness of affecting the course of typhoid fever in any but a palliative way by the other methods of treatment that have been suggested; the fever may be favorably influenced by the continued use of cold baths, but the dura¬ tion of the disease is little, if at all, affected by such means. In 1893 Fraenkel began the use of small doses of killed typhoid bacilli injected hypodermically in typhoid fever. For twenty years this treatment has been tried with varying success by many physicians, some of whom have published their results. These results, although at times encouraging, have never convinced the medical world that the method is stri¬ kingly successful. The best that may be said of it is that it does no harm, and in the hands of some physicians apparently short¬ ens the disease and prevents some of the unpleasant sequels by which typhoid is so apt to be followed. During the past two years two innova¬ tions have been made which, from the re¬ sults attained by several observers, and in view of the theoretical studies on hyperleu- cocytosis to which I made reference, have thrown an entirely new light on the possi¬ bilities of vaccine therapy in typhoid fever. These two innovations are, briefly, as fol¬ lows : First, the administration of the vac¬ cine directly into the circulation, and secondly, the use of a sensitized or serum- treated vaccine instead of the plain bacterial growth hitherto used. These pro¬ cedures, introduced into practise by Thiro- loix and Bardon, and by Ichikawa, respec¬ tively, carried out the precise method of treatment that we had already suggested from our experimental results, and fully justified our expectations. During the past year it has been possible for us to carry out the intended treatment in a number of cases in this vicinity, through the great courtesy of physicians who have allowed us to see their patients and have been willing to accept our sugges¬ tions in relation to their treatment. This confidence and cooperation has resulted not only in rapid amelioration in the majority of cases, but through comparative study of the successful with the unsuccessful cases has suggested improvements which may in¬ crease the percentage of favorable results. Let us consider what happens when a killed preparation of sensitized typhoid bacilli is given intravenously in a case of typhoid fever. The introduction of some¬ thing like one twenty-fifth of a milligram of the vaccine into the circulation is fol¬ lowed in a few minutes by a distinct shaking chill, which is accompanied by a rise of the fever of from one to two degrees. This shaking and fever, which is seldom extreme enough to be very uncomfortable, is accom¬ panied by a fall in the number of white blood corpuscles. Following this reaction the fever rapidly falls so that in from six to twelve hours the temperature has reached normal, or even subnormal. This fall in the fever is accompanied by a rise in the leuco¬ cytes, profuse sweating, and a feeling of well-being. The severe headaches, begin- July 28, 1916] SCIENCE 123 ning delirium, and other symptoms char¬ acteristic of typhoid, disappear, or are markedly ameliorated. Perhaps the most important result produced is that the blood usually becomes free from bacteria follow¬ ing a single injection. In forty per cent, of the cases, this return of temperature to normal is permanent, and the patient re¬ mains symptomatically, and to all intents and purposes, well. The temperature may fluctuate for a day or two and then become normal. This forty per cent, of aborted cases, as we call them, actually about twenty-five in our series, were restored to a permanent normal condition within a week after beginning treatment. About twenty- five per cent, more are markedly bettered, but not so rapidly cured ; the course of these ameliorated cases is characterized by a per¬ manent drop of say a degree in temperature following each injection, and the average duration of the disease in this category is distinctly shorter than is usual. There re¬ main, however, a third of our cases, which total sixty-two, in which the intravenous vaccine treatment has produced no demon¬ strable effect. These cases are usually severe ones from the onset and it is impos¬ sible, to say that the treatment did not pre¬ vent an even more serious course than the one observed. At least it may be said that the treatment does no harm in these cases, and is followed by temporary abatements of fever and symptomatic benefit. There is a significant blood picture in this class of un¬ affected cases ; they are found to differ from those that are benefited by the treatment in the weakness of antibodies present in the serum. Mention has already been made as to the occurrence and diagnostic value of certain of these antibodies or agglutinins in typhoid fever. We believe from our study that a certain concentration of these anti¬ bodies is necessary to assure recovery or benefit after the vaccine injection which, as has been mentioned, produces an increase in the leucocytes. Our present conception of the mechanism of the rapid cure that is fre¬ quently produced is that it is due to the combination of these two factors, increased leucocytes and antibodies already present in the body. In other words, when the pa¬ tient is fighting the infection successfully, a sudden call on his reserves, the phago¬ cytes, finally routs the invader. It may be possible to supply these antibodies when they are lacking by serum from immune animals, and this is one of the many prob¬ lems connected with this disease on which, we are now engaged. I have tried to lead you into full view of the firing-line of the forces attacking typhoid fever. You will perceive that much remains to be done in the line both of pre¬ vention and of cure, but you will not fail, I am sure, to share my belief that here is one of the major diseases which will eventually disappear. I have endeavored to show you the vulnerable points in its cycle of devel¬ opment. If individual cases be rapidly cured, much suffering and death will be prevented and great economic loss avoided ; the period of dissemination of the disease germs will also be greatly shortened. Again, if comprehensive sanitary regula¬ tions safeguard the disposal of excreta from typhoid fever cases, detect and elimi¬ nate the carrier, and prevent the contami¬ nation of food and drink, the continuity of the disease will also be interrupted. Thor¬ ough prophylactic immunization of large or entire communities will not only protect most of the vaccinated individuals, but pre¬ vent foci for further spread of the disease. You will appreciate the inequality in the utilizable knowledge of typhoid fever that has been acquired through the two different types of medical advance. The purely ob¬ servational, bedside, clinical progress, re¬ sulted, after the lapse of centuries, in cri- 124 SCIENCE [N. S. VOL. XLIV. No. 1126 teria on which a differential diagnosis could be made with considerable accuracy ; in cer¬ tain observations from which not wholly convincing conclusions were drawn as to the spread of the disease, and certain meth¬ ods of palliative symptomatic treatment like hydrotherapy, and more recently, in¬ creased feeding. Contrast with this the ad¬ vances during the last thirty-five years, which marks the era of bacteriology. The parasitic cause of the disease was deter¬ mined. The demonstration of this micro¬ organism gave us a means of certain diag¬ nosis of the disease ; threw light on the na¬ ture of the disease process itself; conclu¬ sively settled its method of spreading ; and has given the only efficient means for speci¬ fic prevention and therapy. You will be convinced from this example that advances in applied medicine lie through laboratory investigation rather than through observations made at the bed¬ side, at least in so far as the infectious or parasitic diseases are concerned. Equally persuasive data, from the laboratory stand¬ point, could be given in relation to the dis¬ eases of disturbed metabolism which involve the sciences of chemistry and physiology. You will further readily believe from the complexities of this one problem that I have tried to suggest, that successful prosecution of work of this sort may well monopolize the attention of a large group of workers. The number of these workers is limited only by the opportunities that are available ; a reserve supply of eager and potentially productive minds is always at hand. The work itself is, however, not self-supporting, such advances as we may be able to make in the prevention and cure of disease bringing no pecuniary reward. It is fortunate in¬ deed for our welfare that the contributions to human health are not patented as are contributions to human comfort and luxury. The opportunities for advances in the medical sciences come, in part through pri¬ vate benefaction, in part through public funds wdsely administered, when, as in this university, opportunities are given not only for the dissemination of acquired knowl¬ edge, but also for its advancement. This ulitization of public funds for any partic¬ ular research is justified, apart from any preconceived notion as to its promise of practical reward. Frederick P. Gay University of California CHARLES WILLARD HAYES The geologist, geographer and explorer, known to colleagues and friends as “Willard” Hayes, died, after a long illness, at liis home in Cleveland Park, Washington, D. C., Febru¬ ary 8, 1916. He was fifty-seven years old, and in the twenty-eighth year of his professional career. Hayes was born at Granville, Ohio, gradu¬ ated at Oberlin (A.B.) 1883, and received his doctor’s degree at Johns Hopkins University in 1887. His entry, in the same year, to the scientific staff of the U. S. Geological Survey was, as with most young men joining scientific bureaus of the government, a continuance of the student and research life. Hayes’s studies were destined to contribute to a fuller under- standing of the principles of geology and physiography; to better the methods of geo¬ logical investigation and to make more prac¬ tical, as well as more comprehensive and thor¬ ough, the application of geology to economic problems. The first assignment of Hayes was as assist¬ ant to Russell, who, under the direction of Gilbert, then chief geologist, was making a general geologic section across the southern Appalachians. After a year of apprentice¬ ship Hayes succeeded Russell, and began the areal geologic mapping, which he had satisfied himself was the only way to solve the complex structure of this region. It was in the course of this work that he demonstrated, in the folded strata, the existence of flat overthrust faults some of .which have a horizontal dis- July 28, 1916] SCIENCE 125 placement of several miles, and proved that they are characteristic and essential features of Appalachian structure where the thrust was concentrated on a single fold. The discovery of these faults, the importance of which was first recognized by Hayes, and their coincident mapping in another area by Keith, with sub¬ sequent fuller elaboration by Keith, Willis and Campbell, established what may, in effect, be regarded as a geologic principle that has influ¬ enced the interpretation of geologic structures in many other parts of North America. Meanwhile modern physiography, largely an American product, which was then being or¬ ganized and made a science by Powell, Gilbert, Russell and Davis, found an enthusiastic dis¬ ciple in Hayes, who, with Campbell, began to apply the principles of the new science in the interpretation of the surface features of the field in which he was at work. Their first paper, “ Geomorphology of the Southern Ap¬ palachians,” published in the National Geo¬ graphic Magazine, is regarded generally as the standard work on the physiography of the region covered, and as having laid a broader foundation for physiographic investigation in general. In 1891, Hayes participated as geologist in an Alaska expedition by Lieut. Frederick Schwatka, during which a region between the Yukon and Copper Rivers, not previously seen by white men, was traversed with topographic sketching and observations on the geology, geography and mineral resources. Some re¬ sults of this, at that time very difficult explora¬ tion, including data on the northern limit of Pleistocene glaciation in Alaska, on recent volcanic activity, and on the distribution of gold and copper in the region, were contrib¬ uted in the National Geographic Magazine for that year. To the insight then gained by Hayes of the possibilities of mineral wealth in Alaska which then was little known, was due, in no small part, the organization, later, by the Geological Survey of the systematic investiga¬ tion of the geology and mineral resources of Alaska. As Hayes became more strongly identified in the economic work of the Geological Survey, more attention was given by it to the syste¬ matic investigation of the non-metalliferous and the fuel mineral resources of the country. As a result of his special interest and personal accomplishments in this department of the survey activities, he was, in 1899, placed in charge of the newly established Section of Non-metalliferous Resources. In 1902, he was made chief geologist of the survey, in which position he continued until his resignation in 1911. At the request of the military governor of Cuba, Hayes was, in March of 1900, detailed to make a reconnaissance of the economic geol¬ ogy of that island. The principal results of his observations on the island, supplemented by those of his assistants, T. Wayland Yaughan and A. C. Spencer, were contributed in a re¬ port to General Wood. In response to a request from the State De¬ partment, Hayes was, in 1907, detailed to make a geological investigation in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, primarily for the advice of the Nicaragua Canal Commission. Some accounts of this work, which occupied also a part of the following year, were embodied in several papers, chief among which is his report to Admiral Walker, president of the commission, on the “ Geology and physiography of a region adjacent to the proposed Nicaragua canal.” This is a principal source of information as to the geology of that part of Central America. On account of the interest taken by citizens of the United States in the important dis¬ coveries of oil in Mexico, and of the apprehen¬ sion as to the effects of these discoveries upon the oil industry of this country, Hayes, in com¬ pany with David T. Day, was, in 1909, selected to visit the new developments in the southern republic. Following his return to this coun¬ try, a report was transmitted to the President, a summary of which appeared as a Senate Document (No. 79), stating that the Mexican oils were of fuel grade, being inferior to most of the American oils, and that their principal markets were likely to be found in Mexico itself and in other foreign countries. In 1910, Hayes was, by request of the War Department, sent to Panama to procure data 126 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1126 relating to tlie geologic conditions in the Canal Zone and, especially, in the Culebra Cnt. A report by him on the causes of the landslides and other failures in the sides of the cut, and of means for their prevention, submitted to the Secretary of War, was, in summary form, included in the President’s message to Con¬ gress. Hayes’s recommendation, which led to the appointment of a geologist to serve reg¬ ularly with the Canal Commission, was a wise provision and it would appear to be no fault of these geologists that some of the subsequent disasters were not averted. In 1901, Hayes began the study of the prob¬ lems of oil and gas geology, his first investiga¬ tions being in the Coastal Plain of Texas and Louisiana. Largely as a result of this work, and the growing appreciation of the enormous value of the study of geologic structure in the search for oil and gas, Hayes’s services were persistently sought by private interests engaged in the development of oil pools. Pinally, in recognition of his ability in oil geology and his success in the Geological Sur¬ vey as organizer and administrator, he was irresistibly solicited to become vice-president and manager of the “ Compania Mexicana de Petroleo ‘ El Aguila,’ ” a position which, in October, 1911, he resigned from the survey to accept and which he held until the time of his death. In the new service, he recruited a staff of young geologists, with which he was able, with most brilliant economic results, to accom¬ plish, in effect, a geological reconnaissance of about one half of the Province of Yera Cruz, before the abandonment by the United States of Tampico and Yera Cruz, combined with ill¬ ness and other circumstances, made it neces¬ sary for him to leave Mexico and his work un¬ finished. From this illness he never recovered. During his career of twenty-four years in the U. S. Geological Survey, Hayes’s geologic work, whether as assistant or as chief geol¬ ogist, was comprehensive, original, efficient and constructive. He examined in detail and mapped the geology of sixteen quadrangles in the southern Appalachian region, for nine of which the results were published in folios of the Geologic Atlas. He made examinations of non-metalliferous deposits, iron ores, and fea¬ tures of geologic importance in many parts of the country. He was the author, alone or in conjunction with other geologists, of seven papers, published in the annual reports, and of thirteen in bulletins of the Geological Survey. A large number of papers were printed in the publications of various learned and profes¬ sional societies of which he was a hard-work¬ ing, helpful and productive member. In 1908 the honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred on him by Oberlin. It was a privilege to be associated with Hayes. With a master mind, he was genial, philosophical and stimulating. With a pene¬ trative insight of men and things, he sym¬ pathetically encouraged, steadied, strengthened and put on a higher level the work of his assistants, while to his colleagues he gave friendly criticism, wise counsel, and unstinted and unselfish assistance. David White A SCHOOL OF NURSING AND HEALTH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI The University of Cincinnati has taken over the school of nursing and health of the Cin¬ cinnati General Hospital and has put it under the immediate direction of the dean and fac¬ ulty of its college of medicine. The univer¬ sity has already been given control of the lab¬ oratories of the hospital and, through its med¬ ical faculty, of doing all the medical, surgical and research work at the hospital. Apprecia¬ ting the service rendered to the people of Cin¬ cinnati by the medical faculty, the city au¬ thorities requested the university to undertake the direction of the school of nursing and health also. The university will thus be re¬ sponsible for all of the educational and scien¬ tific work of the entire hospital and its various branches. When the new medical college building is completed, as it is expected it will be early next year, the work of the medical college, the pathologic institute and the school of nursing and health will be assembled in one place, as they already are in one organization. Nursing will become a skilled and learned July 28, 1916] SCIENCE 127 profession to a degree far beyond its present attainment. The advance of modern scientific methods of treating the ills of mankind has already forced the issue upon medical train¬ ing. That inadequate preparation of nurses and exploitation of them by so-called training schools will be eliminated is an inevitable next step. A nurse should have a liberal, broad education in language, history and the social and physical sciences; and she, like the physi¬ cian and dentist, should keep up with develop¬ ments in her own and allied professions. Carried out in this way nursing becomes a dignified calling demanding for success a com¬ prehensive university training. The school of nursing and health is to be made a high-grade institution, not only for training nurses, but for preparing women to do sanitary and social work in both town and country. It will have three kinds of courses and students. 1. A three-year course for nurses, including systematic instruction and cooperative work in the hospital. This course will lead to a di¬ ploma in nursing. 2. A five-year course leading to a degree, in¬ cluding two years of study in the fundamental sciences in the university. This is planned to train a higher class of institutional officers, teachers and sanitarians. 3. Special courses for graduate nurses from other hospitals and schools. The usual preparation demanded of all in¬ coming students will be required for admis¬ sion to the first two courses. A certificate from a recognized hospital or school will ad¬ mit to the special courses. The staff of instructors has been selected, which will be aided by the professors in the medical college. The director of the school is Miss Laura Logan, a graduate of Acadia Col¬ lege and of Columbia University and formerly of the Mt. Sinai Hospital, Hew York City. Fourteen instructors constitute the present faculty of the school, not including the mem¬ bers of the medical and other university facul¬ ties who give the instruction in chemistry, biology, anatomy, physiology, economics, soci¬ ology and general subjects. A noteworthy fea¬ ture is the appointment of a trained psycholo¬ gist to give instruction in a subject recognized more and more as invaluable to the physician and nurse. More and more the university is offering op¬ portunities for the higher education of women, following the educational policy of President Dabney. In 1905 the college for teachers was launched, and in 1914 the school of household arts was made a department of the university. The school of nursing and health is therefore a consistent development. PRACTICAL WORK FOR STUDENTS OF THE NEW YORK STATE COLLEGE OF FORESTRY The forty -three juniors of the State College of Forestry at Syracuse, who have five months between their junior and senior years for practical work, are scattered literally to the four corners of the continent in all fields of forestry work. It is the policy of the college of forestry to give its students the maximum amount of sound, practical training in their four-year course. Too often college students waste their summer vacations. At the end of the freshman year the boys are helped to get into practical work with lumber companies, landscape concerns and wherever there are openings for hard work with experience. The entire sophomore summer of three months is spent in camp on Cranberry Lake. This camp is as much a part of the four-year course as the mathematics or chemistry taught in the college. The junior year then closes on May 1 and the senior year does not open until Oc¬ tober 1, giving the juniors five months for practical work along forestry lines. Many of the boys in the college of forestry are earning their own way and this period of five months not only gives them opportunity for securing a lot of valuable experience but it ineans suffi¬ cient funds for carrying them through their final year in college. Practically every one of the juniors in the college of forestry is working during this sum¬ mer vacation in some phase of forestry. Eight of them are with the United States Forest Service on national forests, both in the east and the west. These fellows will be engaged on look-out work to detect forest fires, in the 128 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1126 construction of roads, trails and bridges, in forest reconnaisance and mapping, and in other phases of national forest activities. Seven of the juniors are working with lum¬ ber and wood-preserving companies, eight are engaged in landscape forestry and five others in consulting forestry work. In addition two are engaged in city forestry work in New York and the other eleven men are in the state for¬ estry work, in forestry work for themselves or in attending the sophomore forest camp in the Adirondacks. Most of the men are working in New York state in some phase of practical for¬ estry work, although the school has become na¬ tional in its activities inasmuch as it draws students from practically all of the states of the union. Its graduates and the juniors who are seeking temporary work only have so far had opportunities to engage in work all over the country, although it is probable that the largest number will remain in this state. This season the boys who have gone out from the college of forestry for work have se¬ cured positions paying from $40 to $100 per month and expenses. Many of the temporary positions lead to permanent work upon gradu¬ ation from the college. Many calls have come to the college for men and it has been impos¬ sible to send them out owing to not having men with a sufficient amount of training. This situation is evidence of a growing inter¬ est in forestry and proves that more men will be needed in the future for the protection of our great forest areas and in the development of the industries dependent upon the forests. STANFORD UNIVERSITY ARBORETUM The Stanford Arboretum, comprising ap¬ proximately 200 acres, and established by Senator Stanford in 1882, has been placed under the control of the department of botany with a view of more fully utilizing it for scien¬ tific purposes. An annual appropriation is to be made for the acquisition of specimens, that for the current year being $1,000. The original collections, which will form the nucleus of the new plantings, contain sev¬ eral hundred species, representing about sixty families. The collection of conifers is espe¬ cially rich in genera. Including both the Taxacese and Pinaceae, this group of plants is represented by nineteen genera. As the climate at Stanford is warm enough in winter for orange and lemon trees and cool enough in summer to successfully grow the white pine and Norway spruce, it should be possible to grow almost any species of the tem¬ perate and subtropical zones. Plants from Australia, New Zealand, Chili, South Africa and the Mediterranean region are well adapted and will thrive without being watered during the dry season. With such excellent natural conditions the Arboretum should become even¬ tually one of the most extensive collections of arboreal plants. A feature that is to be given especial attention is the West American section. In a tract, set aside for this purpose, it is planned to bring together as complete a collec¬ tion as possible of the native trees and shrubs of the Pacific coast, Great Britain, Rocky Mountains and the arid southwest. The development of the Stanford Arboretum along broad scientific lines is meeting with enthusiastic approval and support. Among those who have taken interest in its establish¬ ment and offered to contribute toward the building up of the collections are: Dr. C. S. Sargent, director of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University; Dr. N. L. Britton, di¬ rector of the New York Botanical Garden, and Dr. David Fairchild, in charge of foreign seed and plant introduction, United States Depart¬ ment of Agriculture. Mr. H. A. Greene, presi¬ dent of the Monterey Tree Growing Club, has presented already nearly 200 species, many of which are rare and impossible to obtain through ordinary trade channels. Mr. John McLaren, superintendent of Golden Gate Park, has taken an active inter¬ est and has consented to assist in the general planning, especially along the principal ave¬ nues. Mr. McLaren’s success with the land¬ scape gardening in Golden Gate Park and at the Panama-Pacific Exposition assures the Arboretum the very best advice for its land¬ scape architecture. Coincident with the new policy of the Arbo¬ retum the university has set aside several tracts July 28, 1916] SCIENCE 129 on the Palo Alto estate for the preservation of the native vegetation. These plant reserves embrace several hundred acres and contain a variety of plant formation, such as stream- bank, redwood canon, oak-madrona forest, serpentine outcrops and chaparral. In a pre¬ liminary survey of the reserves 64 species of native lignescent plants were catalogued. SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS Sir William Ramsay, the distinguished British chemist, died on July 23, in his sixty- fifth year. At the annual meeting of the Royal Society of Arts on June 29, two weeks before the death of Elie Metchnikoff, it was announced that the Albert medal of the society for the current year had been awarded to him “ in recognition of the value of his investigations into the causes of immunity in infective dis¬ eases, which have led to important changes in medical practise, and to the establishment of principles certain to have a most beneficial in¬ fluence on the improvement of public health.” The Royal Society of Edinburgh at its meeting of July 3, elected foreign honorary fellows as follows: Professor C. Barrois, pro¬ fessor of geology and mineralogy, Lille; Pro¬ fessor D. H. Campbell, professor of botany, Leland Stanford University; Professor M. E. Gley, professor of physiology, Paris ; Pro¬ fessor C. Golgi, professor of anatomy, Rome; General W. C. Gorgas, U. S. Army; Professor G. B. Grassi, professor of comparative anat¬ omy, Rome; Professor E. C. Pickering, di¬ rector of Harvard College Observatory; Pro¬ fessor E. Warming, emeritus professor of bot¬ any and keeper of the Royal Botanic Gar¬ dens, Copenhagen. Sir George T. Beilby, F.R.S., the chemist and metallurgist, Mr. Edward Dent, Sir Rob¬ ert Hadfield, F.R.S., the metallurgist, and Sir II. Capel Holden, E.R.S., the electrical engi¬ neer, have been elected to the council of the Royal Society of Arts. The Earl of Selborne has resigned the office of president of the British Board of Agricul¬ ture and Fisheries. The prize fellowship, offered by the English Federation of University Women to encour¬ age research, has been awarded to Dr. Alice Lee, fellow of University College, London, who proposes to undertake an investigation into the birth-rate as affected by present condi¬ tions. Dr. Victor V. Anderson has been placed in charge of a medical department and psycholog¬ ical laboratory in the Boston police court es¬ tablished by the city council on June 23. Dr. William S. O’Neill Sherman, Pitts¬ burgh, has started for Europe, where he will do research work in war hospitals for the Rockefeller Institute. He is to make a spe¬ cial study of gangrene, tetanus and amputa¬ tion. The Department of Botanical Research of the Carnegie Institution of Washington will be represented at the sixty-eighth meeting of the American Association by Drs. Forrest Shreve and II. A. Spoehr. Zoological investigations are being con¬ ducted this summer by the department of for¬ est zoology of the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse, on the following lines: The fish survey of Oneida Lake is being con¬ tinued by Dr. C. C. Adams and Professor T. L. Hankinson, assisted by Mr. A. G. Whitney. Mr. Frank C. Baker is continuing his study of the relation of molluscs to fish. Professor H. N. Jones, bacteriologist of Syracuse Uni¬ versity, is studying the diseases of fish. Pro¬ fessor P. S. Welch, of the Kansas State Col¬ lege, is working in cooperation on the annelid worm fauna of the lake and on the fish food in the water lily zone. Through a grant by Hon. R. M. Barnes, of Lacon, Ill., also cooperating with the college, P. M. Silloway is making a survey of the bird life in the forests about the Summer Forest Camp at Cranberry Lake, Wanakena, N. Y. The Board of Scientific Directors of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research announce the following promotions and ap¬ pointments : Dr. Alphonse R. Doehez, hitherto an associate in medicine, has been made an associate member. Dr. Henry T. Chickering 130 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1126 has been appointed resident physician in the hospital to succeed Dr. Dochez. The follow¬ ing have been made associates: Dr. Louise Pearce, pathology and bacteriology; Dr. Fred¬ erick L. Gates, pathology and bacteriology. The following have been made assistants : Dr. Oswald Robertson, pathology and bacteriology ; Ernest Wildman, chemistry. The following new appointments have been made : Dr. Rhoda Erdmann, associate in the department of ani¬ mal pathology; Dr. Rufus A. Morrison, assist¬ ant in medicine and assistant resident physi¬ cian; Dr. John Northrop, assistant in the de¬ partment of experimental biology; Dr. Jean Oliver, assistant in the department of pathol¬ ogy and bacteriology; Dr. Ernest W. Smillie, fellow in the department of animal pathology; Dr. William D. Witherbee, assistant. Dr. Elardolph Wasteneys, hitherto an associate in the department of experimental biology, has, as has already been noted in Science, accepted an appointment as associate professor of pharmacology in the University of California. Under the auspices of the Botanical Sem¬ inar of the Michigan Agricultural College, Dr. William Crocker, of the University of Chi¬ cago, gave a public address recently on the “ History of Our Present Knowledge of Plant Nutrition.” At the sixty-fourth annual meeting of the Maine Medical Association, held in Portland, an illustrated lecture on “ Experiences of the Layman on a Journey of Three Months in Japan, Korea and China with Three Promi¬ nent Medical Men ” was delivered by Dr. Wal¬ lace Butterick, secretary of the General Edu¬ cation Board of the Rockefeller Foundation. Mr. Leonard Darwin gave the presidential address at the annual meeting of the Eugenics Education Society held in London on July 6. Charles William Henry Kirchoff, a past- president of the American Institute of Mining Engineers and for many years editor of The Iron Age, died on July 23, at the age of sixty- three years. Sir Victor Horsley, the distinguished Eng¬ lish surgeon, neurologist and author, died on July 16, at the age of fifty -nine years, at Amara, in Mesopotamia, from a sun stroke. The death is announced of Prince Boris Galitzin, professor of physics in the Imperial Academy of Sciences, Petrograd, known espe¬ cially for his work in seismology. Gaston Maspero, the well-known Egyptol¬ ogist, permanent secretary of the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Paris, died on June 30. Tile twenty-seventh annual meeting of the British Museums Association was held at Ips¬ wich on July 11 and 12, under the presidency of Mr. E. Rimbault Dibdin, curator of the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Sir William Osler has sent word to a num¬ ber of American surgeons that there are vacancies for 120 young American medical graduates in the military hospitals of London and its immediate neighborhood. The term of service is six months. There will be a small salary and passage will be paid both ways. An isolation hospital having a capacity of forty beds is being erected in connection with the State University of Iowa, College of Medi¬ cine. It is reported that $42,000 has been set aside for the construction of the institution. Tile United States Coast and Geodetic Sur¬ vey vessel Surveyor, was launched at Mani¬ towoc, Wis., on July 22. It is a steel steamer of about 1,000 tons displacement, with triple expansion engines, and will use crude oil for fuel. Sixty-six officers and men can be ac¬ commodated. The vessel can carry enough fuel and stores to remain at sea for three months. The Surveyor is held to be the most modern type of vessel ever built for surveying purposes, and will be used for work on the Pacific coast and Alaska. It is intended that she shall be finished this fall in time to leave the Great Lakes before the close of navigation. Miss Elizabeth Brent Jones, daughter of the superintendent of the Coast and Geodetic Sur¬ vey, named the vessel. The results of a large number of recent physical tests of road-building rock have been published by the U. S. Department of Agri- July 28, 1916] SCIENCE 131 culture as a professional paper, Bulletin 370. These tests have been made by the Office of Public Roads and Rural Engineering to give highway engineers information in regard to the various physical properties of the different rocks most frequently used in road construc¬ tion. The three most important of these prop¬ erties are defined in the bulletin as hardness, or the resistance which the rock offers to the displacement of its surface particles by ab¬ rasion; toughness, or the resistance which it offers to fracture under impact; and binding power, or the ability which the dust from the rock possesses,- or develops by contact with water, of binding the large rock fragments to¬ gether. A postal vote was recently taken of the members of the British Institution of Elec¬ trical Engineers on the proposed exclusion of alien enemies, and the details of the result were as follows: Cards issued, 3,244; cards re¬ turned, 1,470. In favor of (a) to expel mem¬ bers who are subjects of enemy-countries or states, 1,320, against, 88; in favor of (b) to expel members who, being naturalized British subjects, have retained enemy nationality, 1,307, against, 79; in favor of (c) not to exj>el members who are naturalized British subjects and were formerly subjects of a country or state now at war with Great Britain and Ire¬ land, but who have under the laws of such country or state definitely lost their alien na¬ tionality, provided they are able to prove this to the complete satisfaction of the council, 1,081, against, 264; in favor of ( d ) that no per¬ son shall after the of - 19 — , be eligible for election as a member of the Insti¬ tution who is a subject of any country or state with which the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is or shall have been at war on or after the date mentioned, 1,120, against, 200. One of the provisions of the federal aid road bill, which was signed by the President on July 11, appropriates $1,000,000 a year for ten years to be spent by the Secretary of Agricul¬ ture for the construction and maintenance of roads and trails within or partly within the national forests. The bill provides that, upon request of the proper officers of the states or counties, the money shall be used for building roads and trails which are necessary for the use and development of resources upon which communities within or near the national for¬ ests are dependent. The work is to be done in cooperation with the various states and coun¬ ties. Not more than 10 per cent, of the value of the timber and forage resources of the na¬ tional forests within the respective county or counties in which the roads or trails will be constructed may be spent. Provision is made for the return of the money to the Treasury by applying 10 per cent, of the annual receipts of the national forests in the state or county until the amount advanced is covered. Offi¬ cers in charge say that the bill will make pos¬ sible the construction of many roads which are greatly needed. Since 1913 ten per cent, of the receipts of the national forests have been used in road and trail building, but the funds have been inadequate to meet the needs. Many isolated communities within the na¬ tional forests are entirely dependent on the government roads and trails. In some in¬ stances these settlements are said to be almost entirely without means of communication. According to Forest Service officials the money now made available will permit the construc¬ tion of many roads necessary to open up inac¬ cessible territory, and will greatly facilitate the development of large areas. It is said that de¬ tailed plans covering the policy to be followed in building roads are now being made. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS The jury in the Surrogates’ Court of New York City has declared invalid the will of Amos F. Eno, according to which Columbia University was made the residuary legatee and would receive an amount estimated at over four million dollars. It is understood that Columbia University will seek to obtain a new trial. The merger of the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania and the Jefferson Medical College will not be consummated this year. The following statement was made by 132 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1126 a dean of one of the institutions: The mem¬ bers of the United Medical Committee, in charge of the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania and the Jefferson Medical College, of Philadelphia, have agreed that it is advisable to postpone the consummation of the union agreed on by the plan adopted by the trustees of the two institutions, in order that further opportunity may be afforded for considering a number of important matters relative to the mode of administration of the new school, and have, therefore, determined that each of the schools shall conduct, sepa¬ rately from and independently of the other and of the United Medical Committee, the work of its college term for 1916-17. Professor Walter S. Hunter, of the Uni¬ versity of Texas, has been appointed professor of psychology in the University of Kansas, to fill the vacancy caused by the removal of Pro¬ fessor Robert M. Ogden to Cornell University. At Indiana University, Professor W. N. Logan, director of the school of general science in the Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College, has been appointed associate pro¬ fessor of economic geology; and Mr. C. A. Malott has been appointed instructor in physiography and geology. Dr. J. J. Galloway, instructor in paleontology, has accepted a po¬ sition as curator of paleontology at Columbia University. Harrison R. Hunt, Ph.D. (Harvard, ’16), has been appointed instructor in zoology in West Virginia University. He takes the place of J. Theron Illick, who will sail for China in the autumn to accept a teaching position there. At the Michigan Agricultural College, Mr. G. R. Johnstone has resigned his instructor- ship in botany which he has held for three years, in order to prosecute his studies further. The vacancy has been filled by the appointment of Mr. H. C. Young, who was at the Missouri Botanical Garden last year. We learn from Nature that the Manchester City Council (governing body of the Man¬ chester School of Technology) has established a new subdepartment of the school of post¬ graduate study and research in coal-tar prod¬ ucts and dyestuffs, and has appointed Pro¬ fessor A. G. Green, P.R.S., to take charge of it. Professor Green recently resigned the chair of tinctorial chemistry at Leeds University in order to direct the research department of a firm of dyestuff manufacturers. His sub¬ department will be under the general direction of Professor Knecht, who is head of the de¬ partment of applied chemistry, and is expert in the use of dyestuffs, as Professor Green is expert in their manufacture. It is announced in the London Times that Dr. A. E. Evans, lecturer in chemistry in University College, Reading, has been placed in charge of a new department of the Hud¬ dersfield Technical College for special study and research in coal-tar color chemistry. It is expected that a number of scholarships will be tenable in the department. The directors of British Dyes (Limited) are supporting the scheme, and are prepared to contribute sub¬ stantially towards its institution. At Leeds University there is already a department of color chemistry and dyeing, the endowment of which was provided by the Clothworkers’ Company. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE AN ENGINEER’S IDEA OF ENERGY To the Editor of Science : In a recent num¬ ber of Science1 Professor Kent takes excep¬ tion to some criticisms of mine on the “ cur¬ rent definition of energy.” In his opening sentences he states that in seeking “ some language in which to convey to students an engineer’s idea of energy ” he wrote : “ Energy, or stored work, is the capacity for performing work ” and proceeded to extend and illustrate his definition. Now if he had only “ stuck to his idea ” and prefaced his statement in his book with the words he here uses in his above explanation, so that his statement would have read : “ An engineer’s idea of energy, or stored work, is the capacity for- performing work, etc.,” no one could have taken exception to his statement. It would have been true and, except by other engineers, not open to dispute. But when he i June 9, 1916, p. 820. July 28, 1916] SCIENCE 133 assumes that his statement is a generalized one and offers it as a “ definition ” of energy and not as a mere statement of the meaning he wishes to have attached to a term, he lays himself open to criticism. For it is not true as a general definition. The quoted statement from Maxwell to which I gave my approval, but which he condemns, shows a Maxwellian conception of energy. Professor Kent, him¬ self, shows the futility of attempting to throw the Maxwellian conception into the form of a “ definition.” Professor Kent rejects the idea, or conception, of Maxwell because he can not throw it into the form of a “ definition ” ; » on the contrary, I reject the “ definition ” be¬ cause it does not in any adequate way repre¬ sent Maxwell’s conception. Professor Kent seems to think that the statement which I quoted from Maxwell and which met my ap¬ proval does not rise to the dignity of a con¬ ception because it does not fit his (Kent’s) definition. Further on, referring to matter and energy, Professor Kent declares : But there is a necessity for definitions of both these terms. The users of my book demand them. The naivete of this statement is delightful. I thought I was discussing a question of sci¬ ence and logic; Professor Kent seems to con¬ sider it one of “ commerce and finance.” How¬ ever, in the opening paragraph, above, I have shown how he can “ define ” to his heart’s con¬ tent by merely specifically stating that such and such are the meanings that he wishes to have attached to the terms he uses and then use them consistently himself. When, how¬ ever, he invades the fields of science and logic he must expect to be judged by the canons that hold in those fields. That is to say, other writers also use the terms matter and energy, but in a more general sense than is customary, or necessary, with the engineer. Professor Kent can not justly deny to others (Maxwell, for instance) a freedom which he claims for himself. It thus happens, of course, that dif¬ ferent writers may use the same term in dif¬ ferent senses, but that is a small thing com¬ pared to what happens when one and the same writer uses a term in two or more senses with¬ out perceiving that he is “ mixing things up.” It was not “ definitions ” per se to which I was objecting in my former communication, but to lop-sided, inadequate, or misleading statements intended as definitions, but which can result only in confusion and contradictions. Every writer is, and should be, free to “ define ” all the terms he pleases, provided only that so long as he continues to use a term he uses it consistently. Then the “ survival of the fittest ” will ultimately decide whether they survive or perish. As regards the term “ energy,” in addition to its figurative meaning in literature it has developed two distinct technical meanings, the engineer’s and the physicist’s. This would not cause any great difficulty if the two tech¬ nical meanings were distinctly recognized and indicated as is done with the “ pound ” in use as a unit in engineering practise. Professor Kent claims priority of use for the engineer’s definition of energy. Granted, but priority in use can not justify a claim that the tiling which he defines is the same thing as that which the physicist claims is conserved. Such a claim is exactly what I meant when I spoke of “ mixing things up,” or using the same term for two distinctly different things with¬ out recognizing that they were different. That Professor Kent’s definition is consistent with the doctrine of the conservation of energy can not be admitted for a moment by any one who comprehends the meaning of the term con¬ servation. “ The capacity for performing work ” always diminishes with the doing of work, for it always depends upon some exist¬ ing differences, such as difference in tempera¬ ture, difference in pressure, difference of level, difference in direction of motion, difference in direction of stresses, or even difference in molecular distribution as in the osmotic cell, which difference disappears when the possible work due to it is done. (Compare with Nernst’s law.) The capacity for doing work may disappear entirely without diminishing the total energy of a system one particle. Hence, to claim that the capacity for doing work is conserved is tantamount to claiming that a perpetual motion machine is possible; 134 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1126 and the denial of such a possibility is a funda¬ mental postulate of many writers on thermo¬ dynamics. The following statement of the postulate2 may serve to bring out the signif¬ icance of the differences referred to above: No engine of any kind can by any means be made to maintain continuously or restore and main¬ tain when changed, the state of the system which initially set it in motion; and the difference in the energy state which initially established the motion will disappear the more quickly the greater the activity of the engine. In reply to Professor Dadourian’s objection in Science,3 I would call his attention to the preceding remarks. In addition I would say that he misinterprets my point of view if he supposes that I am opposed to defining energy. If I knew how I would define it myself. Else¬ where4 I have stated what I conceive consti¬ tutes the laws of energy; and those three laws are as near as I can come to a “ definition of energy .” If he can produce a definition that will convey the necessary information and not conflict with known facts and laws the scien¬ tific world will doubtless welcome it with open arms. The field is open. But a definition that claims to be general and leaves out, or even is in opposition to, the most important character¬ istic of the thing supposed to be defined is worse than no definition at all. The absence of a “ definition ” does not preclude the clari¬ fying of our thought by diligent study of the thing we wish to define. As an aid to study, a provisional, or partial definition may often be of great assistance as a working hypothesis provided it is recognized as provisional and not allowed to close our minds to evidence and dominate our perceptive powers. M. M. Garver The Pennsylvania State College “AVAILABLE ENERGY” VS. “ENERGY” To the Editor of Science: The argument between the scientist and the engineer over the definition of energy is clearly saturated -Journal of Physical Chemistry, Vol. 15, p. 613 (1911). 3 June 16, 1916. * Loc. cit. enough to crystallize out the clean-cut defini¬ tion of “ available energy ” and leave the in¬ definite but exceeding rich mother-conception of “ energy ” for those who shall see more clearly or be able to unite our bewilderment of facts and deductions to a concrete state¬ ment. The communication of Professor Garver in the April 21 issue is both a timely and an excel¬ lent critique. Evidently he analyzed the diffi¬ culty far better than he constructed a work¬ ing presentation or Dr. Wm. Kent would not have been able to so well establish himself in the reply of June 9. That the author of a leading engineers’ hand¬ book should express himself as Kent has done may be considered as evidence to demonstrate the narrow conceptions and limited field into which practical men continually fall. Erom the energy-to-sell point of view there certainly is satisfaction in the Kent definition; but we can not allow Dr. Kent to confine the use of the term “ energy ” to engineering ; the engi¬ neer clasps hands with the scientist in every undertaking and acknowledges his past and present effort as components of his own prac¬ ticability. The men who have most carefully studied thermodynamics and energy transformations assert that one particular sort of energy mani¬ festation can be designated as free energy, available energy or by some factor indicating potential or intensity variation. The “ stored work” is to be referred to this sort of energy, but the converse is not true — that all the energy in a given system which may thus be described can be converted into work. With Garver we have to say that a certain amount of work may be done during the transfer or adjustment of this sort of energy. Some energy is always lost, as heat when the work is done. We find, then, that Kent is careless in using “ energy ” where he should say “ available energy ” and he is inaccurate in assuming that all such energy is transformable into mechanical work. Recent writers often state the matter with much conciseness : July 28, 1916] SCIENCE 135 Bryan i1 We are thus led to the conclusion that under any given conditions only a limited portion of the energy of a system can be converted into mechan¬ ical work. This portion is called the available energy of the system subject to the given condi¬ tions. In order, however, to completely define the available energy of a system, it is necessary to specify not only the external conditions to which the system is subject, but also the means at our disposal for converting energy into useful work. Nernst :2 If any system whatever is subjected to any de¬ sired changes, these are, in general, identified with the following changes in energy : firstly, a cer¬ tain amount of heat is either absorbed or given out; secondly, a certain amount of external work is either performed by the system or is performed against it; thirdly, the internal energy of the system will either diminish or increase. In gen¬ eral in any event the diminution of the internal energy U must be equal to the external work A ac¬ complished by the system, minus the amount of heat Q absorbed; i. e., the following relation ex¬ ists: U = A — Q. Rushmore:3 Prom a practical standpoint energy may be classified as available energy, or that which can be turned into mechanical energy, and unavailable energy, or that which is practically useless for the purpose. To the latter belong the enormous sources of energy stored in the earth’s rotation, as well as the interior heat of the earth. There are several reasons why we shall never return to any former conception of the term “ energy ” as Dr. Kent in his last paragraph hints might yet be done. Every new study of the relationships only strengthens the division as made above in the three quotations. This view has been ex¬ pounded so long and widely and is so firmly established in all collegiate education that there is slight excuse for combating it. It is true that investigation and deduction increase our knowledge of energy without disclosing any ultimate interpretation, exactly as in the i ‘ * Thermodynamics, ’ ’ p. 35, 1907. ^ ‘ Theoretical Chemistry, ’ ’ trans. of sixth Ger¬ man text, p. 8, 1911. 3 General Electric Eeview, p. 422, May, 1916. case of gravitation, yet the laws of transfer and transformation are always found to hold most rigidly. These laws of the conservation of energy and the degradation of energy are ever becoming more valuable and firmly estab¬ lished. Recent, discoveries and conceptions only render a definition or unqualified statement of what energy is more and more difficult. The development of radioactivity has enor¬ mously broadened our field of knowledge on energy and set us irrevocably beyond our past. We find “energy” and “matter” meeting on common ground and know not which from t’other. The development of quantum theory and the study of radiations again shatter any previous notion of energy and portend that energy ideas of the future must involve some aspect of granularity and distribution function. All the studies on the constitution of matter and the structure of atoms presage radical change and new methods ; in dealing with whole classes of energy we are finding the limits of the application of the gross laws of energetics. It is highly significant to follow the mathe¬ matical physicist who with much pains in logic comes inevitably to the conclusion that the ether has infinite energy — a conclusion he will likely abruptly discard as absurd! With matter, ether and energy as possibly only different aspects of, or approaches to, the same ultimatum, who can imagine that our ideas will ever again fit into the long-discarded and outgrown definition. Useful work may comprise the chief end of the engineer’s effort, but it can do him only good to have ever present the concept that relatively only a negligible part of t our energy universe concerns itself with such work. It would certainly be a great misfortune to have a statement about energy so terse as to deny the greatest and most useful of our generaliza¬ tions. H. B. Pulsifer Armour Institute of Technology “TYPUS” AND “TYPE” IN TAXONOMY There is a general attempt among syste¬ matic zoologists and botanists to limit the words “ type ” and “ typical ” and their equiv- 136 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1126 alents in other modern languages to their strictly taxonomic meanings, e. g., “ type species,” u typical genus,” “ type specimen,” rejecting their use in their long recognized more general sense. The attempt to restrict a word in general use to a new technical mean¬ ing is always difficult and rarely is wholly suc¬ cessful. May I suggest a way around the difficulty in the case of these words? If in its strictly taxonomic use the word be given its Latin form, typus, there will be no ambiguity. It would accomplish the purpose if all zoologists and botanists would abandon the use of the English words type and typical or their equiv¬ alents in other modern tongues, thus avoiding all chance of confusion, but this can hardly be secured. v On the other hand, taxonomists, who have in mind the taxonomic conventions, might be expected to conform to a better usage, if recommended, and use only the Latin form for the technical meaning. It is easier to bring taxonomists to this better usage than it is to persuade all biologists to abandon the ordinary non-technical use of the vernacular equivalents of the word typus. Maynard M. Metcalf The Orchard Laboratory, Oberlin, Ohio QUOTATIONS SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENT IN RUSSIA A review, however cursory, of scientific work in Russia during the past two years must take account of two features of outstanding inter¬ est and importance. One is the appointment, on the initiative of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of Petrograd, of a commission to in¬ vestigate and report on the natural resources of the Russian Empire with a view to their scientific and practical development and utili¬ zation. Stated in one bald sentence this may not appear particularly impressive, but looked at through the lens of imagination it is revealed as a stupendous project with far-reaching aims and destined to lead to incalculable results. The prime incentive is the fact that in Russia, as elsewhere, the eyes of the nation have been opened and attention has been focused on what was in times of peace known to many, deplored by some, and passively acquiesced in by all : the extent to which its economic life has been honeycombed by the greater energy, enterprise and initiative of the Germans. It is now realized that this economic dependence, extending to many things which might just as well have been supplied by native industry, went far beyond the limits of a natural and legitimate exchange of products between neighboring countries, and the empire is firmly resolved to make a determined effort to put an end to an intolerable anomaly. Russia stands at the parting of the ways, and we in this year of grace are, it may be, witnessing the eco¬ nomic birth of a nation. As may be supposed, the development of such a comprehensive scheme to the point of effective utility has not been accomplished without much discussion and some hostile criti¬ cism. One critic “ doubts if the time is well chosen for embarking on such an ambitious enterprise when the strength of the empire is being taxed to the utmost by this terrible war. The end proposed is highly desirable, but . . . the program is so enormous that the pre¬ liminary steps alone will take years, to say nothing of the long interval that must elapse between scientific investigation and practical fruition . . . ” ; and he goes on to point out many problems to the immediate solution of which the academy might in this crisis more profitably apply its energies. However, the commission has in a surprisingly short time got to work — the first sitting took place only in October of last year — and is issuing a series of monographs, several of which have already been published, each written by a specialist, dealing, by way of a commencement, with the vast field, in many directions undeveloped, in others lying fallow, of Russian mining and metallurgy. The other item of interest is the convening of a conference by the Imperial Academy of Sciences to consider the proposal to found a Russian Botanical Society with its own official journal. There is a great deal of botanical in¬ vestigation carried on in Russia by various July 28, 1916] SCIENCE 137 institutions scattered all over the country, but it is felt that great advantage would accrue from coordination and centralization, and that the founding of such a society is only the just due of the importance of Russian botany “ in view of the eminent position which Russia is destined to occupy after the war.” But side by side with these special activities, which are the direct outcome of the quickening of the nation’s pulse, there is, as in normal times, a great amount of quiet, unobtrusive research in the domains of biological and physical science. Though there may be no epoch-making discovery to record, there is scarcely a field of mental activity left untilled. Many a peaceful backwater is being navigated undisturbed by the clash of arms, and it is pleasant to read of ethnographical and philo¬ logical investigations, or of an expedition to the Jablonovy Range to study the local fauna, with its picturesque account of explorations in steppes, morasses and virgin forests. It is interesting to note, in this connection, that there is scarcely a provincial town of any im¬ portance in Russia without its medical society and association of local naturalists, or, as the charming Russian idiom has it, “ lovers of na¬ ture lore,” true amateurs in the best sense of the word and all contributing their quota to the common stock. Worthy of mention also are the efforts made for the preservation, as far as may be possible in the circumstances, of valuable treasures of art, science and archeol¬ ogy in the war-zone, such efforts not to be con¬ fined to the limits of the empire, but to be ex¬ tended to enemy territory occupied by Russia. It is pointed out that priceless products of human culture may be saved if timely meas¬ ures be taken, and to this end the service of various scientific experts has been secured and the sympathetic cooperation of the military staff enlisted. Finally, mention must be made of the deci¬ sion of the Imperial Academy of Sciences on the question of the exclusion of alien enemies from the list of honorary members. As the re¬ sult of a conference held in March of last year to consider the matter the academy expresses itself as loath, by such exclusion, to place any obstacles in the way of the resumption after the war of that international cooperation for the progress of science which will, it fore¬ sees, play a greater part than ever in the development of European civilization, “ when an end has been made of those hegemonistic strivings which, not content with the sphere of politics, have invaded that of science.” Truly a dignified attitude, worthy of an august institution which can look back with just pride on well-nigh two centuries of enlight¬ ened effort and solid achievement. — Nature. SCIENTIFIC BOOKS X-rays and Crystal Structure. By W. H. Bragg and W. L. Bragg. G. Bell & Sons, Ltd., London, 1915. Pp. i-f-vii, 1-228. All physicists who are at all familiar with the magnificent work which in the two short years between October, 1912, and October, 1914, W. H. and W. L. Bragg did in unfolding the nature of 5-rays, revealing the structure of crystals and in laying the foundations for Moseley’s brilliant discovery of a relationship between the elements more fundamental than that represented by the periodic table, are agreed that no 5obel prize was ever more justly placed than that which has recently gone to the Braggs. It is the lucid and succinct ac¬ count of this very new work which constitutes the present book — a hook which will always remain a classic, not merely because it is the first book in its field and written by the men who have themselves contributed most largely to the ushering in of the new epoch, but also because it is an unusually fine example of clear, direct and fascinating exposition. 5one of the twelve chapters except the fourth, the sixth and the last contain any ap¬ preciable material other than that which the authors themselves have contributed. Despite the generous and deserved recognition which they make of the part which Laue played in starting their studies, it is very largely to the Braggs that the world owes the creation of the new subject of 5-ray spectrometry, and so long as young men are appearing in England of the caliber of W. L. Bragg and of Moseley, the latter of whom at the age of twenty-seven 138 SCIENCE [N. S. VOL. XLIV. No. 1126 had turned out as fine a piece of work as has appeared in fifty years, so long will English physics remain preeminent. The first chapter reviews briefly the older theories of X-rays and presents Laue’s dis¬ covery and photographs. The second presents the Bragg theory of the diffraction of X-rays, the third describes in detail the Bragg X-ray spectrometer, the fourth is a brief account of the properties of X-rays. The fifth merely de¬ scribes crystal structure, little known to most physicists, and the sixth presents our present knowledge of X-ray spectra, and includes an admirable report on Moseley’s work. The re¬ maining six chapters present the Bragg an¬ alysis of crystal structure made by means of their spectrometer. Few books have ever appeared which repre¬ sent in so high a degree the creative work of the authors themselves. R. A. Millikan Ryerson Physical Laboratory An Elementary Manual of Radio-Telegraphy and Radio-Telephony for Students and Operators. By J. A. Fleming, M.A., D.Sc., F.R.S. Third edition. Longmans, Green & Co., 1916. Cloth, 360 pages, 194 illustra¬ tions. This is an excellent elementary text-book on the principles of radio-communication, with enough history inserted parenthetically to add descriptive interest, without sensibly distract¬ ing attention from the main line of exposition. Like all of Dr. Fleming’s writings, it is par¬ ticularly strong on the quantitative side. Nevertheless, the mathematics employed are not difficult. The book is divided into nine chapters, re¬ lating to the following topics : Electric Oscilla¬ tions, Damped Electric Oscillations, Undamped Electric Oscillations, Electromagnetic Waves, Radiating and Receiving Circuits, Oscillation Detectors, Radio-telegraphic Stations, Radio¬ telegraphic Measurements, Radio-telephony. The chapter dealing with radio-telegraphic measurements is particularly good. A blemish in the didactic method is the use of English units of measure in a few of the examples. The complexity involved in the arithmetic, by reference to such archaic and unscientific units, repels the student more than a transition from English to metric units be¬ fore attacking the problem, and a final trans¬ fer from metric to English units in stating the results. The book will be of great value to students of radio-telegraphy, and to operators seeking to improve their knowledge of their work on the scientific side. A. E. Kennelly The Institutional Care of the Insane in the United States and Canada. By Henry M. Hurd, W. F. Drewry, R. Dewey, C. W. Pilgrim, G. A. Blumer and T. J. W. Bur¬ gess. Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1916. Pp. 497, 30 pi. Edited by Henry M. Hurd, M.D. $2.50. This is one of the few works in the English language in which the history of a separate branch of medicine has been exhaustively treated. The editor, Dr. Hurd, prior to his election as superintendent of the Johns Hop¬ kins Hospital in 1889 and after, has had a long practical experience in institutional psy¬ chiatry, and there is probably no other author¬ ity in this country so well fitted for the diffi¬ cult task delegated to him and his associates. The four volumes of this work, when com¬ pleted, will comprise no less than a full set of separate histories of all the insane hospitals in the United States and Canada. The pres¬ ent volume, although it professes to deal only with the general history of institutional care of the insane on this continent, is, in reality, an exhaustive history of American psychiatry in all its phases, and is therefore likely to re¬ main the authoritative work on the subject for an indefinite period. In this history, there are no great outstanding names, like those of Pinel or Tuke or Griesinger, unless it be that of a woman, who was the prime mover of our improved institutional care of the insane. The record is one of collectivism, of the pa¬ tient labors of societies, journals and individ¬ ual propagandists for the good of a much- neglected class of human suffering. Matthew July 28, 1916] SCIENCE 139 Arnold, under the influence of Renan, ridiculed the “ bold, bad men ” who frequent social- science congresses; but it was largely through foregatherings of this order, their patient en¬ deavors with legislative bodies, that we get this record Of labor, that in lasting fruit outgrows Far noisier schemes, accomplished in repose. The history, from the crude pioneer condi¬ tions to the advent of the psychopathic hos¬ pital, where insane patients are no longer pauperized or imprisoned but treated as so many cases of acute disease, traces the slow evolution of a definite series of ideas. It be¬ gins with the foundation of the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Insti¬ tutions for the Insane (October 16, 1844), and the subsequent history of this body, which be¬ came the American Medico-Psychological Association on June 6, 1893. A careful synoptic account of all the transactions is given. Among the items of note are Luther Bell’s original description of phrenitis or “ Bell’s mania ” (1849), the introduction of the famous “ propositions ” by T. S. Kirkbride (1851), Field’s discussion of hsematoma auris in the insane (1894), a condition which he showed to be identical with the aural deform¬ ity found in antique statues of athletes and in modern boxers and wrestlers ( Pancrati - astenohr), and Weir Mitchell’s drastic arraign¬ ment of the status of American asylums (1894), which, at the time, was adjudged some¬ what premature and captious by our alienists. A chapter on the history of the American Journal of Insanity (founded 1844) is fol¬ lowed by chapters on the early and colonial care of the insane, the evolution of institu¬ tional care, of the administration of hospitals and their construction, of training schools for nurses and attendants, of state and private care, of the psychopathic hospital and of legis¬ lation, the latter part of the volume being taken up with the psychiatric aspects of immi¬ gration, insanity in the negro, the Indian, the Chinese and Japanese, the census of the insti¬ tutional population and the history of Cana¬ dian psychiatry. In the Colonies, the psychia¬ tric burden was thrown mainly upon the town councils, which usually meant the pauperiza¬ tion of the insane in county jails, work-houses and almshouses. Under the healthy plein air conditions of colonial life, this burden was probably light. It is of record that a large donation for an asylum was declined by colonial Boston on the ground that there were no insane to put in it. In Maryland and Vir¬ ginia, the custody of the pauper insane and the poor was delegated to the Established Church. The first state hospital (incorporated 1768) was opened at Williamsburg, Va., in 1773. The “ era of awakening ” (an important chap¬ ter) came slowly. It comprised the erection of such hospitals as the Bloomingdale Asylum (1821), the McLean Hospital (1818), the asylum at Lexington, Ivy. (1824), the Hart¬ ford (1828), and Brattleboro Retreats (1836), and above all the wonderful propagandist labors of Miss Dorothea L. Dix, of whose life a full account is in preparation by Dr. C. W. Page, of Hartford. This remarkable woman practically created institutional psychiatry in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Hew Jersey, through the south and west, and even accom¬ plished much in Scotland and England. Her efforts were based upon most careful investiga¬ tion beforehand and her success was due to the fact that she was an eminently reasonable per¬ son, with the unique power of producing con¬ vincing facts and of making unanswerable statements at the right moment. This was something different from the usual course of “ making a noise like a reformer.” After a brief conference with her, a rough Hew Jersey legislator said: “I do not want to hear any¬ thing more. You’ve conquered me out and out. I am convinced.” In Scotland, where the fro- wardness of women is eyed askance, she in¬ curred the enmity of the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, beat the hostile official in a mid¬ night race to London, and so impressed the statesmen there, that she secured Queen Vic¬ toria’s order for two commissions of investiga¬ tion (1885). In Parliament, the member from Glengarry, Mr. Edward Ellice (Prosper Meri- mee’s old friend), said that “ the commission was entirely due to Miss Dix’s exertions” 140 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1126 She was a “ moral Columbiad,” rather than the “ Moral Bully ” of Dr. Holmes’s aversion. The principal defect of early American care of the insane was that it was mainly a local enterprise, delegated to counties and county officials, men who had “ an eye single to the taxpayer,” whose chief aim was to establish a reputation for economy as a means of securing reelection to office, with the result that the county asylums were practically poorhouses. This has been notably the case with the so- called Wisconsin system of county care of the chronic insane (1881), which is the subject of an able critique. State care, by which is meant the proper care of all the insane in the state in a suitable state-supported hospital, as dis¬ tinguished from state support of a limited number, with the rest in county almhouses, is a plant of recent growth. The earliest state hospitals were those at Williamsburg (1773), Columbia, S. C. (1828), Worcester, Mass. (1833), and Utica, M. Y. (1843). The Mew Hampshire State Care Act did not become operative until 1913. In this field, Mew York state leads, with the institutions at Willard, Binghamton, Middletown, Poughkeepsie, Buf¬ falo, Ogdensburg, Auburn, Matteawan and Dannemora. Mext to Binghamton in size comes the admirable Government Hospital at Washington, D. C., which, under the able ad¬ ministration of Dr. William A. White, is now a community of over 4,000 persons. The psy¬ chopathic hospital, a development of Gries- inger’s idea of a (university) psychiatric clinic, combines the features of voluntary admission, temporary detention, non-restraint and continuous medical observation and treatment. Such institutions or wards now exist at Albany, M. Y., Ann Arbor, Boston, Waverly (Mass.), Providence, White Plains and Washington, D. C. The best example is the recent Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at Baltimore, under the direction of Dr. Adolph Meyer. England and Prance have left their mark upon the architecture of our earlier insane hospitals. Later insti¬ tutions have followed the plan evolved by Kirkbride for the Pennsylvania Hospital which consisted essentially of a large central admin¬ istration building, with extended wings on each side for the separation of the sexes. De¬ tails -were governed by the “ cast iron rules ” of the “ propositions,” a set of hard and fast regulations evolved by the association (1844r- 1875) for the construction and organization of asylums (Kirkbride) and the legal manage¬ ment of the insane within them (Isaac Ray). The cottage plan and the farm colony are later developments. Of the Buffalo State Hospital, the most extreme example of the old Kirk¬ bride plan, Dr. Hurd says that “ the medical officers must walk a distance of half a mile from the administration building to reach the farthest ward on either side,” which suggests the flatboatmen on the Potomac River, who, in poling their craft, walk just twice the distance they travel. Dr. Hurd modestly regards this work as a source-book for the historians of the future, but it is undoubtedly a permanent history, which may be extended but will hardly be du¬ plicated. The chapters are complete in them¬ selves, the book is well-illustrated and the style is charming in its simplicity, sobriety and its traces of delicate humor. A complete index to the whole work, which may be expected at the end of the fourth volume, will make it in¬ valuable for ready reference. F. H. Garrison Army Medical Museum PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES The fifth number of Volume 2 of the Pro¬ ceedings of the National Academy of Sciences contains the following articles: 1. Differential Equations and Implicit Func¬ tions in Infinitely many Variables: William L. Hart, Department of Mathematics, Uni¬ versity of Chicago. Three problems are handled: First, Certain fundamental theorems concerning a type of real-valued functions of infinitely many real variables. Second, The problem of infinite systems of ordinary differential equations. Third, The fundamental problem of implicit function theory, in this field. July 28, 1916] SCIENCE 141 2. The Sex of Parthenogenetic Frogs: Jacques Loeb, Rockefeller Institute for Medical Re¬ search, Mew York. Two frogs obtained by artificial partheno¬ genesis, one ten months old the other thirteen months old, were found to be males, and the thesis that animals produced by artificial parthenogenesis are males is thus further cor¬ roborated. 3. De Vriesian Mutation in the Garden Bean , Phaseolus Vulgaris: J. Arthur Harris. The origin of the new race of beans seems most logically explained as a case of de Vriesian mutation. In this race the whole morphological organization of the seedling has apparently been changed and the race is char¬ acterized by a high degree of variability. 4. Studies of Ductless Glands by the Electrical Method: W. B. Cannon, Laboratory of Physi¬ ology, Harvard University. The nerves distributed to the thyroid cells belong to the sympathetic and not to the vagus supply, and their effects are not indirect through alterations of blood flow. They are true secretory nerves. 5. The Distribution of the Chondriosomes to the Spermatozoa in Scorpions : Edmund B. Wilson, Department of Zoology, Columbia University. The chondriosome-material having the same origin, fate and (presumably) physiological significance may be distributed to the germ- cells by processes widely different even in nearly related animals. In one of the scor¬ pions the distribution is effected by a definite process of division, in the other by an opera¬ tion that has at least the aspect of a hit-or- miss segregation, and one that gives only an approximate equality of result. 6. New Data on the Archeology of Venezuela: Herbert J. Spinden, American Museum of Natural History, Mew York. Stone implements, including celts, pestles, etc., vessels and figurines of clay with painted and modeled decorations, personal ornaments of shell, nephrite, jet, and serpentine, as well as the petroglyphs and pictographs, occur in considerable quantity. The plastic art of Venezuela is one and the same with the “ archaic art ” already known in Central America and Mexico. 7. Note on the Phosphorescence of Uranyl Salts: Edward L. Michols, Department of Physics, Cornell University. Eor the only examples of luminescence which admit of detailed inspection, the spectrum of phosphorescence is identical with that of fluorescence and it is suggested that this also applies to all phosphorescent materials. In spite of its great complexity, the luminescence spectrum of a uranyl salt is to be regarded as a unit, all its components decaying at the same rate after the cessation of excitation. 8. The Pyranometer : An Instrument for Meas¬ uring Shy Radiation : C. G. Abbot and L. B. Aldrich, Astrophysical Observatory, Smith¬ sonian Institution. Two satisfactory types of this instrument, both derived in principle from the electrical compensation radiation instruments of the late o K. Angstrom, have been devised. Numerous observations of the sky-radiation have been made. On fine days the sky-radiation alone received on a horizontal surface ranges from 0.07 to 0.13 calories per square centimeter per minute. 9. Note on Lucas’ Theorem: M. B. Porter, De¬ partment of Mathematics, University of Texas. A more general result than that obtained by Borel or Polya has been found. 10. A Variable System of Sevens on Two Twisted Cubic Curves: H. S. White, De¬ partment of Mathematics, Vassar College. 11. The N euromuscular Structure of Sea- Anemones: G. H. Parker and E. G. Titus, Zological Laboratory, Museum of Compara¬ tive Zoology, Harvard College. There are four types of muscle action; they are of phylogenetic significance, and show that the neuromuscular mechanism of sea-anemones is by no means so simple as originally supposed. 12. Change of the Ionization of Salts in Alco¬ holic Solvents with the Concentration: Erederick G. Keyes and W. J. Winning-- hoff, Research Laboratory of Physical 142 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1126 Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Tech¬ nology. The present investigation on the conductance of sodium iodide and ammonium iodide in isoamyl alcohol and of sodium iodide in propyl alcohol was undertaken for two pur¬ poses : primarily to determine whether in these solvents, somewhat similar in nature to water, salts conform to the mass-action law at very small concentrations; and secondarily, to test further the applicability of Kraus’ empirical equation throughout the fairly wide range of concentration employed in the work. Edwin Bidwell Wilson Massachusetts Institute of Technology SPECIAL ARTICLES A NEW MITE FROM THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS Recently, while visiting the Hawaiian Is¬ lands, my attention was called to a Chinese Litchi ( Litchi chinensis Sonn.), growing on the grounds of the United States Experiment Station at Honolulu, which was very seriously infested by an apparently new species of mite. The injury caused by this mite is of the famil¬ iar erinose type, being produced on the lower side of the leaf. In many instances practically the entire lower surface of a leaf was covered with a light brown erineum, but more often distinct patches of variable size were pro¬ duced. Badly attacked leaves assumed the general characteristics of peach leaves infected by the leaf-curl fungus ( Exoascus deformans). So far as could be learned, the infestation seemed to have been more or less sudden; at least, none was noticed until the injury had become very marked. The tree is considered very valuable and the infestation was so seri¬ ous as to greatly endanger its life. It was readily determined that the mite be¬ longed to the genus Eriophyes. Specimens of infested leaves were referred to Dr. Nathan Banks through Dr. L. O. Howard, chief of the U. S. Bureau of Entomology. Dr. Banks indi¬ cates that the mite is a new species of Eriophyes. He also states that, so far as he can find, no mites have ever been recorded .from the Litchi, and, further, that very few mites have been recorded from China. There is, therefore, a possibility that the Litchi, al¬ though imported from China, later became infested by a mite of Hawaiian origin. P. J. O’Gtara, Chief in Charge Department of Agricultural Investigations, American Smelting and Refining Company, Salt Lake City, Utah, March 16, 1916 A POWER CHISEL FOR PALEONTOLOGIC LABORATORIES The extremely slow, laborious and difficult task of separating fossils from the enclosing matrix, in the old manner, led W. W. Kelley, a senior student of marked mechanical ingenu¬ ity, to devise a power chisel, which has been installed in the geologic laboratories of Wash¬ ington University. Thus far the device has proved so satisfactory to the members of the department that it is thought best to pass the information along to other toilers in the pro¬ fession. The chisel proper is extremely simple, con¬ sisting of an L-shaped frame in one arm of which is a shaft bearing a balanced eccentric head and, at right angles, in the other, a square plunger holding the chisel point. One blow during each revolution (1,800 a minute) is dealt by the protruding part of the eccentric striking the head of the plunger. A spring holds the plunger away from the eccentric when not in use. The eccentric shaft of the chisel is connected directly to the armature shaft of a one eighth horse-power motor by a July 28, 1916] SCIENCE 143 flexible driving shaft, similar to those of the dental engines. In work upon the larger specimens the chisel frame is held in the hand, the flexible shaft permitting of considerable freedom in manipu¬ lation. In the case of smaller specimens, it has been found best to secure the chisel frame in a vise and to hold the specimen in the hand. Putting the chisel in operation consists solely in pressing it against the specimen in the first case, or the specimen against it in the second. Probably of more importance than the speed, is the control of the length of the stroke, and hence of the liability of injury to the specimen. The full stroke is only one fourth of an inch, and by pressing lightly the stroke can be re¬ duced to an extremely small fraction of an inch. William C. Morse Washington University THE OHIO ACADEMY OF SCIENCE In accordance with the amendment of the con¬ stitution, adopted at the quarter-centennial anni¬ versary in November, 1915, the twenty-sixth an¬ nual meeting of the Ohio Academy of Science was held at the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, on Friday and Saturday, April 21 and 22, 1916. Fifty-five members were in attendance. The presidential address by Professor George D. Hubbard, of Oberlin College, was on the subject “What Has the Future for Geologists?” On Friday evening a joint session of the academy with the Ohio College Association and other affiliated societies was addressed by Professor Charles H. Judd, of the University of Chicago, on “The More Complete Articulation of Higher Institutions with High Schools.” On Saturday morning the acad¬ emy adjourned for a symposium of the Ohio Col¬ lege Association, addressed by representatives of the various affiliated societies. The academy was represented by Professor Lewis G. Westgate, of Ohio Wesleyan University, who spoke on ‘ ‘ The Re¬ lation of the College to Research. ’ ’ The remaining scientific program was as fol¬ lows: ARCHEOLOGY “Exploration of Tremper Mound,” by W. C. Mills. BOTANY “A New Three-Salt Nutrient Solution for Sand and Water Cultures,” by A. G. McCall. “An Adjustment of the Sliding Microtome for Cutting Lignified Tissue,” by Forest B. H. Brown. “Notes on the Structure and Function of the Green Layer of the Bark of Woody Plants,” by Forest B. H. Brown. ‘ 1 The Distribution of Fungi in Porto Rico, ’ ’ by Bruce Fink. ‘ ‘ The Genus Physcia in Ohio, ’ ’ by Martha Mc- Ginniss, introduced by Bruce Fink. “A Relative Score Method for Unmeasured Characters,” by A. G. McCall. ‘ ‘ The Revegetatiou of the Katrnai District of Alaska,” by Robert F. Griggs. “Decrease of Permeability with Age” (Pre¬ liminary Note), by H. M. Benedict. ‘ ‘ Methods of Spore Formation in the Zygne- males, ” by E. N. Transeau. “Notes on the Germination of Tree Seeds,” by William R. Lazenby. “The Quince Leaf-Spot,” by W. G. Stover. ‘ ‘ A Blade Blight of Corn, ’ ’ by W. G. Stover and W. N. Ankeny. “The Occurrence of the V olutella Rot in Ohio,” by Gustav A. Meekstroth. ‘ ‘ Observations on the Ontogeny of the Gall of Pachypsylla mama Riley,” by B. W. Wells. “Botanizing in Porto Rico,” by Bruce Fink. ‘ ‘ Parthenogenesis in the Dandelion, ’ ’ by Paul B. Sears. “The Educational Value of Wood Study,” by A. B. Plowman. ‘ ‘ A New Method for Marking Slides, ’ ’ by Paul B. Sears. ‘ 1 Certain Points in the Celloidin Method ’ ’ (Demonstration), by A. B. Plowman. ZOOLOGY ‘ 1 Parallelism between the Cystid Agelacrinites (fossil) and the Holothurian Psolus (recent), with Demonstrations, ’ ’ by Stephen R. Williams. ‘ ‘ The Axial Rotation of Microorganisms and its Evolutionary Significance,” by L. B. Walton. “Notes on Ohio Tingitidae, ” by Carl J. Drake. “Insect Population of Grasslands,” by Herbert Osborn. “Genitalia of the Bedbug with special reference to a Unique Method of Copulation,” by P. B. Wiltberger. ‘ ‘ The Origin of the Gasserian and Profundus Ganglia in Sana,” by Ralph A. Knouff, intro¬ duced by F. L. Landacre. “The Fusion of the Gasserian and Profundus Ganglia in Plethedon,” by Katharine Okey, intro¬ duced by F. L. Landacre. 144 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1126 ‘ 1 The Origin of the Placodal Ganglia in Squalus, ’ ’ by C. I. Reed, introduced by F. L. Land- acre. ‘ ' Concerning Thyroid Glands in Amphibia, ’ ’ by R. A. Budington. “ Feeding Thymus and Thyroid Extracts,” by E. P. Durrant. “Notes on Protozoa. (a) A Review of the Arcellidse. (b) Supplement to the Euglenoidina, ” by L. B. Walton. “Notes on Birds,” by H. A. Albyn. “A Recent Ohio Specimen of Henslow’s Spar¬ row” (Demonstration), by Edward L. Rice. GEOLOGY “On Wavemarks,” by Walter H. Bucher. “The Northward Extension of the Physiographic Provinces of the United States, ” by W. N. Thayer. “Additions to the Anatomy of Lepadocystis moorei,” by W. H. Shideler. “Crystals,” by W. N. Speekman. PHYSICS “Resistance of Electrolytes by a modification of Kohlrausch’s Method,” by M. E. Graber. ‘ ‘ Demonstration of Apparatus showing Analogy between Reactance Phenomena in Alternating Cur¬ rent Circuits and in Fluids,” by F. C. Caldwell. “Absorption of High Frequency X-rays,” by S. J. M. Allen. “The Symbols used in Geometry,” by John H. Williams. The trustees of the Research Fund reported a further gift of $250 from Mr. Emerson McMillin, of New York, for the encouragement of the re¬ search work of the academy. Since the last meet¬ ing a grant to L. B. Walton has been paid, and new grants made to L. S. Hopkins, F. L. Landacre, W. H. Shideler, B. W. Wells and Stephen R. Wil¬ liams. Gratifying progress was reported by the com¬ mittee on scientific journals. The scope of this work, in which the academy is cooperating with the Ohio Library Association, is shown by the fol¬ lowing paragraphs from the appeal for cooperation mailed to all important libraries in the state : “The Ohio Academy of Science and the College Section of the Ohio Library Association jointly propose to compile a union catalogue of the periodical and scientific sets (except documents) in the libraries of the state. This catalogue is to be made on cards, and filed with the Ohio State University Library, the official depository of the Ohio Academy of Science. Ultimately the acad¬ emy hopes to print this union catalogue for the benefit both of librarians and of scientists. How¬ ever, until printed, it will be possible for any one to write directly to the Ohio State University Li¬ brary and secure information concerning the loca¬ tion of any scientific set in the state.” ‘ ‘ The Ohio Academy of Science has been work¬ ing on such a proposition for several years, and much of preliminary data has been received. At the October, 1915, meeting of the Ohio Library Association a committee was named to compile a union catalogue of periodical sets so that li¬ brarians might know where sets are when needed by them in the various universities and colleges.” “Therefore, this joint effort of the two associa¬ tions, as outlined above, will bring into existence a bibliographical tool, the value of which will be in¬ dispensable to the college librarians and to the scientists of the Ohio Academy.” Obituary notices of Professor F. M. Webster, of Washington, D. C., and Professor John Royer, of Bradford, Ohio, were presented by the Committee on Necrology. Sixteen new members were elected. The officers for 1916-17 are as follows: President — Professor F. O. Grover, Oberlin Col¬ lege. Vice-presidents — (Zoology) Professor Stephen R. Williams, Miami University; (Botany) Pro¬ fessor E. L. Fullmer, Baldwin-Wallace College; (Geology) Professor August Foerste, Steele High School, Dayton; (Physics) Professor M. E. Graber, Heidelberg University. Secretary — Professor E. L. Rice, Ohio Wesleyan University. Treasurer — Professor J. S. Hine, Ohio State University. Executive Committee, in addition to the Presi¬ dent, Secretary and Treasurer, members ex officio — Professor L. B. Walton, Kenyon College; Pro¬ fessor Bruce Fink, Miami University. Trustees of Besearcli Fund — Professor W. R. Lazenby, Ohio State University; Professor N. M. Fenneman, University of Cincinnati; Professor M. M. Metcalf, Oberlin College. Publication Committee — Professor J. H. Schaff- ner, Ohio State University; Professor L. B. Wal¬ ton, Kenyon College; Professor J. A. Culler, Uni¬ versity of Cincinnati. Library Committee — Professor W. C. Mills, Ohio State University; Professor F. O. Grover, Oberlin College; Mr. C. W. Reeder, Ohio State University. Edward L. Rice, Secretary Delaware, Ohio SCIENCE Friday, August 4, 1916 CONTENTS The Method of Growth of the Lymphatic Sys- tevi: Professor Florence R. Sabin . 145 Statistical Physics: Professor W. S. Frank¬ lin . 158 The Mining Industry . 162 The Optical Society of America . 163 Scientific Notes and News . 164 University and Educational News . 167 Discussion and Correspondence : — Atmospheric Transmission: Dr. Frank W. Very. The Olympic Peninsula: Albert B. Reagan. Nomenclatorial Facts: Morgan Hebard. Sylvester and Cayley: Professor G. A. Miller . 168 Scientific Boohs: — Bichardson and Landis on the Fundamental Conceptions of Modern Mathematics: Pro¬ fessor G. A. Miller. Curtis on Harvey’s Views on the Use of the Circulation of the Blood: Dr. Percy M. Dawson . 173 Special Articles: — The Process of Feeding in the Oyster: Professor Caswell Grave . 178 The American Association of Museums: Dr. Paul M. Rea . 181 MSS. intended for publication a»d books, etc., intended for review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison- on-Hudson. N. Y. THE METHOD OF GROWTH OF THE LYMPHATIC SYSTEM1 In selecting a title connected with the general subject of the lymphatic system, 1 have chosen to emphasize the phase of the subject with which the anatomist of to-day is concerned. As a matter of fact, in study¬ ing the problem of growth he is seeking to understand the nature of the lymphatic capillary. This is no new problem, but rather it has dominated the study of the lymphatic system for nearly three hundred years. The colorless fluid of the tissues was called lymph long before lymphatics were discovered. It was thus natural that when vessels were discovered containing this fluid they were called lymphatics. As soon as the lacteals and then the general lym¬ phatics were discovered, the question arose in regard to the nature of these vessels, whht was their extent and how they ended in relation to the surrounding tissues. At first the lymphatics were thought to begin in wide mouths in the walls of the various cavities of the body, and then, as these openings proved difficult to find, attention became focused on the relation of the lym¬ phatics to the tissues. The number of terms which have been used in seeking to analyze the relation of the lymphatics to the tissues — for example lymph radicles, lymph rootlets, lymph spaces, parenchymal spaces, tissue spaces — will serve to illustrate how persist¬ ent has been the quest of the anatomist to understand the lymphatic capillary. Stated in other terms, this is the time-hon¬ ored question of open and closed lymphat¬ ics. In presenting to you the conception i Address delivered to the Harvey Society of New York City on December 18, 1915. 146 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1127 of lymphatic capillaries as definite vessels completely lined by endothelium, and re¬ lated to tissue-spaces just as blood-capil¬ laries are, it will be necessary to emphasize first the importance of tissue-spaces. In¬ deed, the general subject of tissue-spaces, as important systems in the body, related to blood-capillaries and to lymphatic capil¬ laries in function, is, I believe, nowhere sufficiently emphasized in the literature. It is well known that the plasma of the blood is constantly exuded from the blood¬ vessels into the tissue-spaces, so that all the cells of the supporting tissues, as well as the special cells of each organ, are bathed in fluid. Moreover, it is obvious that with all the varying activities of the cells of the body, the fluid becomes laden with different nutritive and with different stimulative substances and with different waste prod¬ ucts, so that it varies widely in its compo¬ sition. The subject of tissue-spaces — mean¬ ing not empty spaces, but spaces which al¬ ways contain fluid — is by no means a simple one. There are primarily the general, small spaces to which I have just referred, between all of the fibers and cells of the connective tissues and between the pa¬ renchyma of each organ and its supporting tissues : but there are also special systems of great spaces, which arise from the small spaces by a definite method, which have a definite structure and contain a fluid which is different from the other fluids in the body — such, for example, as the suba¬ rachnoid spaces which surround the central nervous system. That the cerebro-spinal fluid is secreted by a special organ and contains certain products of internal secretion is now known. The pia-arachnoid membrane has been shown by Weed2 to have an extremely interesting structure and development. I will mention here only the very important -Weed, L. H., Jour, of Med. Besearch, Vol. 31, 1914. arachnoidal villi which are lacelike projec¬ tions of the arachnoid into the dura. They lie along the dural veins and lead to the dural sinuses. These villi, which he has shown to be the main organs of absorption for the cerebro-spinal fluid, are covered with a layer of mesothelial cells, which tend to become more abundant at the tips, forming cell nests. Other great systems of spaces are found in the internal ear and in the eye. The scala tympani and scala vestibuli of the cochlea have been called peri-lymphatic spaces, though they have no relation to the lymphatic system. These spaces of the ear have just been shown by Streeter3 to have a most interesting development. The scala tympani and scala vestibuli are formed from spaces in the mesenchyme which at first become slightly larger than the usual spaces and then coalesce into still larger spaces. Moreover, this process is not indefi¬ nite, but has two distinct places of origin, one between the sacule and the oval win¬ dow and the other between the cochlea and the round window. From these two areas the formation of the two great spaces of the cochlea proceeds in a definite and constant direction, so that a model of their form from one specimen is the same as that from any other specimen of the same stage. Moreover, when studied in sections this process appears to be a gradual dilatation of preexisting tissue-spaces, with a disap¬ pearance of more and more of the original connective tissue syncytium, rather than being caused by a differentiation of the mesenchyme cells forming the border of these spaces. As the cavity thus formed reaches its ultimate dimensions some of the remaining mesenchyme cells do differen¬ tiate to form a mesothelial lining. I em¬ phasize this method of the formation of a cavity out of mesenchymal spaces, for the 3 Streeter, G. L., to be published in the ‘ ‘ Proc. of the Amer. Asso. of Anat., ” 1916. August 4, 1916] SCIENCE 147 reason that I believe it to be essentially dif¬ ferent from the method of formation of blood-vessels. Again in the eye there are two cavities having an entirely different development. Posterior to the lens is a space filled with fluid, which begins not by a hollowing out of tissue-spaces in mesenchyme, but as a definite differentiation of a primitive vit¬ reous body by the retina. In the formation of this body the mesenchyme is only sec¬ ondarily concerned. On the other hand, the history of the aqueous chamber of the eye is analogous to that of the formation of the cerebro-spinal system of tissue-spaces. Along the pathway of the blood-vessels of the central nervous system are special chains of tissue-spaces, lined by an indefi¬ nite mesothelium, but arranged in suffi¬ ciently definite lines to have received the name of peri-vascular lymphatic spaces. These spaces, however, have no relation to lymphatics and should be called perivascu¬ lar tissue-spaces. Along the nerves also are chains of spaces which can be injected in the embryo, and which may be termed perineural spaces. Similar chains of con¬ necting spaces have been injected by Lhamon4 along the course of the Purkinje fibers of the heart. Besides these very in¬ teresting special systems of tissue-spaces there is a group of great spaces which is still better known — namely, the great serous cavities of the body. These cavities, which form as a dilatation of spaces in the mesen¬ chyme, have also a definite embryological history, a definite cellular wall of meso¬ thelium, and a special very scanty content of fluid. In order to analyze the relation of the general tissue-spaces and of these special systems of large tissue-spaces which de¬ velop out of the general ones, it is neces¬ sary to submit them all to some type of ex- 4 Lhamon, R. M., Amer. Jour, of Anat., Yol. 13, 1912. periment. Fluids containing a suspension of minute granules or true solutions whose location can be detected subsequently by the precipitation of granules injected into these various spaces give widely and aston¬ ishingly different results. Weed has car¬ ried out a very interesting series of experi¬ ments of injections into the subdural and subarachnoid spaces. In these experi¬ ments he injected a solution of potassium ferrocyanide and iron ammonium citrate, at the same time withdrawing an equiva¬ lent amount of cerebro-spinal fluid, to eliminate phenomena due to pressure. He found that when the granules of Prussian blue were precipitated by an acid-fixing agent, they were in the meshes of the arach¬ noidal villi, within the cells of the nests of mesothelium at their tips and within the dural sinuses. On the other hand, when he produced a cerebral anemia by bleeding, the fluid was sucked into the special and very important tissue-spaces that surround the nerve-cells. These experiments demon¬ strate conclusively that the central nervous system has a special system of tissue-spaces beginning, one might say, with the spaces surrounding every individual nerve-cell of the brain, extending into the subarachnoid area and draining not by lymphatics, but by another special system of absorbents — namely, the arachnoidal villi — into the cerebral sinuses. Wegefarth5 has shown that the anterior chamber of the eye has a similar system of absorbents, the pectinate villi. These lead to the canal of- Schlemn, a vein analogous to the cerebral sinuses. When injections are made into the peri¬ toneal cavity the results vary widely, ac¬ cording to the nature of the fluid injected. As a matter of fact our knowledge of this important subject is far from complete, but it has been shown that certain true solu¬ tions are absorbed by the blood-vessels. On s Wegefarth, P., Jour, of Med. Besearch, Yol. 31, 1914. 148 SCIENCE [N. S. VOL. XLIY. No. 1127 the other hand, it is known that granules are in large part taken up by special large phagocytic cells, some of which pass into the lymphatics of the diaphragm. This gives a suggestion of a possible differentiation in absorption between blood-vessels and lym¬ phatics. Indeed, a partial differentiation in function is a most familiar phenomenon : I refer to the villi of the intestine, where al¬ most all of the fat passes into the central lacteal while the carbohydrates pass di¬ rectly into the blood-stream. It is well known, on the other hand, that when a needle is introduced into certain areas under the skin or into specific layers of many of the organs and a fluid containing granules is injected, the granules always appear in the lymphatic trunks which drain the area. What is the difference between tissue-spaces which are drained by lym¬ phatics and those which are not? What is the difference between areas in which in¬ jections always show lymphatics and those which never show lymphatics? What is the nature of the fluids which pass through the lymphatics and those which do not? In other words, exactly what happens at the point of the needle when an artificial edema is produced? This I understand to be the meaning of the main problem con¬ nected with the lymphatic system — the so¬ lution of the enigma of the mechanism of absorption. The difficulty of the problem was well expressed by Bartels6 as late as 1909, when he said that the relation of the lymphatic capillary to the tissue-spaces was a philosophical rather than an anatomical problem. My understanding of the recent work on the lymphatic system is that it tends to take the system out of the realm of the mythical and to make it a definite anatomical entity. The investigations of the last fifteen years have demonstrated c Bartels, P., ‘ ‘ Das Lymphgef assystem. Hand- buch der Anatomie des Menschen, ” Yon Barde- leben, 1909. that the blood-vessels are the primary ab¬ sorbents, and that subsequently partial sys¬ tems of absorbents develop, such as the arachnoidal villi and the lymphatics which drain into the veins. I have been greatly interested in the at¬ tempts of the earlier anatomists to solve the problem of absorption. They brought to the subject of tissue-spaces and the fluid within them a great freshness of interest and constantly sought to understand the meaning of their various observations. They saw the arteries become smaller and smaller, they were familiar with lymphatic trunks and with some lymphatic capillaries. What then was more natural than to as¬ sume that when the arterioles became so small that the corpuscles could not enter, there were still smaller vessels which car¬ ried the plasma over into the lymphatics? These tiny hypothetical vessels were called “vasa serosa.” A belief in their existence was held throughout the eighteenth cen¬ tury, and was not overthrown until the dis¬ covery of cells by Schwann in 1830. Schwann believed that the mesenchymal cells were hollow and from this idea Virchow formulated the theory that hollow connective-tissue cells spanned the gap be¬ tween the blood-vessels and the lymphatics. Then followed the discovery by von Reck¬ linghausen that the wall of the lymphatic capillary was composed of cells. Von Recklinghausen thought that silver impreg¬ nations showed that lymphatics spread out as lymph radicles or lymph rootlets into the tissue-spaces. At first His believed in these lymph radicles, that is, in open lymphatics, but von Recklinghausen’s discovery of endothelium led him to a conception of a lymphatic capillary as a definite, closed vessel, this conception being confirmed by his own experience with injections. If lymphatics open out into tissue spaces every injection of a capillary plexus with a non- August 4, 1916] SCIENCE 149 diffusible fluid should spread out into tissue spaces and obscure the vessel — which is most obviously not the case. Thus von Recklinghausen’s discovery served to bring up anew the question of open and closed lymphatics. During the present century it has be¬ come evident that some light might be thrown on the obscure question of the rela¬ tion of tissue spaces to lymphatic capil¬ laries through the study of their devel¬ opment. The first general hypothesis concerning the origin of the lymphatic sys¬ tem in the embryo was that fluid exuded from the peripheral blood-vessels and grad¬ ually hollowed out channels. As the fluid increased, these vague channels were thought to extend from the periphery to the center and then establish connections with certain veins. This hypothesis was made concrete by Gulland,7 who found large empty vessels in the skin of embryos about 4 cm. in length, which he thought to be the first lymphatics. In reality the lym¬ phatics begin much earlier. This general hypothesis was to some extent modified by studies of Budge8 and Sala.9 Budge in¬ jected the extra-embryonal celom in early chick-embryos, and got patterns of injection in the area vasculosa vaguely simulating lymphatics. These patterns we now know were produced by fluid passing out of the celom into the network of spaces between the plexus of blood-capillaries. Budge then made beautiful injections of true lymphat¬ ics in much later stages, and to explain his observations built up the hypothesis that there was a primitive lymphatic system as¬ sociated with the body cavity and a later, secondary system of definite ducts. The thoracic duct he believed formed the con- i Gulland, Jour, of Path, and Bad., Yol. 2, 1894. s Budge, A., Arch. f. Anat. u. Phys., Anat. Abth., 1887. 8 Sala, L Bicerche Lah. di Anat. Norm. d. r. Univ. di Boma, Yol. 7, 1899-1900. nection between these two systems. These observations of Budge, which we now know to be incorrect, are, however, of great interest to the embryologist — representing as they do the earliest groping in darkness in hope of finding the first lymphatics. The work deserves emphasis also as the only basis of all the erroneous theories sur¬ rounding the idea that the body cavity is in some especial way a part of the lym¬ phatic system. Another very interesting attempt to find the first lymphatics is shown in the work of Sala, who studied the origin of the posterior lymph-hearts in the chick. We know now that these lymph-hearts arise as endothelial buds from the walls of the coccygeal veins and that these buds develop into a plexus, which becomes a pulsating lymph-heart. Sala, working with this rapidly developing plexus, somewhat vaguely appreciated its relation to the veins : he described a hollow¬ ing out of cavities in the mesenchyme near the veins and then said that in the last analysis these cavities in the mesenchyme were from their first appearance nothing but terminal dilatations of the veins. How¬ ever, he concluded that the lymphatics be¬ gin as excavations in the mesenchyme which soon join the veins. The confusion in Sala’s description is now easily understood. Dominated by the theory that lymphatics were tissue-spaces, he could not analyze the evidence that they were from the start con¬ nected with the veins, and so described them as both veins and tissue-spaces.' He made it clear, however, that he believed that the ducts were formed from chains of tissue- spaces hollowed out in the mesenchyme and lined by flattened-out cells. Sala’s work, however, places the first lymphatics close to the veins, and demonstrates the diffi¬ culties of relying on the interpretation of sections in unraveling problems of growth. Sala’s work was published in 1900, and 150 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1127 during that year I was working on the de¬ velopment of the lymphatic system.10 I began the investigation by injecting the foot-pads of young pig embryos. This pro¬ cedure never fails to demonstrate lymphat¬ ics in the adult, and the same is true of fetal stages, but it was soon found that in em¬ bryos less than 3 cm. in length it was neces¬ sary to introduce the needle nearer the cen¬ tral veins in order to find lymphatics. By a long series of such injections the fact was gradually established that the skin of the embryo is invaded by lymphatics from two general regions — the neck and the groin. By noting the lines of growth of these in¬ vading vessels it was possible to obtain injections, showing the extent of the inva¬ sion of the skin for each stage. Moreover, in making these injections into the translu¬ cent skin of the embryo it became evident that in order to fill the lymphatics the needle must be introduced at a very exact level. When the needle cuts the lymphatics, the vessels can be seen to fill up from the oblique opening of the needle, without any extravasation if the pressure is light. If the needle is entered too superficially a bleb is always formed: if too deeply, the injec¬ tion mass spreads out in straight lines, very characteristic and very different from lym¬ phatics. These observations emphasize the lymphatic capillary as a definite vessel located at a specific level. Through a long series of such injections these definite lym¬ phatic vessels were traced back to tiny buds close to the veins. The theory was then advanced that the entire lymphatic system consists of definite vessels of endothelium, which grow as blind buds from the endo¬ thelium of the veins and partially invade the body. The theory throws the emphasis on endothelium as the essential tissue of the io Sabin, F. R., Johns Hopkins Hospital Re¬ ports, Monographs, New Series, No. 5, 1913. Gives a list of the literature. lymphatic system, and premises that the endothelium of the lymphatic system is de¬ rived from the endothelium of the veins. This means that lymphatic vessels arise as an active growth of endothelial cells and are not formed by a passive dilatation of spaces. The outgrowth theory has not been established without opposition. There has been, indeed, a vigorous effort in this coun¬ try to re-establish the older hypothesis of the origin of lymphatics from tissue-spaces, but in my judgment these efforts have not been successful. I shall now outline briefly certain facts which have been established concerning the development of the lymphatic system. The lymphatic system begins in the human em¬ bryo of about 10 mm. in length — that is, during the sixth week of development. The first lymphatics are blunt buds which come from the internal jugular veins at the root of the neck. They are filled with blood which backs into them from the vein. These buds soon establish connections with each other and form a plexus which develops into a large sac, having its base on the in¬ ternal jugular vein and arching into the posterior triangle of the neck. From this sac, which is astonishingly large, lymphat¬ ics grow out to the skin of the head and neck, to the thorax and arm, and partially invade the deep structures of the head. From the portion of the sac in the posterior triangle of the neck, vessels grow forward and form an extensive plexus along the ex¬ ternal jugular vein. The knowledge of the form of this sac, of its position with refer¬ ence to the internal jugular vein, and the pattern of the plexuses which develop from it, has unraveled the complicated and puzzling relations of the lymphatic ducts to the chains of lymph glands in the neck. The sac itself is transformed into different groups of lymph glands which might be analyzed as the primary lymph glands of August 4, 1916] SCIENCE 151 the neck, and these primary lymph glands bear a definite relation to the secondary glands which form along the ducts growing out from the sac. At a slightly later stage — in embryos of the seventh week, approximately 20 mm. in length — a series of lymphatic buds develop from some of the abdominal veins. These early buds have proved more difficult to study than the jugular buds — first because the veins from wdiich they arise are more complex and were less well known, and sec¬ ondly because their deep position has made direct observation in the living embryo and direct, precise injections practically impos¬ sible. Therefore our knowledge of the ex¬ tent and origin of the abdominal lymphatics from different veins is still far from com¬ plete. Certain very interesting observations by Silvester11 on monkeys and by Job12 on rats show that in these forms certain lym¬ phatic ducts drain permanently into the inferior vena cava, the iliac, the renal or the portal veins, suggesting a multiple origin of lymphatics from the abdominal veins. The main abdominal lymphatics begin as a retroperitoneal sac which devel¬ ops from a vein connecting the two Wolffian bodies. This vein ultimately forms a part of the inferior vena cava. This large retro¬ peritoneal sac furnishes the key for the study of the abdominal lymphatics. The lymphatics of the skin of abdomen and for the legs grow from paired iliac sacs. The retroperitoneal sac and the paired iliac sacs become connected with the left jugular sac by means of the thoracic duct, which grows from the left jugular sac and from the ab¬ dominal lymphatics, and is complete in embryos about 25 mm. long. There is thus formed a primary lymphatic system of sacs connected by the thoracic duct; this sys- ii Silvester, C. F., Amer. Jour, of Anat., Vol. 12, 1911-12. is Job, T. T., Anat. Eecord, Yol. 9, 1915. tem in most mammals drains into the internal jugular veins on either side. From the primary sacs, a plexus of capillaries in¬ vades the body. In a general way, the vessels from the jugular sacs grow to the head, thorax and thoracic viscera; those from the retroperitoneal sac to the abdom¬ inal viscera, and in part to the thoracic viscera; and those from the iliac sacs to the abdominal walls and legs. The injection of these invading plexuses of lymphatics from the sacs outward is possible in the embryo, though it is im¬ possible in the adult, owing to the fact that the early vessels are without valves. In a general way it may be stated that by the time a fetus has reached the length of 5 cm. almost the entire skin has been invaded by a single plexus of lymphatic capillaries and the organs have received their primary lym¬ phatic vessels. At this stage of embryonic development injections of any part of the lymphatic plexus spread out in all direc¬ tions, so that theoretically the injection of any capillary might fill the entire system. I have injected the thoracic duct, for ex¬ ample, from the skin of the thorax, the in¬ jection mass passing around through the iliac lymphatics; or again I have injected the lymphatics of the skin by puncturing the thoracic duct. This complete anastomo¬ sis of the primary lymphatic capillary plexus of both the superficial and the deep systems in the embryo seems to me to be of considerable importance. To illustrate the development of the lym¬ phatic system to an organ and without an organ, I shall describe Cunningham’s13 work on the lymphatics of the lung. ITe has found that lymphatics approach the lung from three sources — from the two jugular sacs there are right and left lymphatic trunks and from the retroperitoneal sac is Cunningham, R. S., ‘ 1 Proc. Amer. Asso. of Anat.,” Anat. Eecord, Yol. 9, 1915. 152 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1127 there are vessels which come up behind the diaphragm. The ducts which grow down from the neck meet in a plexus which sur¬ rounds the trachea. In the primitive lung, the general pattern of the organ is simple ; it is obviously blocked off into large lobules by wide connective tissue septa. In the center of each lobule are the bronchus and the artery, in the septa are the veins. At the hilum the tracheal lymphatics divide into three plexuses, one spreading on to the pleura, a second following the bronchi and arteries, and the third the veins. The plexus Avhich follows the veins grows rapidly to the pleura and spreads around the border of each primitive lobule, blocking off the pleura into polygonal areas. From this pattern the pleural lymphatics develop. The pleura is blocked off into its polygonal areas by the lymphatics when the embryo is about 5 cm. in length. At a much later stage, when the bronchi begin to develop atria and air sacs at their tips, the lymphat¬ ics grow down the center of the lobule along the bronchi. Just where the atria begin, the lymphatics turn sharply from the bronchi and pass out to the septa, so that the walls of the air sacs are without lym¬ phatics. The lymphatics of the diaphragmatic sur¬ face of the pleura grow up behind the dia¬ phragm from the retroperitoneal sac, and injections of this surface of the lung in later stages fill up the pre-aortic, abdominal lymph glands. This relation of the pleural lymphatics to the abdominal lymphatics I believe to be of importance. The development of the ducts to the intes¬ tines, and their differentiation within the intestinal wall into the ultimate lacteals of the villi, have also been worked out. The method of injection in the embryo affords an excellent opportunity to test the present belief in the partial invasion of organs by lymphatic vessels. For example, lymphatics have not been demonstrated in the adult liver beyond the capsule and the connective tissue septa, nor in the spleen beyond the capsule. It is well known that lymphatics are abundant in tendons ; but they have not been demonstrated in striated muscle. On the other hand, it has been definitely shown, both in the embryo and in the adult, that there are no lymphatics in the central nerv¬ ous system. To this very general account of the lym¬ phatic system in the mammal certain inter¬ esting facts from comparative anatomy must be added. It has long been known that there are pulsating lymph hearts in the amphibia. These lymph hearts arise as lymph sacs from the vertebral veins in the neck and from the coccygeal veins at the root of the tail. These sacs are close to the myotomes and develop striated muscle in their walls. In the birds there is a very interesting lymphatic system. There is a jugular lymphatic plexus which later be¬ comes a lymphatic gland, and a caudal pul¬ sating lymph heart, which develops from the coccygeal veins. In mammals the lymph sacs develop into groups of lymph glands, which may be called the primary glands for each region, while secondary glands de¬ velop along the lymphatic ducts. In this brief resume of the lymphatic system I have given only facts which can be clearly demonstrated. There are these sacs against the veins, and if injections are made from them one can demonstrate a gradually increasing plexus of vessels. These facts, however, but lead us on to seek their meaning. What are lymphatic capil¬ laries, how do they arise, and how do they grow ? There is general agreement that the lymphatics arise from certain centers and grow toward the periphery; but there are two theories as to how they grow. The theory which I hold is that the lymphatics arise from the endothelium of the veins and August 4, 1916] SCIENCE 153 grow by the multiplication of endothelial cells. The opposing theory holds that the lymphatics arise from tissue-spaces and grow by adding on new tissue-spaces; that beyond the tip of a definite completed ves¬ sel, which can be injected, are tissue-spaces which will be added to the capillary. It is here necessary to submit the differ¬ ent types of method and the nature of the evidence which has been brought forth under the stimulus of these two theories. Some of the methods are direct, some in¬ direct, but in all there is an effort to under¬ stand the nature of that very interesting and important tissue, the endothelial cell. First, in regard to the nature of the earliest lymphatic buds, it is clear from sections, both of mammals and of birds, that these buds are lined by endothelium, but it proved very difficult to determine from sec¬ tions that these buds were from the begin¬ ning connected with the veins. Eleanor Clark,14 however, was able to test this point in the case of the lymphatics of the chick by developing a method for observing the tiny red buds in the living embryo. Into these lymphatic buds she injected a few granules of ink, and then observed the granules en¬ tering the vein. Moreover, in the amphibia Fedorowicz15 has traced each step of the origin of the lymphatic buds from the veins, by specific differences between the endo¬ thelium and the mesenchyme. From these early lymphatic buds it is pos¬ sible to inject an increasing plexus of lym¬ phatic capillaries as the embryo develops, and by this method to follow the lymphatic capillaries to their form in the adult, in the few places where that form is known. On this evidence was based the theory of the centrifugal invasion of the body by lym- 14 Clark, E. R. and E. L., Anat. Record, Yol. 6, 1912. is Eedorowiez, S., Bull. d. I’ Acad. d. Sciences d. Cracovie, 1913. phatie capillaries. The next method of study which occupied the attention of the group of anatomists who were trying to fol¬ low the development of the lymphatic sys¬ tem was a comparison of the adequacy of the method in injection with the adequacy of the method of reconstruction of lym¬ phatics from serial sections as applied to the problem of growth. This long series of studies followed an observation of Lewis16 that if the lymphatics were reconstructed from sections they would appear as isolated vesicles for which no connections could be found. This is the experience of all who attempt to reconstruct an uninjected capil¬ lary plexus from sections, and therefore it has been necessary to test the limitations of the method. It is claimed that the method of reconstruction reveals more lymphatics than can be shown by the injection method, as it shows not only all the lymphatics which can be injected, but also the spaces that will be added to the plexus later. Moreover, it is on the evidence of reconstructions that the theory of the growth of lymphatics by the addition of tissue-spaces is based. It is true, of course, that injections would not fill up solid sprouts of endothelium, and every¬ one who has made injections of lymphatics is familiar with the difficulties of obtaining perfect specimens, but it has been demon¬ strated that when an area is chosen which can be adequately injected, more of a capil¬ lary plexus can be shown than can be re¬ constructed. For example, Eleanor Clark17 has published a picture of an injection of the jugular lymphatic plexus of a chick which showed a far more extensive plexus than was demonstrated in a reconstruction of the same stage, previously recorded by Miller.18 The two pictures, side by side, is Lewis, E. T., Amer. Jour, of Anat., Vol. 5, 1906. 11 Clark, Eleanor L., Anat. Record, Vol. 6, 1912. is Miller, A. M., Amer. Jour, of Anat., Yol. 12, 1912. 154 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1127 afford a striking contrast. The amount of the plexus which can be demonstrated by reconstruction increases very much if an oil immersion lens is used, but the method, though one of the most important aids in embryology, is entirely inadequate to test the method of growth of capillaries. No one would regard it as adequate to deter¬ mine an entire plexus of blood capillaries even where their pattern is well known. It is, I think, obvious that the only ade¬ quate method for the study of the growth of capillaries is to observe them in a living specimen ; and in this connection we have a long series of valuable observations on the classical object, the living tadpole’s tail. Capillaries were first seen in the tadpole’s tail by Schwann, and were first differen¬ tiated into two types, blood-capillaries and lymphatic-capillaries, by Kolliker. Dur¬ ing a long series of studies with this object, by Remak, Sigmund Meyer and others, and finally by Eliot R. Clark,19 with greatly improved methods, two facts have become established — first, that endothelium is con¬ tractile and second that the vessels grow by the cell division of their own walls. Clark was able to watch a given lymphatic for several days and to observe that the wall put forth tiny processes of protoplasm, which we term sprouts, that the nuclei of the cell divided and wandered into the new sprouts, which developed into new vessels. He was able to plot out every mesenchymal cell in the neighborhood and to show that the growing sprouts of endothelium avoided rather than approached the processes of mesenchyme, and never incorporated them into their walls. Thus in the one place where natural conditions are such that every cell, or rather every nuclear area of a growing vessel, and every mesenchymal is* Clark, E. R., Anat. Record, Yol. 3, 1909. Amer. Jour, of Anat., Vol. 13, 1912. “Proc. Amer. Asso. of Anat.,” Anat. Record, Vol. 8, 1914. cell can be identified, it is without question true that both blood-capillaries and lym¬ phatic capillaries grow through the pro¬ liferation of their own walls. The method of growth of capillaries may thus be regarded as established. But this is not the whole problem for the embryolo¬ gist. Under development he must consider both the original differentiation of tissues and their method of growth. In embryol¬ ogy it has become clear that there is a gradual differentiation of tissues from a common cell mass, and that after a tissue is once differentiated it increases by cell- division. This conception of the differen¬ tiation of tissues was clearly stated by von Baer in 1828. He called the process histo¬ logical differentiation. Thus, development consists in the differentiation of tissues followed by growth. The most recent work on the lymphatic system demonstrates that the period of differentiation of endothelium is the period of the origin of the blood¬ vessels, and that this period has long since passed when lymphatics begin. Lymphat¬ ics do not differentiate from mesenchyme, but grow from veins. It is well known that methods have long been sought by histologists to distinguish endothelium from mesenchyme. If we could always distinguish endothelium in sections the problem would be practically solved, but the difficulty of determining lymphatic endothelium in the sinuses of lymph glands, or vascular endothelium in the spleen pulp are too well known to need emphasis. These very difficulties lead us to the question, is endothelium differen¬ tiated from mesenchyme? Efforts to distinguish endothelium from mesenchyme have not been entirely without results. For example, Clark has found that in the chick the nuclei of lymphatic endo¬ thelium can be distinguished from the nu¬ clei of the mesenchyme by characteristic August 4, 1916] SCIENCE 155 nucleoli. Again Kampmeier20 lias shown that both venous and lymphatic endothe¬ lium in the toad can be distinguished from mesenchyme at certain stages by the pres¬ ence of a greater number of yolk globules. Indeed, this differentiation of vascular and lymphatic endothelium from the mesen¬ chyme was so striking as to convince Kampmeier that the lymphatics arose from the veins, though he had previously held the view that they arose from tissue-spaces. These observations, valuable as they are, are not sufficiently universal to determine the nature of endothelium. The lymphatic endothelium grows from the endothelium of the veins; but since it varies slightly from the venous endothelium we may say that it is secondarily differentiated from it. This idea leads us directly to the most fundamental problem connected with the entire vascular system — namely, how does endothelium arise, how do the first endo¬ thelial cells differentiate ? The question of the origin and the growth of the lym¬ phatic system will not be completely solved until its essential tissue endothelium is completely understood. This leads us to seek for the origin of the first blood-vessels. The question of the origin of the heart and blood-vessels has a vast literature. Since the time of Wolff and Pander, it has been known that blood-islands in the chick arise in the wall of the yolk sac. Then His21 discovered that blood-vessels arise by a differentiation of vaso-formative cells or angioblasts. This is the fundamental point which recent work confirms, His having proved that angioblasts differentiated in the wall of the yolk-sac, and having seen that they did invade the embryo, advanced the hypothesis that all the angioblasts dif¬ ferentiated in the yolk-sac and then in- 20 Kampmeier, O. F., Amer. Jour, of Anat., Vol. 17, 1915. 21 His, W., Untersuclmngen iiber dir erste Anlage des Wirbelthierleibes, Leipzig, 1868. vaded the body from the embryonic mem¬ branes. The theory regarding angioblasts thus became centered around the idea of this invasion, and the more fundamental point was obscured. In recent years this theory that all of the vessels of the embryo are derived from the vessels of the mem¬ branes has been disproved by certain ex¬ periments of Hahn.22 Hahn selected chicks in the stage of the primitive streak and burned out the membranes opposite the pos¬ terior end of the streak. In a few specimens which lived he found a small aorta and car¬ dinal veins on the injured side of the em¬ bryo. These results have been confirmed by Miller and McWhorter23 and by Reagan24 on the chick and again by studies on the fish embryo by Stockard.25 It may thus be regarded as proved that blood-vessels arise both within the embryo and in the embry¬ onic membranes. Stockard then went on to attack the more fundamental problem, how does endothe¬ lium first arise? In studies made on the yolk sac of the living fish embryo, he found that endothelium arises as spindle cells which differentiate out of mesenchyme. Moreover, he found that the endothelial cell was distinct from the blood-cell. This confirmation of the angioblast of His I re¬ gard as a very important contribution. It is very clear in following the work of His, that he made studies on the living blastoderm of the chick, but so far as I am aware McWhorter and Whipple28 were the first to study the living blastoderm of the chick in a hanging-drop preparation. By 22 Hahn, H., Arch. f. Entwicklungsmechanik der Organismen, Bd. 27, 1909. 23 Miller and McWhorter, Anat. Record, Yol. 8, 1914. 24 Reagan, F. P., Anat. Record, Vol. 9, 1915. 25 Stockard, C. R., Amer. Jour, of Anat., Yol. 18, 1915. Two articles. 26 McWhorter and Whipple, Anat. Record, Vol. 6, 1912. 156 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1127 using this method, I find, just as did His, that blood-vessels begin by a differentia¬ tion of cells. It is difficult to be sure of the first cells in the living chick which become angioblasts, but by the time the first cleft appears which indicates the position of the two upper myotomes there is an extensive plexus of bands of cells in the area vascu- losa. In watching these bands of cells in the living specimen, I thought for some time that they could be differentiated by a slightly greater refractility than the rest of the tissue; but this did not prove to be an adequate criterion, for when the syn¬ cytium of mesenchyme forms in the later stages it makes a network of the tissue which is just as refractile. Moreover, in the study of the early vessels in the living blastoderm it is extremely difficult to tell which is the vessel and which the inter¬ space. However, I found that the bands of endothelium or the definite vessels which form from them would suddenly change their appearance over wide areas, becom¬ ing intensely refractile and very granular and opaque. In this stage, which is so striking that it can be seen under low pow¬ ers of the microscope, the vessels lose all ap¬ pearance of being hollow ; and I soon found that this was because every cell was passing into the phase of cell-division. This was proved by the rows of spindles in stained specimens. The extent of cell-division in these chick embryos is most interesting. At times wide areas of the endoderm cell divide and be¬ come so opaque as to entirely obscure the cells beneath, and one has to wait until the endoderm becomes clear again. The dif¬ ference in the reaction of the bands of endothelium and the syncytium of mesen¬ chyme to cell division is a guide in the study of the early differentiation of blood¬ vessels. When the bands of endothelial cells divide the cells remain together: the outline of each cell becomes distinct, but they do not separate. In the case of the division of the cells of a syncytium of mesenchyme, however, many of the proc¬ esses are withdrawn and the cell-body rounds up, so that it stands out as if it were an isolated cell, as has been described by Margaret Reed Lewis in tissue-cultures. Thus in areas in which it becomes very diffi¬ cult to trace the ultimate strands of endo¬ thelium it may be necessary to wait for the phase of cell-division in one or the other tissue in order to make the distinction. In watching the vessels of the area vasculosa, one gets the suggestion that there may be a rhythm in cell-division. For example, if the area pellucida around the posterior end of the embryo be considered as divided into an inner and an outer zone, either all the vessels of the inner zone or all those of the outer zone may be found in cell division at the same time. The vessels of the original plexus increase in size by cell division and new vessels are constantly formed within the plexus by numerous sprouts that grow out to connect its meshes. Beside this growth within the plexus there is an active differentiation of new endothelial cells, which can be watched in the living chick. In the early stages, up to five or six somites, there is no syncytium of mesenchyme and the wandering cells are scanty in number. Individual spindle- cells are thus clearly seen. They divide and at once show the essential character¬ istic of endothelium — that is, the tendency to form bands. Either an individual cell, or bands of two or three cells, send out tiny processes toward the older bands of endothelium, which at once respond by sending out tiny processes to meet the new ones. Thus endothelium consists of cells which differentiate as spindle-cells from the mesenchyme, and show at once two characteristics, first a tendency to remain August 4, 1916] SCIENCE 157 together after cell-division forming strands, and secondly, a tendency to join other bands of similar cells by protoplasmic proc¬ esses. These bands of cells become blood vessels. It is, I think, clear that the question now to be solved is how long does endothelium continue to differentiate out of mesen¬ chyme? It can be seen to differentiate in the living chick in all the stages I have yet studied, that is in the stages before the cir¬ culation is established. This covers ap¬ proximately the first two days of incuba¬ tion. As is well known, there is a group of anatomists — Maximow, Reichert and Mol- lier, and a group of American workers, notably Huntington and McClure, who be¬ lieve that endothelium continues to differ¬ entiate out of mesenchyme possibly throughout life. From the evidence which I have previously given I think it much more likely that endothelium will prove to have a limited period of differentiation, followed by growth. The study of the origin of blood-vessels seems to me to em¬ phasize again the endothelial cell and to show that the vascular system arises from a differentiation, and growth of endothelial cells rather than by a dilatation of spaces. In looking back over the history of the development of our knowledge of the lym¬ phatic system, it is very clear that there have been periods of great activity fol¬ lowed by periods of rest. We are at pres¬ ent in a period of activity, and I should like to sum up what seem to me to be the results of the work of the last fifteen years. It has been shown that the problem of the origin of the lymphatic system is but a part of the general problem of the origin of the vascular system. Lymphatics are modified veins, in the sense that they grow from the veins. The veins are the primary absorbents and continue to take part in ab¬ sorption throughout life. Up to the time of about six weeks for the human embryo, they are the only absorbents. Subsequently other systems develop, such as the arach¬ noidal villi and the lymphatic vessels, to assist in the function of absorption. The lymphatics only partially invade the body, and present indications point to the fact that their functions in absorption may be to some extent specific. In an injection into the tissues of a dead organism it is essential to puncture the ves¬ sels of a plexus of lymphatic capillaries in order to fill lymphatics with a non-diffus- ible fluid. These injections demonstrate a complete wall, in the anatomical sense, which is ruptured only by increased pres¬ sure. In the living animal both true solu¬ tions and granules pass into lymphatic capillaries through the activities of endo¬ thelial cells or by means of wandering phagocytic cells. This conception of the lymphatic system is at variance with the older idea of hazy lymphatic capillaries that faded off indefi¬ nitely through hypothetical lymph radicals into the tissue spaces. With the newer con¬ ception of definite lymphatic capillaries of endothelium it would be much better if we should revise the terms which developed in the period when our theories were vague and indefinite. In the first place there are “blood-capillaries,” “lymphatic cap¬ illaries” and “tissue-spaces.” If we should reserve the term “plasma” for the fluid within the blood-vessels, ‘ ‘ lymph ’ ’ for the fluid within the lymphatics and “tissue-fluid” for the fluid within the tissue-spaces, it would be a great gain in clearness. The term “tissue-fluid,” mean¬ ing the fluid which is in the tissue-spaces of the living animal, should not be con¬ fused with the term “tissue- juice,” by which the physiologist means the fluid which can be pressed out of the tissues. The term tissue-fluid should include such 158 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1127 special fluids as the cerebro-spinal fluid, the aqueous humor and the fluids of the serous cavities, as well as the general fluid of the less specialized tissue-spaces. The study of the lymphatic system throws emphasis on the importance of tissue-spaces. I am convinced that the understanding of lymphatic capillaries as definite struc¬ tures, definitely placed in restricted areas, forms a secure basis from which the varied problems of absorption may be solved. Florence R. Sabin The Johns Hopkins University STATISTICAL PHYSICS* Every physical measurement must be made in a region in equilibrium,2 and nearly all of the correlations which have been established in physics, that is, nearly all physical laws, relate to substances in steady states or to substances in equilibrium. Furthermore, nearly all physical laws are one-to-one correspondences, and they are expressible as analytical functions. Thus the pressure of a given amount of a gas is an analytical function of the volume and temperature of the gas. In every field of measurement, however, extreme refinement and care lead an inves¬ tigator into a region of erratic action. This is evident when we consider that refined measurements are always subject to erratic error, and the atomic theory of the consti¬ tution of matter suggests that erratic action is always present everywhere, even in sub¬ stances in complete thermal equilibrium. * The substance of a lecture delivered by W. S. Franklin before the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution, Washing¬ ton, D. C., December 20, 1915. 2 Thermal equilibrium is here referred to ; cer¬ tain quasi states of thermal equilibrium being in¬ cluded. The only exception is the kind of meas¬ urement which consists of simple counting, like the counting of cattle as they pass through a gate or the counting of electrons as they enter an ioniza¬ tion chamber. It has long been the custom to speak of the probable error of a precise measurement as if perfect precision would be possible if our measuring devices were perfect and free from erratic variations. It is impor¬ tant, however, to recognize two distinct types of erratic error, namely, extrinsic error due to uncontrollable variability of the measuring device or system, and intrin¬ sic error due to inherent variability of the thing or system which is being measured. Every physical measurement involves an operation of congruence, a standard of some kind is fitted to or made congruent with suc¬ cessive parts (which parts are thereby judged to be equal parts) of the thing or system which is being measured; and the standard system and the measured system are both subject to erratic variations. There is, perhaps, no case in which intrin¬ sic error and extrinsic error can be clearly distinguished and separated from each other; but when the errors of one kind are much larger than the errors of the other kind they can, of course, be recognized. It is proper to speak of the probable error of a single measurement when the variations of the measuring device or system are domi¬ nant, but one should speak of the probable departure of the measured system from a certain mean condition at any time when the “ errors” of observation are due chiefly to variability of the thing or system which is being measured. Thus in measuring the coefficient of sliding friction extrinsic error may be made negligible by making the measurements carefully, hut very large “errors” persist. The thing which is being measured is inherently indefinite, and it may at any time depart widely from its average value.3 In measuring the loss of 3 A very brief but comprehensive statement of the proper precision method for the study of an erratic thing like friction is given by W. S. Frank¬ lin, Transactions of American Institute of Elec¬ trical Engineers, Yol. 20, pp. 285-286. August 4, 1916] SCIENCE 159 head in a water or gas pipe systematic errors (due to the particular details of roughness, etc., in the pipe) are not in evi¬ dence when a particular pipe is used, and extrinsic errors may be made negligible by using a precision device for measuring pres¬ sure; but the loss of head (or pressure) re¬ mains nevertheless extremely variable on account of eddy action which grows out of unstable vortex sheets; that is to say, very large “errors” persist, the thing which is being measured is inherently subject to erratic variation. DESCRIPTIVE SCIENCE AND STATISTICAL SCIENCE The greater part of physical science as applied in the arts and as used by the inves¬ tigator is essentially descriptive. Thus we may wish to determine how the members of a bridge stretch or shorten as a car passes across the bridge; how electromotive force, current strength and all the changing vari¬ ables play in the operation of a dynamo; how the pressure and temperature of the steam vary during the successive stages of admission, expansion and exhaust of a steam engine; and so on. But everything that takes place in this world has associated with it a substratum of complex action which baffles description. Consider, for ex¬ ample, a simple thing like the movement of a train of cars. The engineer is concerned only with certain broad features of what takes place, the amount of coal and water used, the draw-bar pull of the locomotive, and the forward motion of the cars as af¬ fected by steepness of grade, and the oppos¬ ing force of friction. But who could de¬ scribe in detail the rocking and rattling mo¬ tion of the cars and the whirling and eddy¬ ing motion of the surrounding air, and who could trace the motion of every particle of dust and smoke ! This indescribably com¬ plex action we call by the name of turbu¬ lence — it exists everywhere and in every¬ thing that goes forward in this world of ours, and it is never twice alike in detail even when the conditions are what one would consider exactly the same. All of which suggests two postulates concerning turbulence, namely ( a ) that it is infinitely4 complicated, and (b) that it is essentially erratic in character. Let it be understood, however, that we are not speaking in terms of ordinary values in making these two statements. It is not a question, for ex¬ ample, as to whether a brakeman loses his hat every time he makes a trip from Albany to Buffalo, but it is a question as to whether his hat is lost every time at identically the same place because of a gust of wind of precisely the same character when he lets go of it in the same way because of a sud¬ den jerk of the train which always occurs at the same place in exactly the same man¬ ner, and so on in endless detail of specifica¬ tion — if such specification were possible ! • In the motion of a simple mechanism like the sun and planets, or in the operation of a simple machine like a dynamo the accom¬ panying erratic action is practically negli¬ gible. Thus one does not consider even the tremendous storm movements in the sun in the study of planetary motion, and one does not consider the minute details of the motion which takes place in a lubricated bearing in the study of the operation of a dynamo. In many phenomena, however, erratic action is dominant, and in the study of such phenomena the statistical method must be used. Consider, for example, the motion of the water in a brook. This mo¬ tion presents a fairly definite average char¬ acter at each point, and a fairly typical rhythmic variation from this average exists at each point, but there is an erratic depar- 4 The idea of infinity which comes from counting, one, two, three, four and so on ad infinitum, is as nothing compared with the intimation of infinity that comes from things that are seen and felt! 160 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1127 ture from this regular motion which is by no means negligible in magnitude. So it is, in the case of the weather. There is a fairly definite average of weather condi¬ tions at a place from year to year, and a fairly typical rhythmic variation, but there is an erratic departure from average and from type, and this erratic variation of the weather can only be studied statistically. Turbulence is characteristic of those physical and chemical changes which are called irreversible or sweeping processes.5 The most familiar example of such a proc¬ ess is ordinary fire, and, as every one knows, a fire is not dependent upon an external driving cause, but when once started it goes forward spontaneously and with a rush. It is not, however, exactly correct to speak of a fire as spontaneous , because this word refers especially to the beginning of a proc¬ ess, whereas we are here concerned with the characteristics of a process already begun. Therefore it is better to describe a phenom¬ enon like fire as impetuous because it does go forward of itself. Tyndall, in referring to the impetuous character of fire, says that it was one of the philosophical difficulties of the eighteenth century. A spark is suffi¬ cient to start a conflagration, and the effect would seem to be out of all proportion greater than the cause. Herein lay the philosophical difficulty. This difficulty may seem to be the same as that which the biol¬ ogist faces in thinking of the small begin¬ nings of such a tremendous thing as the chestnut-tree blight in the United States. The chance importation of a spore is in¬ deed a small thing, but it is by no means an infinitesimal, whereas, under conceivable conditions a fire can be started by a cause more minute and more nearly insignificant than anything assignable. This possibility s There is one type of irreversible process which is steady and amenable to measurement while under way, namely, the so-called steady sweep. of the growth of tremendous consequences out of a cause which has the mathematical character of an infinitesimal is the remark¬ able thing; and this possibility is not only characteristic of fire, but it is characteristic of impetuous processes in general. STATIC AND DYNAMIC INSTABILITY Impetuous processes, such as storm movements of the atmosphere, are inti¬ mately connected with conditions of insta¬ bility. Indeed, an impetuous process seems always to be the collapse of an unstable state. Let us consider, therefore, two ideal cases where the condition of instability is assumed to be completely established at the start. (a) Imagine a warm layer of air near the ground overlaid with cold air. Such a condition of the atmosphere is unstable, and any disturbance, however minute, may conceivably start a general collapse. Thus a grasshopper in Idaho might conceivably initiate a storm movement which would sweep across the continent and destroy New York City, or a fly in Arizona might initi¬ ate a storm movement which would sweep out into the Gulf of Mexico ! These results are different, surely, and the grasshopper and the fly may be of entirely unheard-of varieties, more minute and insignificant than anything assignable. Infinitesimal differences in the earlier stages of an im¬ petuous process may, therefore, lead to finite differences in the final trend of the process. And yet it is quite generally be¬ lieved that if we knew enough we could predict the weather as we predict an eclipse ! (b) Consider a smooth spherical ball traveling through still air. There certainly is no more reason to expect the ball to jump to the right than to the left. There¬ fore we may conclude that it will not jump either way. Similarly, a sharp pointed stick stands in a perfectly vertical position August 4, 1916] SCIENCE 161 in a perfectly quiet room, and there is no more reason to expect the stick to fall one way than another, therefore the stick will not fall at all ! Every one appreciates the fallacy of this argument as applied to the stick, and the moving ball does in fact jump sidewise. To understand the behavior of the ball let us think of the ball as standing still and of the air as blowing past in a steady stream. The air streams past the ball and slides over a body of still air behind the ball ; the surface which separates the mov¬ ing air and still air is called a vortex sheet, and a vortex sheet is unstable. Any cause, however minute, is sufficient to start an eddy or whirl, and once started such an eddy or whirl develops more and more. Such an eddy or whirl means that the air streaming past one side of the ball is thrown inwards or outwards, and the reac¬ tion on the ball pushes the ball sidewise. This effect can be shown by dropping a marble in a deep jar of water. Instead of moving straight downwards the marble follows an erratic zigzag path. This effect is familiar to every one in the sidewise quivering of a stick in a stream of water; and the hissing of a jet of steam is due to the rapid fluttering of the boundary be¬ tween steam jet and air because of the for¬ mation of innumerable eddies. METEOROLOGY6 There are three fairly distinct objects to be attained in the analysis of weather ob¬ servations, namely, (a) the determination of systematic variations in time and place ; (&) the elaborate classification of individ¬ ual storm movements with respect to a great number of measurable characteris¬ tics, and the establishment of coefficients 6 The proposal here set forth was mentioned in a semi-humorous way in a very short article by W. S. Franklin in Science, Vol. 14, pages 496-497, Sep¬ tember 27, 1901. of correlation (statistical) between the measurable characteristics of a given type or class of storm on successive days so that weather predictions can be made rationally, that is, definite predictions qualified by probable departures; and (c) the recog¬ nition of critical states in an individual storm movement (conditions of static or dynamic instability) with the hope of de¬ vising means for controlling the storm by the suitable expenditure of a very small amount of energy at the critical time and place. If we are ever to control the weather we must, as it seems, do it in this way, and this would be singing Dan Tucker to a hurricane not in accordance with Uncle Remus’s idea. The above-mentioned objects are now kept in view by meteorologists, but the study of classifications and departures should be increased a thousand-fold. The point of view of the meteorologist has in the past been the point of view of the classicist in physics with his preconception of a universe of one-to-one correspond¬ ences; but statistical studies are the thing. STATISTICAL PHYSICS AND THE POSTULATE OF INDETERMINATION Whenever the postulate of erratic ac¬ tion is set forth, and the probable depar¬ ture of a natural phenomenon from the most carefully considered prediction is urged as in the nature of things inevitable, we meet objections from two classes of men, namely, the average man who thinks frankly in terms of human values and the classicist in science who idealizes nature in one-to-one correspondences. Surely, the classicist says, “if we knew all” the data we could make an unqualified prediction in any case. But, ignoring the hopelessly unscientific attitude of mind of one who can postulate infinite knowledge, let it be understood that to speak of data in phys¬ ics is to speak of a very narrow and limited 162 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1127 kind of thing, for data are only conceivable where measurements can be made or where we have, contrary to Bacon’s exhortation, accepted a dream of fancy for a model of the world. In that branch of mathematical physics which is called statistical mechanics and which includes the atomic theory, we speak of the complection of a system when we wish to refer to the positions and velocities of all the elements or particles of the sys¬ tem; let us use this word in the statement of the postulate of indetermination. The complection of the world to-morrow is not determinate, that is to say, it does not grow out of the complection of the world to-day as a single-valued determinate thing. This is a postulate which, as it seems, must be accepted as a working hypothesis in the “extra-equilibrium” world, the world of actual happenings, where things never do stand still but go forward by fits and starts impetuously and beyond all control. LITTLE PHYSICS AND BIG PHYSICS The most fertile source of ideas in phys¬ ics is the atomic theory which now runs through the whole of physics. Indeed we now have our atomic theory of elasticity, our atomic theory of crystal structure, our atomic theory of gases, our atomic theory of heat (including the whole of chemistry), our atomic theories in nearly every branch of electricity and magnetism, and our quasi-atomic theories of radiation ; and the atomic theory suggests that erratic action is universally dominant in the physics of the very small. Therefore the term micro¬ physics, or little physics, is frequently used to designate what we have called statistical physics, and the term macro-physics, or big physics, is frequently used to designate the classical physics where nature is idealized more or less and one-to-one correspond¬ ences rule. W. S. Franklin THE MINING INDUSTRY The accomplishment of the mining indus¬ try in the six-month period just completed warrants the forecast that 1916 is to be a record-breaking year, according to the director of the United States Geological Survey. Active demands and good prices have furnished the mine operators with full opportunity for success in working developed properties, and this in turn has given added incentive and available funds for exploration, prospecting and experimentation with new processes. Summarizing the special reports which are now being made public, Director Smith con¬ tinues his review: The returns for six months furnish a basis for the belief that 1916 will set up a new record for the soft-coal mines. Every coal¬ mining state is sharing in this prosperity and of course this demand for coal is to be traced back to the increased business of the railroads and of the steel and other large industries. Drilling activity throughout the oil-produc¬ ing states has brought about a gratifying in¬ crease in production of crude oil that promises to make 1916 a record year for marketed petroleum. Already production and consump¬ tion are reported by the surveys specialist as essentially in balance east of the Rocky Moun¬ tains, with a tendency to lower prices. The Portland cement industry has had a busy six months and the manufacturers are optimistic. It is predicted that in both pro¬ duction and shipments of cement this year will show a gain over last year, if indeed it does not establish a new record for cement. Among the metals copper is continuing the steady increase in production which began early last year, and the forecast for 1916 indi¬ cates not only the largest output ever known but also the largest profits. Shipments of iron ore from Lake Superior points for five months of 1916 exceeded by more than 80 per cent, those for the same months in 1915, and the indications for the year are favorable for a new high record on iron-ore production, and of pig iron as well. Higher prices with a steady demand are stimulating the mining of manganese, with the result that August 4, 1916] SCIENCE 163 this year’s output of ore is expected to surpass the large production of last year. The lead and zinc mines are producing ore* at a rate even exceeding that of last year and the prevailing prices have made possible the working of large quantities of low-grade ore. Most precious-metal mines are operating at full capacity. The gold production will prob¬ ably fall below the high yield of last year, but silver, the one metal last to benefit by the gen¬ eral domestic prosperity, is expected this year to break all previous records. In quicksilver the outlook is for a continu¬ ance of the output of 1915, which was the largest for several years. Thus far in 1916 the average price has greatly exceeded the 1915 prices ; and although the reaction in prices has come, conditions are favorable for steady and profitable operation of the quicksilver mines, some of which are newly opened. The reports from the survey’s western offices are all optimistic. In Arizona mines and smelters are working at high pressure, and the production of metals already shows an increase that promises to make the value of the output nearly double that of last year. Arizona will maintain first place as a copper producer. Hew Mexico is continuing its rapid progress as a metal-mining state, with increases in its out¬ put of lead, copper, zinc, gold and silver. The mines of Colorado in the six months just past have shown some changes in output as com¬ pared with last year; an increase of 30 per cent, in copper is indicated, together with small gains in lead and zinc, a 15 per cent, de¬ crease in gold, and little change in silver. This output, however, represents a large gain in value of mine production. Mining has also been stimulated in Montana, and the forecast indicates an increase of 60 per cent, in the value of the mine product over that of last year. Here also record outputs may be ex¬ pected for 1916. Idaho mines are increasing their shipments in all the metals, with higher wages and larger dividends as the result of better prices. Utah is experiencing an ore production in excess of smelter capacity. The value of the 1916 output of copper is expected to be double that of last year. Throughout Nevada the old term “ boom ” best expresses the present min¬ ing revival. Old mines are being reopened and regular producers are working at full capacity. The chief gains in production will be in cop¬ per, lead and zinc. The increased activity in the mining industry of California is finding expression largely in the reopening of mines that have been long idle and the opening of new mines for chrome, tungsten, manganese, antimony and magnesite, rail shipments of these ores to the east being made possible by prevailing high prices. Washington is an¬ other state which shows increased production, the mining industry there being in better con¬ dition than for several years past. Alaska also is benefiting by the increased activity of its mines. Copper mining is showing great ad¬ vances, and the output of both copper and gold promises to exceed that of last year. THE OPTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA At the recent regular election of the newly organized optical society, the name Optical Society of America was chosen. The officers chosen for the year are : President, P. G. Nutting; Vice-president, G. E. Hale; Treas¬ urer, Adolph Lomb; Secretary, P. E. Boss. The Executive Council consists of the above officers and F. E. Wright, C. E. K. Mees, Norman Macbeth and J. P. C. Southall. The charter members of the society are: Mr. Adelbert Ames, Jr., research, Clark Univer¬ sity; Mr. Edward Bausch, member Bausch & Lomb Optical Co.; Dr. E. J. Bissell, research opthalmolo- gist; Dr. Wm. Churchill, Corning Glass Co.; Pro¬ fessor Louis Derr, professor of physics, M. I. T. ; Dr. Marshall D. Ewell, consulting optical engineer; Professor C. W. Frederick, chief, lens designing and testing, E. K. Co.; Dr. H. P. Gage,' optical research and design, Corning Glass Co.; Dr. G. E. Hale, di¬ rector, Solar Observatory, Mt. Wilson; Dr. E. P. Hyde, director, Nela Research Laboratory; Dr. H. E. Ives, optical research, U. G. I. Co.; Mr. L. A. Jones, optical research, E. K. Co.; Dr. H. Kellner, chief, scientific bureau, B. & L. Co.; Mr. C. H. Kerr, director, research laboratory, P. P. Class Co.; Dr. Walter B. Lancaster, research opthalmol- ogist; Mr. Adolph Lomb, member Bausch & Lomb Optical Co.; Mr. Norman Macbeth, editor and 164 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1127 proprietor, The Lighting Journal; Dr. C. E. K. Mees, director, researcli laboratory, E. K. Co.; Professor H. D. Minehin, professor optics, U. of R.; Dr. P. G. Nutting, optical engineer, E. K. Co.; Dr. C. E. Prentice, professor of optometry, Co¬ lumbia; Mr. I. G. Priest, associate physicist, op¬ tics division, Bureau of Standards; Mr. W. B. Rayton, optical design and testing, B. & L. Co.; Professor E. K. Richtmyer, professor of physics, Cornell University; Dr. E. E. Ross, astronomer and optical designer, E. K. Co.; Mr. F. B. Saeg- muller, superintendent, precision optics, B. & L. Co.; Professor J. P. C. Southall, professor in charge of optometry courses, Columbia University; Mr. E. D. Tillyer, research laboratory, Am. Optical Co.; Professor E. J. Wall, professor of photog¬ raphy, Syracuse University; Dr. P. E. Wright, op¬ tical research, geophysical laboratory (30). The constitution provides that only those who have contributed materially to the ad¬ vancement of optics shall be eligible to regular membership in the society and hence to vote or hold office. Any one interested in optics is eligible to associate membership. The alfairs of the society are in the hands of the executive council. It is planned to hold one or more annual meetings and publish a journal com¬ mencing with the year 1917. Blank applica¬ tion for membership may be obtained from the secretary, 1447 St. Paul St., Rochester, N. Y. Material intended for publication in the jour¬ nal should be addressed to the president until the editorial staff has been selected by the council. SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS Dr. Haven Emerson, health commissioner of New York, has invited a number of distin¬ guished pathologists to meet some pathologists and medical authorities of New York City for discussion of problems connected with the pre¬ vailing epidemic of infantile paralysis. For the conference, which will begin on August 5, the Board of Estimate has appropriated $2,000. Those from a distance who are expected to be present are: Dr. William H. Welch, professor of pathology, The Johns Hopkins University; Dr. Victor C. Vaughan, dean of the medical school of the University of Michigan; Dr. Milton J. Rosenau, professor of preventive medicine and hygiene. Harvard University; Dr. J. W. Jobling, professor of pathology, Vanderbilt University; Dr. Paul A. Lewis, Henry Phipps Institute, and professor of pathology, University of Pennsylvania; Dr. C. C. Bass, professor of pathology, Tulane Uni¬ versity; Professor Theobald Smith, Rocke¬ feller Institute; Professor John F. Anderson, New Brunswick, N. J., former head of the hygienic laboratories of the U. S. Public Health Service; Dr. Richard M. Pearce, pro¬ fessor of experimental medicine, University of Pennsylvania; Dr. Francis W. Peabody, Peter Brent Brigham Hospital, Boston; Dr. Ludwig Hektoen, professor of pathology, University of Chicago, and director of the Memorial Insti¬ tute for Infectious Diseases; and Dr. John G. Adami, professor of pathology, McGill Med¬ ical College. At the meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh held on July 3 the following Brit¬ ish Honorary Fellows were elected: Sir Francis Darwin, Cambridge; Dr. J. W. L. Glaisher, Trinity College, Cambridge; Professor J. N. Langley, professor of physiology, Cambridge; Professor C. Lapworth, emeritus professor of geology, University of Birmingham; Professor A. Macalister, professor of anatomy, Cam¬ bridge; Professor A. Schuster, emeritus pro¬ fessor of physics, University of Manchester. The Hon. Bertrand Russell, F.R.S., one of the most distinguished English students of philosophy, was, according to a cablegram from London, recently fined for issuing pamph¬ lets to conscientious objectors to military serv¬ ice, and deprived of his lectureship at Trinity College, Cambridge; now it is said he has been refused a passport to visit America to keep his engagement to lecture at Harvard University. Dr. Franklin C. McLean, assistant resident physician in the hospital of the Rockefeller Institute, New York, has accepted an ap¬ pointment by the trustees of the Union Med¬ ical College, Pekin, to the professorship of internal medicine. The appointment carries with it the headship of the Union Medical School. This is one of the institutions of the China Medical Board of the Rockefeller Foun- August 4, 1916] SCIENCE 165 dation. Mr. Charles A. Collidge, of Boston, architect of the Rockefeller Institute and of the Harvard Medical School buildings, has been engaged to draw plans for a 200-bed hospital to be added to the equipment of Union Medical College. Fred V. Larkin, assistant professor of me¬ chanical engineering at Lehigh University, who was absent on leave last year, has re¬ signed and will continue in the employ of the Harrisburg Pipe and Pipe Bending Company. Advices from Mr. Roy Chapman Andrews, May 18, indicate that conditions in China will not interfere with the carrying out of the plans of the American Museum’s expedition there. Mr. Andrews intends to work in Fukien Prov¬ ince, until the arrival of Mr. Edmund Heller, when the expedition will proceed into Kwei¬ chow Province. Dr. Herbert J. Spinden has returned from Venezuela, where he has spent some months in an archeological reconnaissance for the American Museum of Natural History. G. W. Hunter, of New York University, has returned from the Tropical Research Station established by the New York Zoological Soci¬ ety in Kalacoon, British Guiana. He brought with him a collection of birds and reptiles. The Royal Society of Edinburgh has awarded its Keith prize for the biennial period 1913-15 to Dr. J. H. Ashworth for his papers on “Larvae of Lingula and Pelagodiscus ” and on “ Sclerocheilus,” published in the Transac¬ tions of the society, and for other papers on the morphology and histology of Polycliceta. Professor Lafayette B. Mendel delivered the address before the annual commencement joint meeting of Sigma Xi and Phi Beta Kappa at Yale University. Dr. Victor C. Vaughan, dean of the medical school of the University of Michigan, delivered an address on “ The Eradication of Disease ” at the meeting of the health officers of Mon¬ tana held at Miles City on July 10 and 11. The Harben lectures for 1916, on “ Rivers as Sources of Water Supply,” were delivered by Dr. A. C. Houston at the Royal Institute of Public Health, London, on July 13, 20 and 27. The department of geography in the Co¬ lumbia University summer session has ar¬ ranged the following course of public illus¬ trated lectures on consecutive Monday even¬ ings : July 17, “Turkey and the War,” by Dr. Ells¬ worth Huntington. July 24, “The Philosophy of Present and Pros¬ pective Boundaries in Europe,” by Professor Al¬ bert Perry Brigham, Colgate University. July 31, “Surface Features of Europe as a Factor in the War,” by Professor Douglas W. Johnson, Columbia University. August 7, “An Interpretation of the Scenery of the White Mountains,” by Professor James Walter Goldthwait, Dartmouth College. The first annual meeting of the Association of Resident and Ex-resident Physicians of the Mayo Clinic was held in Rochester, Minn., on June 9 and 10. A surgical clinic was given at the hospital, and in the evening papers were read. At the banquet the following officers were elected: President , Dr. Harold L. Foss, Danville, Pa. ; Vice-president , Dr. Donald C. Balfour, Rochester, Minn.; Secretary, Dr. William C. Carroll, St. Paul; Treasurer, Dr. Arthur H. Sanford, Rochester, Minn., and Governors , Drs. Edward S. Judd and William F. Braasch, Rochester, Minn., and Otis F. Lamson, Seattle. Dr. Paul J. Hanzlik, associate in pharma¬ cology, Western Reserve University, gave a lecture on July 6, in the Graduate School in Medical Sciences, University of Illinois, Chi¬ cago, on “ The Behavior of Salicylate in the Body.” Professor William Cole Esty, professor emeritus of Amherst College, from 1865 to 1905 Walker professor of mathematics and astronomy, died on July 27, at tfie age of sev¬ enty-eight years. Dr. William Simon, professor of chemistry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Baltimore, known for his work on chromates, died on July 19, aged seventy -two years. Charles Rudolph Edward Koch, secretary of the Northwestern University Dental School, past adjutant general of the Grand Army of the Republic, died on July 20, at the age of 166 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1127 seventy-two years. Colonel Koch, who was one of the best known dentists in the United States, spent many years of his life in working for the interests of the Grand Army of the Republic as well as for the interests of the dental profession. The Memorial Hospital, a part of The Med¬ ical College of Yirginia Corporation, has re¬ cently received $250,000 from the citizens of Richmond and a few outside friends. These funds will be used for the addition of a new ward for Negroes, a contagious ward and a nurses’ home. The Civil Service Commission has an¬ nounced that the applications received for the examination for scientific assistant in oceano¬ graphy, male, previously announced to be held on July 5, 1916, were insufficient; the exami¬ nation has been postponed, and will be held on August 23. From the register of eligibles resulting from this examination certification will be made to fill a vacancy in this position at $900 a year in the Bureau of Fisheries, De¬ partment of Commerce, Washington, D. C., and vacancies as they may occur in positions requiring similar qualifications. Additional information may he obtained on application to the Civil Service Commission, Washington, D. C. The new wharf and library-museum build¬ ing of the Scripps Institution for Biological Research of the University of California at La Jolla will be dedicated on August 9. Professor C. W. Howard, of the state farm, is in charge of sixteen University of Minne¬ sota students who, under his direction, are endeavoring to exterminate mosquitoes in a section of Minneapolis covering 8 square miles. The work includes the covering, screening and destroying of tin cans, rain barrels and other water containers and the oiling of stagnant pools and swamps. The Harvard Medical School has estab¬ lished four fellowships in medicine, to be known as the Boston Dispensary Fellowships. Applicants must have graduated from a med¬ ical school of good standing and must have had a hospital internship or its equivalent. Ap¬ pointments will be made jointly by the author¬ ities of the Harvard Medical School and of the Boston Dispensary. The fellows will be expected to give a portion of their time to treating the sick in their homes in the district service of the dispensary, and a portion of their time to such study, teaching, laboratory, research or clinical work as may be assigned by the medical school. The stipend of a fel¬ lowship will be $500 for part time, or $750 for the physician’s entire time. Arrangements for the course of lectures on illuminating engineering to be given at the University of Pennsylvania in September are rapidly being completed. These lectures will be open to all engineers, surgeons, manufac¬ turers, and others interested in illuminating engineering, and the course is designed to indi¬ cate the proper coordination of those arts and sciences which constitute illuminating engi¬ neering and to furnish a condensed outline of study suitable for elaborating into an under¬ graduate course, and to give engineers an op¬ portunity to obtain a conception of the science of illuminating engineering as a whole. At a recent meeting held in the rooms of the Chemical Society, London, the Association of British Chemical Manufacturers, which has been under consideration for some time, was definitely formed. Among its main objects are to promote cooperation between British chemical manufacturers, to act as a medium for placing before the government and govern¬ ment officials the views of such manufacturers upon matters affecting the chemical industry; to develop technical organization and promote industrial research; to keep in touch with the progress of chemical knowledge and to facil¬ itate the development of new British industries and the extension of existing ones, and to en¬ courage the sympathetic association of British chemical manufacturers with the various uni¬ versities and technical colleges. The mem¬ bership is confined to British firms engaged in chemical manufacture or closely allied indus¬ tries. The minimum annual subscription is 25 guineas in respect of a subscribed capital of £50,000 or* less, rising by 2£ guineas for August 4, 1916] SCIENCE 167 each additional £10,000 up to a maximum of 250 guineas. A provisional committee has been appointed, to hold office for three months and including : Dr. E. F. Armstrong (Messrs. Joseph Crosfield and Sons), Mr. F. W. Brock (Messrs. Brunner, Mond and Co.), Dr. Chas. Carpenter (South Metropolitan Gas Co.), Dr. M. O. Forster (British Dyes, Limited), Mr. John Gray (Messrs. Lever Brothers), Mr. Norman Hoden (Messrs. Hardman and Holden), Mr. C. A. Hill (British Drug Houses, Limited), Mr. C. P. Merriam (Brit¬ ish Xylonite Company), Sir Alfred Mond, M.P. (Mond Nickel Company), Mr. Max Mus- pratt (United Alkali Company), Sir William Pearce, M.P. (Messrs. Spencer, Chapman and Messel), Mr. R. G. Perry (Messrs. Chance and Hunt), Mr. R. D. Pullar (Pullar’s Dye Works), Dr. Alfred Ree (Society of Dyers and Colorists), Mr. A. T. Smith (Castner-Kellner Alkali Company), and Mr. John W. Wilson, M.P. (Messrs. Albright and Wilson). In an item published in Science for July 7, the cost of printing for the Cornell and Ge¬ neva Agricultural Experiment Stations was reported as $60,000 each, whereas this was probably the sum for the two institutions. We are informed that at the Geneva Station the cost of bulletins and reports for three years has been as follows: 1913, $11,978.85; 1914, $14,514.28; 1915, $14,944.81. These figures in¬ clude the cost of both bulletins and the an¬ nual reports, with the exception of Part 2 of 1915, known as “ The Cherries of New York.” This cost $4,455 extra. Action by congress has recently created six new scientific positions in the division of sci¬ entific inquiry of the Bureau of Fisheries. The positions comprise two assistants for the Washington office, two field assistants and a superintendent and scientific aid for the lab¬ oratory to be constructed at Key West, Flor¬ ida. The bureau will be enabled to extend its scientific work particularly in relation to ma¬ rine shellfish, fresh-water mussels and fishery problems of the Gulf of Mexico. A slight in¬ crease was made in the appropriations for mis¬ cellaneous expenses available for investigations. The Bureau of Fisheries has never before re¬ ceived in one year so substantial an increment to its scientific staff. The secretary of commerce announces the completion of the work at the Rio Grande to the westward of Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoras, Mexico, which connects the tri¬ angulation systems of the United States and of Mexico. In the United States the arc of primary triangulation extends from the north¬ western part of Minnesota southward along the ninety-eighth meridian to the Rio Grande, and Mexico had extended an arc of primary triangulation along the ninety-eighth meridian from its Pacific coast to the Rio Grande. Mr. E. H. Pagenhart, of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, and Mr. Silverio Aleman, of the Mex¬ ican Geodetic Commission, in April and May, made the observations from towers erected on both sides of the river and the work was suc¬ cessfully completed. The length of the com¬ pleted arc is 2,270 miles. This is a notable event in the history of geodesy and will make it possible to have the maps of the two coun¬ tries harmonize at the border. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS Last December, the University of Illinois purchased for its School of Pharmacy, prop¬ erty at the corner of Wood and Flournoy Streets, with two substantial brick buildings. One of these is a four-story college building containing a large auditorium, several lecture and recitation rooms as well as offices, micro¬ scopical laboratory and several smaller labo¬ ratories. This building was formerly occu¬ pied by a medical college. The second build¬ ing was constructed for a hospital and is now being remodeled as a laboratory building in which will be located the qualitative analytical laboratory, the laboratory for organic chemis¬ try and the pharmaceutical laboratory. The college building was occupied by the school on June 1. The trustees of the university have appropriated $32,000 for refitting the build¬ ings, providing new heating, lighting and plumbing, as well as new furniture and equip¬ ment for lecture halls and laboratories. 168 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1127 Dr. J. W. Shipley, who during the last two years has been assistant professor of analytical chemistry at the Ohio State University, is going to the Agricultural College of the Uni¬ versity of Manitoba, Winnipeg, as assistant professor of chemistry. Mr. F. S. Howlan, of Columbia University, has been appointed instructor in mathematics at the Carnegie School of Technology, Pitts¬ burgh, Pa. At Lehigh University, R. L. Spencer has been promoted to be assistant professor of mechanical engineering and S. J. Thomas to be assistant professor of biology. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE ATMOSPHERIC TRANSMISSION To the Editor of Science : Replying to the first point in Mr. Abbot’s communication in Science for February 18, 1916, page 240, in reference to the variability of atmospheric transmission of solar radiation during a single day, I have never denied that occasions may be found when the diurnal transmission is sub¬ stantially constant, but have distinctly averred that such uniformity sometimes exists. What I must deny, however, is that the Mount Wilson observations of September 20 and Sep¬ tember 21, 1914, are in the category of meas¬ urements unaffected by diurnal changes of transmissivity. The trifling variations from minute to minute on these dates may indeed have been small, but these are not now in question. They may be eliminated for our pur¬ pose by passing a mean curve through the plotted observations; but when thus smoothed, the mean curve shows peculiarities which can not be neglected. I have drawn such curves and find the following significant features : Concerning ourselves simply with the trans¬ mission of solar radiation by a unit of atmo¬ spheric mass, equivalent to a single vertical transmission, if the rays presented for trans¬ mission were of unvarying quality, and if the transmissive properties of the atmosphere re¬ mained likewise unchanged through the day, we should have a perfect day for the purpose of the deduction of the solar constant from a comparison of high-sun with low-sun meas¬ ures. But, in general, neither of these desid¬ erata exist. For example, on September 20, 1914, between air masses 2 and 3, the radia¬ tion fell off from 1.437 to 1.311. Transmis¬ sion by unit mass, T (2— 3) = 1.311/1.437 = 0.9124. Between air masses 7 and 8, the radiation diminished from 0.983 to 0.922. T (7_s) — - 0.9378. Here it is as if the air had become more trans¬ missive, although this undoubtedly means that, for one thipg, the rays which have penetrated more deeply have become more transmissible through the total loss of some of their more absorbable ingredients. Be this as it may, we can not discriminate between this source of variability and another one which is always present (and always potent except in times of extreme cold) and which comes from the evap¬ oration of water at the earth’s surface and the ascent of considerable masses of aqueous vapor into the convectional layer of air in the middle of the day, whereby the midday atmosphere be¬ comes less transmissive, and the apparent transmission deduced from comparison of high- sun with low observations is illusory. For air masses 14 and 15, the radiation was 0.680 and 0.648; T(14_15) =0.9530. That is, there was still a further increase of transmis¬ sivity of unit air mass with this larger depar¬ ture from midday conditions. Similar results are found on September 21, 1914, namely, T(2_s) = 1.297/1.437 — 0.9028, T (7—s) = 0.889/0.947 — 0.9390, T(14_15) = 0.630/0.660 = 0.9545. M. R. Savelief, observing in Russia in very cold weather, obtained between air masses 4.5 and 5.5 a transmission equivalent to that for Mount Wilson between air masses 2 and 3, and was able to match Mount Wilson T(7_9) with the interval between air masses 9 and 10. His observations represent a much closer approach to uniform transmission than those cited by Mr. Abbot; and this is doubtless due to the comparative absence of aqueous vapor whose pressure at the earth’s surface was from 0.7 to 0.9 mm. in the Russian measures, whereas the Mount Wilson observations were made with August 4, 1916] SCIENCE 169 pressures of water vapor varying between 4.62 and 9.99 mm. on September 20, and be¬ tween 2.21 and 7.49 mm. on September 21. The total quantity of precipitable water in the atmosphere on September 20, as determined by Fowle’s spectroscopic method, varied be¬ tween 3.32 at low-sun observations to 8.6 mm. at higli-sun observations, and on September 21 between 3.8 and 8.3 mm. Thus there was be¬ tween two and three times as much water vapor present in the midday air as there was at low- sun observations. Since the transmissivity of the atmosphere is known to diminish with the increase of aqueous vapor, other things re¬ maining equal, would it be at all likely that Mr. Abbot’s assertion that the transmissive quality of the atmosphere above Mount Wilson remained unchanged throughout these days, should turn out to be true? And do not the partial transmissions which I have derived from his own figures point to a contrary con¬ clusion ? In his second paragraph, Mr. Abbot tries to discredit my measurements of the. distribution of intensity in the spectrum of the earth- shine, because my statement that the night sky at Flagstaff in the early morning of August 9 and 10, 1912 (civil reckoning), was exceptionally clear, appears to him incompati¬ ble with the experience of himself and others that the “ skylight near the sun in daytime notably increased ” during that month. My statement rests upon the following evidence : The spectrograms of the earth-shine were made for me at Dr. Lowell’s observatory by Dr. V. M. Slipher. I had asked Dr. Slipher to place the slit of his spectroscope half on and half off the dark limb of the moon. In this way there were obtained juxtaposed spectro¬ grams of precisely the same duration of expo¬ sure and photographic development, one of the earth-shine plus diffuse skylight from inter¬ vening air, illuminated by the light passing through it from the bright crescent of the moon, and the other of the skylight alone, from which the true earth-shine was obtained by difference. Dr. Slipher had given me his im¬ pression from eye estimate that the sky on August 8 (astronomical date) was “ good,” and on August 9 “ excellent ” ; but my quantitative measurements are far superior to any eye esti¬ mates, and these tell the following story : Without going into the minutiae of the photographic corrections, I will merely record that all necessary corrections of this sort have been applied. Those interested will find the details given in my paper on “ The Photo¬ graphic Spectrography of the Earth-shine and a Spectrophotometric Comparison of the Earth- shine with Moonlight, Skylight and Sunlight, together with a Study of the Difficulties of Photographic Comparisons.”1 The ratios of exposure durations -for earth- shine ( tE ) and for moonlight (Im) were August 8, 1912, tE : ^=4800: 1, August 9, 1912, tE ; tAf:=2840: 1. The average of the ratios of photographic opacities on the spectrograms for earth-shine and moon ( J % / J m) and for earth-shine and sky ( Je/J s') were August 8, 1912, JeIJm = 1.360 : 1; Je/Js = 3.62 : 1, August 9, 1912, Je/Jm = 1.062 : 1; Je/Js = 8.49 : 1. The ratios of moonlight to the skylight just outside of the extreme border of the moon’s dark limb were therefore „ tE Jm Je 4800X3.62 Augusts, 1912, — X — X— = - - = 12,776: 1, Im Je Js tE Jm Je August 9, 1912, — X— -X — = tM Je Js 1.360 2840 X 8.49 1.062 = 22,704:1. For comparison I give corresponding values of the ratio of moonlight to skylight, obtained at Westwood, Massachusetts, during my visual measures of the earth-shine, which give an idea of the variation which is to be anticipated in skies ordinarily reputed “ clear ” : 1911. Sept. 28, 52 : 1 (sky hazy) ; Sept. 30, 3095 : 1 (clear) ; Oct. 2, 1149 : 1 (clear,* followed by cirro-stratus) ; Oct. 26, 3033 : 1 (clear) ; Oct. 29, 3626:1 (clear); Nov. 16 (a.m.), 1871:1 (clear); Nov. 17 (a.m.), 8579:1 (exceptionally clear); Nov. 27, 1358:1 (clear to hazy); Dec. 14 (a.m.), 9380:1 (exceptionally clear). 1912. Feb. 20, 2476: 1 (faint cirrus bars). Here the greatest degree of clearness at this station about 200 feet above sea level, gave a i Astronomische Nachrichten, Nr. 4819-20, No¬ vember, 1915. 170 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1127 ratio of not over 10,000 : 1, which falls consid¬ erably short of the Flagstaff conditions on either of the given dates. It seems to me that I am fully justified in calling the mornings of August 9 and 10, 1912 (civil date), exceptionally clear, even for Flagstaff ; and I submit that exact quantitative measurements, such as I have given, are to be preferred to Mr. Abbot’s vague estimate that “ skylight near the sun in daytime notably in¬ creased.” If the discrepancy is regarded as sufficiently noteworthy, I would suggest that it indicates that the “ dust cloud from Katmai ” was not as universal as Mr. Abbot supposes. Mr. Abbot has inferred from the consistent agreement of his observations with those of some other observers, that the obscura¬ tion which he attributes to the eruption of Katmai was world-wide and continuous; but this is a mere hypothetical conjecture, in the absence of anything known to the contrary, which a single good opposing observation can overthrow. While the presence of a clear and uniform sky is an advantage in such delicate measures as those of the spectrum of the earth-shine, it is not an indispensable one, because my method of observation permits accurate measurement of and correction for the interfering skylight; and it is not quite exact to say that “ Mr. Very hangs the merit of his work on the exceptional clearness of August 8 and 9, 1912,” because I have given these observations no greater weight in the final result than is assigned to other dates when the skylight was considerably stronger than the earth-shine. Being freed from the variable effect of skylight, my meas¬ ures are sufficiently exact to show not only the variation of the earth-shine from day to day with the changing phase of the illuminating earth, but they also detect variations in the quality of the light which are attributable to a variable proportion of blue “ skylight,” i. e., sunlight scattered upward by the clear air in the same way that skylight is scattered down¬ wards, and varying in amount according to the cloudiness of the earth’s hemisphere facing the moon. Coming to Mr. Abbot’s third point, in which o he defends the conclusions of Mr. A. Angstrom, who finds a mean atmospheric transmission of terrestrial radiation by clear air of about 15 per cent., where I obtain about 40 per cent., o I anticipated Mr. Angstrom’s curve of instru¬ mental radiation to limited areas of sky at different zenith distances, and obtained a sim¬ ilar, but more accurate curve;2 but I did not make his mistake of confounding this purely instrumental result with the radiation of the earth’s surface to outer space. It is true that the radiation from a small surface so circum¬ scribed that the rays can only escape through a narrow aperture, pointing to the sky in a direction but little elevated above the horizon, so that the path through the lower moisture¬ bearing layers of the atmosphere is equivalent to a passage through a considerable depth of water, is usually so impeded that scarcely any gets through. But the radiation of the indefi¬ nitely extended surface of the earth, free to radiate vertically through a comparatively shallow layer of moist air, escapes readily. For such radiation there is an extensive region of the spectrum between 8.5 and 12.8 fx, where the transmission averages something like 80 per cent. Yet even the maxima, or spectral regions of comparatively free transmission, are almost obliterated in the long road through the air in a pointing not much above the horizon. This is an important fact, and its explanation has seemed to me to lie in the presence of multitudes of excessively faint ab¬ sorption lines in the parts of the spectrum where the maxima reside— lines which are too fine and too faint to be individually discrimi¬ nated by the bolometer, but which increase in intensity and finally produce a somewhat gen¬ eral obscuration of the spectrum, even in its more transmissible portions, when the air path becomes excessive. The recognition of the existence of these faint lines by Mr. Abbot would go a long way towards removing the discrepancy between our points of view. 1 will not trespass on your space to point o out the numerous errors in Mr. Angstrom’s 2 See my paper, ‘ 1 Sky Radiation and the Iso¬ thermal Layer,” Am. Jour. Sci., Vol. XXXV., Fig. 2, p. 383, April, 1913. August 4, 1916] SCIENCE 171 argument, since my paper on “ Fundamental Distinctions Special to the Process of Trans¬ mission of Terrestrial Radiation by the Atmo¬ sphere, and the Value which is obtained for the Coefficient of Transmission when these are considered ” will appear in full in the Amer¬ ican Journal of Science. [The paper has since been published in the issue for June, 1916, Vol. XLI., pp. 513-521.] Frank W. Very Westwood Astrophysical Observatory, February 22, 1916 SOME NOTES ON THE OLYMPIC PENINSULA, WASHINGTON. A REPLY TO CRITICISMS BY ARNOLD AND HANNIBAL In “ The Marine Tertiary Stratigraphy of the North Pacific Coast ” by Ralph Arnold and Harold Hannibal, page 604, 1 is this paragraph : A. B. Reagan, 1908, “Some Notes on the Olympic Peninsula.” Most of the geological data in this paper are adopted from one by the senior writer (Arnold) mentioned. . . . The description of the Quillayute formation is based on the glacial filling of the valley of the Quillayute River. If Reagan had visited the locality from which the fossils described from the Quillayute (formation) were brought by Indians, he would have found it to be about two miles from Devil’s Club Swamp where he says they occur, and the formation litho¬ logically very different from what he describes. It is typical Empire formation. Mr. Arnold’s article that he says my work was adopted from is “ Geological Reconnais¬ sance of the Coast of the Olympic Peninsula, Washington,”2 totalling 18 pages; my cited article, “ Some Notes on the Olympic Penin¬ sula,” covers 108 pages besides plates. I visited the region and collected the fossils described myself, with the exception of the fossil Ranella marshalli, which was given me by Mr. Marshall, as is stated in the article. I made a good many trips to the place both with Indians and whites. We went both by canoe up the river and also on foot in from Quil¬ layute Prairie. James Clark, now county com¬ missioner of Clallam County, Washington, ac¬ companied me on my first trip ; George Wood- rough, now of Ilwaco, Washington, was with 1 Reprint from Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Volume LII., No. 212, No- vember-December, 1913. 2 Bull. Geol. Soc. America, Vol. 17, pp. 451-462. me on another trip. On practically all the trips I crossed the Devil’s Club Swamp from the bend in the river to the bluffs adjacent and north of where Maxfield Creek entered Quillayute River when that river ran against the western bluffs, instead of about a half mile eastward as it does now (at the old mouth of Maxfield Creek — not a later mouth of that creek). No fossils were collected in the Devil’s Club Swamp; the article is very plain on this point, that the fossils were collected in the bluffs west of the old mouth of Maxfield Creek (that is, from near the present mouth north¬ ward along the bluffs). I will now quote from page 203 of my cited article : Quillayute Formation. — (This is under the gen¬ eral heading “Pliocene,” on page 202.) This formation occupies the valley of the Quillayute River and the country drained by its western trib¬ utaries at least to their respective middle courses. . . . The boundaries of the formation were not de¬ termined. In the interior region, where exposed along the Bogachiel River, it is composed of sand¬ stone and bluish shale ; the coast exposures are all conglomerates or a coarse, gravelly rock resting un- conformably upon the older rocks exposed there. The base of the formation was not seen, conse¬ quently was not ascertained. The sandstone series was found to be extremely fossiliferous, and in it the fossils are beautifully preserved. Fossils were found in two horizons — in the north bank 'of the Bogachiel River in a bluish gray rock in section 22, township 28 north, range 14 west of the Willamette meridian, and in the bluff south of the abandoned channel of Maxfield Creelc on the south side of the Bogachiel Fiver, in sections 28 and 29 of the township and range above. But fossils were ob¬ tained only from the latter location, as the former was below the surface of the water at the time visited. Below is a description of the fossils ob¬ tained. Fossils of the Quillayute Formation — Lower? Pliocene, exposed in the Vicinity of Quillayute, Washington : Here follows a two-page comparison of the Quillayute-formation fossils with the fossils of other regions, with the final conclusion (page 206) that: Consequently, this (the comparison results) would seem to place the formation at the bottom 172 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1127 of the Pliocene. Following is a description of the fossils: Here follow twenty-two pages, pages from 205 to 226, describing the fossils of the Quil- layute formation. I will add that I described no fossils whatever from the glacial deposits, or Quaternary deposits of the Olympic Penin¬ sula. Furthermore in describing each fossil I gave a notation after it. telling where it had been found; for example, take Y oldia cooperi , fossil number 34, described on page 206 of the article. The notation following the description is as follows : Living: Half Moon Bay, California (Arnold); San Diego to Santa Cruz (Cooper). Pleistocene: Ventura, San Diego, Cal. (Arnold); San Pedro (Arnold; Cooper). Pliocene: San Fernando (Cooper); Portata Val¬ ley, California (Arnold). ^Pliocene : Mouth of Quinaielt River, Granville, Wash. (Arnold), Quillayute, Wash. (Reagan). Again take number 35, Cardium meeicianum Gabb, on the same page. The notation is : This is quite a numerous species of the Pliocene at Quillayute, Wash. Pliocene: Humboldt county, California (Gabb); Quillayute, Wash. (Reagan). In correlation, the sandstone and bluish shale of the Quillayute formation, which I definitely described in my article as composing the formation, is typical Empire sandstone and shale. Albert B. Reagan Principal, U. S. Indian School, Ignacio, Colorado NOMENCLATORIAL FACTS Two cases have been recently cited in the present journal by Mr. A. N. Caudell as show¬ ing nomenclatorial inconsistency in the atti¬ tude of the present writer. That this is true, or that, as Mr. Caudell infers, unanimity among systematists is hopeless, we are entirely unprepared to admit. In the first case we have claimed that Pede- ticum of McNeill is preoccupied by Pedeticus of Laporte.1 As the International Code has as yet not acted on this matter, we are led to this decision by Canon 20, page lviii, 1898, of the i Ent. News, XXVII., p. 17 (1916). A. 0. U. Code. Mr. Caudell refers to Article 36 of the International Code, but indirectly quotes only a recommendation there found. Such recommendations have been admitted, by the secretary of the International Commission, to have no force of law. Furthermore, Opinion 25 of the International Commission, also cited by Mr. Caudell, does not bear on the subject, as in the present case the matter involved is simply a case of different gender termination, while in the case of Damesella and Damesiella the Commission, in Opinion 25, is obliged to fall back on Section K of Recommendation of Article 8, “ a name composed of arbitrary com¬ binations of letters.” The results obtained were the International Code to disagree with the A. O. U. Code would create such diffi¬ culties that we feel confident that the Interna¬ tional Code will be found to agree with that of the A. O. IT., when this matter is finally acted upon. As an instance, in the case of Aplodontia, twenty-four emendations have al¬ ready been found and cited by Palmer,2 the confusion possible, were each of these eligible for distinct generic rank, is evident. In regard to Libell\ula] americanus , Drury nowhere in his work suggests a different generic position for this name. The use of Libellula may constitute a lapsus calami, but it would seem an assumption that Gryllus is the intended genus, where Locusta or Acry- dium might have been intended. We regret that we feel obliged to criticize the quoted opinion of Dr. Stiles and concurrence in the same of Dr. Stejneger. Drury’s index, in which Libell[ula\ americanus is found is not known to be of a later date than his first vol¬ ume; it is Westwood, in his edition of Drury, who first suggests Gryllus to replace Libellula for this species, and the “ obvious ” lapsus calami is not as obvious or as easily disposed of when the original edition of Drury is con¬ sidered. It appears probable that Dr. Stiles’s unofficial opinion is based rather upon second¬ hand information than upon examination of the original edition of Drury. We are strongly in favor of both of these cases being brought before the Commission a“N. A. Fauna,” XXIII., p. 25 (1904). August 4, 1916] SCIENCE 173 for a final decision; the former for a much- needed rule as to whether or not “ a generic name is to be considered identical whether the ending is masculine, feminine or neuter ” if from the same root; the latter for an official opinion as to whether a lapsus calami does or does not exist in the case of Libell[uld] amer- icanus Drury. In the meantime we feel that our action is as clear and consistent as is possible, our aim being to follow the official decisions of the International Code, and, in cases where ac¬ tion has not as yet been taken, to follow that course which, after careful consideration, we believe most likely to coincide with the later rulings of that body. We naturally do not relish our work being used as a striking illustration of the hopeless¬ ness of unanimity among systematists on nomenclatorial matters, but we could hardly hope for a less gloomy viewpoint from one of the authors of “ The Entomological Code ” the first rule of which recommends in the vernac¬ ular “ everybody for himself.” Morgan Hebard Chestnut Hill, Pa. SYLVESTER AND CAYLEY On page 781 of the last volume of Sci¬ ence there appeared a criticism relating to a statement in my recent book entitled “ His¬ torical Introduction to Mathematical Litera¬ ture.” The statement in question seems to be the following : “ Cayley and Sylvester were students at Cambridge at the same time and formed then a lifelong friendship,” which ap¬ pears on page 259. In view of the fact that a “ colossal error ” is said to have been com¬ mitted it may be of interest to compare the given sentence with the following quotation from the third edition, page 484, of “ A Short Account of the History of Mathematics,” by W. W. R. Ball: He (Sylvester) too was educated at Cambridge, and while there formed a life-long friendship with Cayley. The same statement appears in the fifth edi¬ tion (1912) of Ball’s “ History ” and an equiv¬ alent form of it is found in the reviewed and augmented French translation of the third edi¬ tion. The fact that Ball has been connected with Trinity College, Cambridge, for a long time and that he was Fellow of this college during many years while Cayley was professor in the University of Cambridge led me to place more confidence in the given statement as a reliable historical fact than I should otherwise have done. While I do not now recall all the evi¬ dence at hand when writing the sentence which has been the subject of said criticism, it appears to me that the given evidence is suffi¬ cient to warrant this sentence until it can be proved that this evidence is unreliable. G. A. Miller University oe Illinois SCIENTIFIC BOOKS Fundamental C onceptions of Modern Mathe¬ matics, Variables and Quantities, with a Discussion of the General Conception of Functional Relation. By Robert P. Rich¬ ardson and Edward LI. Landis. Chicago and London, The Open Court Publishing Com¬ pany, 1916. Pp. xxi •-(- 216. According to the announcement near the end of the present volume “that portion of ‘Fun¬ damental Conceptions of Modern Mathe¬ matics ’ dealing with algebraic mathematics will consist of thirteen parts.” The volume under review is Part I. and has as subtitle “Variables and Quantities with a Discussion of the General Conception of Functional Rela¬ tion.” The magnitude of this undertaking and the fundamental character of the questions considered combine to direct unusual attention to the project, and hence the present volume is of interest not only on its own account, but also on account of the hopes or fears it may inspire as regards the remaining volumes of the projected series. A striking feature of this volume, which will doubtless create at the start an unfavorable impression on many mathematical readers, is the somewhat harsh criticism of some of the work of many eminent mathematicians, in¬ cluding Baire, Bauer, Pringsheim, Riemann, Russell, Weber, and many others. For in- 174 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1127 stance, on page 152, we find the following statement : “ Among English mathematicians of the Peano School the Honorable Bertrand Bussell stands preeminent. He is the author of a ponderous and pretentious treatise en¬ titled 1 Principles of Mathematics.’ ” On page 192, we find the following sentence : “ The blunder of thinking that in a functional rela¬ tion between two variables the one variable necessarily alters its value when the value of the other alters is, we hope, so far obsolescent as to be peculiar at the present day to the learned ordentliche Professor of the University of Munich.” On page 145, we find the following severe stricture on authors of English text -books : “ Practically all the mathematical text -books now in use in England and the United States, either give no definition at all of variable and constant, or reproduce almost verbatim the definition of Newton. As, however, such text¬ books are brought forth almost invariably by mere compilers, rather than mathematicians of authority, we turn to continental Europe, where we find equally bad definitions from more authoritative sources.” On page 195 ap¬ pears the statement that “ inability to use language with precision seems to.be a failing endemic among mathematicians, and Biemann was not immune ”; and on page 151 the reader is enlightened by the comprehensive remark that a mathematician “ can seldom lay claim to more than a narrow technical education.” The fact that authors of a mathematical work criticize rather harshly a considerable number of eminent mathematicians and direct attention to common failings of the tribe is in itself no conclusive evidence against these authors, but it naturally leads the mathemat¬ ical reader to assume a somewhat critical atti¬ tude with respect to such authors; especially when, as in the present case, most of the authors’ criticisms relate to definitions or to the choice of words. The critical reader of the present volume will not need to look long to find evidences tending to show that its authors were not, at the time of writing, famil¬ iar with some very well known mathematical facts. For instance, on page 35, we find the follow¬ ing statement : “ The only mathematician that we recall as making a specific distinction be¬ tween quotient and ratio is Hamilton.” As a matter of fact this distinction is so common that in the “ Encyclopedic des Sciences Mathe- matiques,” tome I., volume I., page 44, it is proposed to restrict the use of the symbol: as an operational symbol to represent a ratio, in¬ stead of continuing its use to represent both a ratio and also the operation of division.1 On page 177, and elsewhere, the common erroneous assumption according to which the word function was used by the older analysts as synonymous with power is repeated not¬ withstanding the fact that about seven years ago there appeared in the “ Encyclopedic des Sciences Mathematiques,” tome II., volume 1, page 3, a clear exposition of the way in which this error crept into the literature. The main question involved in a review of the first volume of an extensive projected series relating to fundamental questions in mathematics is, however, not much affected by occasional historical inaccuracies or by infelic¬ itous statements relating to eminent mathe¬ maticians and to mathematicians as a class, even if these facts are not void of important implications. To the reviewer the present volume appears to be poorly adapted for the mathematical reader, since the treatment is often prolix and involves many considerations of little mathematical import. According to the preface, the key-note of the work “ is the distinction we find it necessary to make be¬ tween quantities, values and variables on the one hand, and between symbols and the quan¬ tities or variables they denote or values they represent, on the other.” Probably most mathematicians will be more interested in the definitions given by those who have made important advances in the fields to which these definitions are related than in those given by men who appear to be mainly interested in philosophical specula¬ tions. This is especially true in case the latter authors exhibit evidences of knowing i Cf. G. A. Miller, School Science and Mathe¬ matics, Vol. 7 (1907), p. 407. August 4, 191G] SCIENCE 175 little about the mathematical literature. For instance, we find on page 33 of the present volume the statement that mathematical works afford no reply to the question which of the ordinary complex numbers should be regarded as positive and which as negative. The fact is that the terms positive and negative are commonly applied only to real numbers and the reviewer does not see an advantage result¬ ing from the use of these terms in connection with complex numbers as proposed by the authors of this volume. For a very elementary generalization of the terms positive and nega¬ tive numbers we may refer to volume 15 (1908) of the American Mathematical Monthly , page 115. As regards form the volume under review could have been made more useful by the addi¬ tion of headings of sections. If the series is continued it is to be hoped that the future volumes will be improved along this line as well as along the line of more complete refer¬ ences and less prolixity in the development of the special views of the authors. While the many shortcomings of the present volume have forced the reviewer to the conclusion that the series will be used by only a small number of mathematicians unless the future volumes should exhibit a marked improvement over the one before us, he recognizes the need of a scholarly work on the general subjects selected by the authors of this volume, and he would like to hope that the later volumes of the series may tend to fill this want. G. A. Miller University of Illinois Harvey’s Views on the Use of the Circulation of the Blood. By John G. Curtis. Colum¬ bia University Press, Mew York, 1915. 8vo. Pp. 194, 4 pis. It is a great source of inspiration to feel that one belongs to a goodly company possess¬ ing a common ideal and a common interest. What enthusiasm is aroused in us by a great International Congress of scientists ! Here the appeal is made to our social sense, but there is a second powerful appeal, that to our historic sense. This comes when we realize that we of to-day are but the visible part of a long line of precursors who have been our teachers and the teachers of our teachers and have handed down through the ages the enthu¬ siasm for knowledge and truth which we con¬ sider our dearest heritage. Just as none of us can afford to be provincial, so none of us can afford to neglect the history of scientific thought. That would be to affirm the impor¬ tance of evolution in theory while denying it in practise. At this time when proper international rela¬ tions are interrupted it is a solace to turn from the present to the past and to strengthen our acquaintance with the illustrious scientists of former times. This is especially desirable when we can do so in the company of one whose familiarity with ancient viewpoints makes him a competent expounder of that which time has rendered obscure. The theme of Professor Curtis’s book is clearly stated in the title. To make Harvey’s views intelligible to us we are introduced to the illustrious ancients from whom, next to nature, Harvey drew most of his learning or who colored learned opinion in Harvey’s time. Harvey’s importance as a discoverer has long been recognized, but for a lucid explanation of his place in the history of scientific thought we have waited for this book. Our sincere thanks are due to Professor Lee, who has com¬ pleted and published the manuscript left by Professor Curtis. Nutrition. — According to Aristotle and Galen (who borrowed the idea from Plato) the parts feed themselves tranquilly from the blood vessels, which act as irrigating ditches in the garden. So why, asks Harvey, this rush of such great quantities of blood through all parts of the body? Although Harvey recog¬ nized that such a mechanism as the circula¬ tion was most useful in explaining intestinal absorption in that it did away with the classic belief that in the portal vessels there were two currents, one carrying blood to the intestines and the other carrying absorbed food to the liver, still he could not believe that the sole use of the circulation was the feeding of the parts. Respiration. — In his quest of the meaning 176 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1127 of the circulation Harvey naturally reviewed what little was known of the respiration in re¬ gard to which there were current at this time two ancient beliefs, (1) the refrigerating ac¬ tion and (2) the production of vital spirits. The Hippocratic writers believed that in spite of the obstruction of the semilunar valves some air entered the heart to cool it. Aristotle amplified this view, stating that the action of the air upon the innate heat which had as its origin and seat the heart, was like the action of the air in respect to a fire — it cooled it and prevented too rapid combustion. The second conception was also as old as Hippocrates. It consisted in the belief that something derived from the inspired air (spirits) enters into the heart and thence passes by the vessels to all parts of the body. Aristotle rejected this doctrine and taught that the spirits are not derived from without. When the arteries and veins came to be distinguished and the former were found empty, it was thought that during life the spirits filled the arteries while the blood filled the veins, and when Galen proved that the arteries also contained blood it was at once concluded that this blood, unlike that in the veins, was spirituous. Tor a while Harvey held both of these views. Then first he disposed of the notion that the blood received anything from the lungs by ob¬ serving that the pulmonary veins contain blood only and not blood and air. This conclusion was not justified, since from the same premises Columbus inferred that the concoction of the air and blood to make the spirituous blood takes place in the lungs and that in the pulmon¬ ary veins the two are no longer separable. Tor a longer time Harvey adhered to the refrig¬ erating action of the respiration, but in his old age he was inclined to doubt its importance, for the fetus required no refrigeration of its innate heat. So it was of no use to turn to the respiration for any light as to the uses of the circulation. Primacy of the Heart. — But might it not be that the body needed heat and spirits from the heart which is, according to Aristotle, the center of heat and of the soul? Aristotle’s doctrine of the primacy of heat had been de¬ nied by Galen who pointed to the tricuspid valve (of which Aristotle knew nothing) and asked : “ How then can the heat be the origin of the veins ? ” According to Galen the veins arose from the liver and supplied the parts with nutritive blood. The heart, on the other hand, supplied the parts with spirituous blood. The little blood which passed from the right to the left side of the heart did so through in¬ visible pores of the septum. In the left ven¬ tricle it became mixed with spirits and passed thence to the aorta and also to the lungs through the mitral valve, which, having but two leaves, was imperfect. The followers of Aristotle (called “ philosophers ”) and those of Galen (“ physicians ”) were soon at odds, each finding the weak points of the other’s doctrine. In Galenism were the pores in the septum and the imperfection of the mitral valve; while, on the other hand, the tricuspid was the stumbling block of the Aristotelians. By his discovery of the pulmonary path for the blood Columbus materially aided the Galenists, who might now abandon the idea that blood sweats through pores in the septum. When Harvey demonstrated the circulation and thus explained the use of the atrio¬ ventricular valves, he regarded himself as defending Aristotle’s doctrine of the primacy of the heart and hence his remark regarding his opponent Riolanus, “ It is proper that the dean of the College of Paris should keep the medicine of Galen in repair; and should admit no novelties into his school without the utmost winnowing.” Primacy of the Blood. — Aristotle believed that the heart was the center of life, the source of heat and the abode of the soul. But to the discoverer of the circulation the primacy of the heart began very early to give place to the primacy of the blood until in his latest utter¬ ances the heart is merely the servant of the blood, of use to pump it along but contributing to the blood nothing but motion. Harvey sup¬ ported this novel view by observation. He be¬ lieved that he saw in the chick embryo first the blood which presently began to pulsate by itself and only later the developing heart. Aristotle had set forth a principle that those August 4, 1916] SCIENCE 177 parts which first manifest life are those which die last. Harvey thought this to be true of the blood, for he mistook the fibrillation of the auricle in the otherwise quiescent heart for an “ obscure motion and flow and a sort of pal¬ pitation manifestly ... in the blood itself,” and furthermore he observed that animals without a pulse but which possess blood might continue to live. Cause of the Heart Beat. — But Harvey was not willing to attribute to his new-found pump the importance which it deserved, as is seen from his views in regard to the cause of the heart’s beat. To be sure, the most important cause of the return of the blood to the heart is the systole of the heart (and of the arteries) which continually stuff with blood the porosities of the parts. To this is added the muscular movements of the limbs, etc., and in the case of the pulmonary circulation the collapse of the lungs. But when it comes to the dilatation of the auricles the pump gives out and Harvey finds it necessary to endow the blood with a property (ebullition) borrowed from Aristotle. This dilatation of the auricles is an event of great importance to the circulation. Harvey saw in it, as we shall see, the cause of the heart beat. Aristotle knew nothing of contrac¬ tility of muscle and was therefore obliged to attribute not only the diastole of the heart, but also its systole to the action of the blood which boiled, rising and falling within the heart. Since the time of Galen, however, the power of contraction had been recognized in muscle and consequently Harvey made use of this doctrine in interpreting the action of the heart. To Harvey the cause of the ventricular beat was the mechanical distension of the ven¬ tricle through the contraction of the auricle. But what distended the auricle? The power of ebullition of the hot blood (already referred to) acting “ in the vena cava close to the base of the heart and to the right auricle.” But how, we ask, did Harvey explain the simulta¬ neous contraction of both auricles and how did he reconcile this view with the long-known fact (often referred to by him) that excised and bloodless hearts may continue to beat. In regard to the first, he only remarked that the simultaneous movement of the two eyes is a comparable phenomenon. But as to the second he says nothing whatever. The Innate Heat. — Let us look more closely at the nature of the “ innate heat ” and “ the soul ” which Aristotle placed in the heart and Harvey in the blood. Aristotle was convinced that fire is sterile, while animal heat is gen¬ erative and that therefore the heat of animals is quite distinct from elemental fire. In the simplest form of generation (the spontaneous) the soul is derived from the air and the heat from the sun. The solar heat is there¬ fore generative and more akin to vital heat than to fire. Again, in sexual generation the vital heat and the soul are conveyed in the semen, but nevertheless the solar heat must be added “ for the cause of man is his father, the sun, and the ecliptic ” (that is the sun and its motions). The heat of animals is analogous to the ether, the fifth and superior element from which the heavenly bodies, in¬ cluding the sun, are made. But strangely in¬ consistent, he adds that the heat of the sun is born of friction and is not ethereal. Harvey agrees with Aristotle that the ani¬ mal heat is not fire nor derived from fire. He, too, believed that the sun in its motions gen¬ erates acting through the semen of the male, that in generation the heat and soul are trans¬ mitted in the semen but find their abode during life not in the heart but in the blood. We have seen that Harvey was no mere imitator of his great and revered master, Aristotle, that he was an observer and thinker of great originality and independence. It is equally interesting to note in closing his atti¬ tude toward the discoveries of others. The Copernican astronomy he treated as still sub judice. He paid no attention to" the discovery by Aselli of the lacteals. He did not care for Chymistrey and was wont to speake against them (the chemists) with an under¬ value. In rejecting the view of Columbus he lost a valuable clue as to the nature of the respira¬ tion. On reaching the end of this little volume one is seized with regret not only that the book 178 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1127 itself has come to an end, but that the work of the author is finished too. There are many who can carry forward investigations and com¬ plete new discoveries, but there are very few who are made competent by their thorough scholarship to understand, and through their delightful style to explain, the evolution of scientific thought from one age to another. Percy M. Dawson SPECIAL ARTICLES THE PROCESS OF FEEDING IN THE OYSTER A valuable contribution to knowledge of the ciliary mechanisms of Lamellibranch mollusks has been made by James L. Kellogg in Yol. 26, No. 4, of the Journal of Morphology. In this paper Dr. Kellogg brings together, with numerous illustrations, his observations on the ciliary tracts of structures found within the mantle chamber of thirty-one species of lamellibranchs. In each case the observations were made on the animal after one of the valves of its shell had been removed, and the presence and direc¬ tion of ciliary currents were determined by means of powdered carmine, fine black sand or masses of diatoms, deposited upon the parts under observation. Among the several conclusions at which Dr. Kellogg arrives as a result of his study con¬ cerning the activities and functions of these tracts of cilia, the following, published on pages 699 and 700, are those to which the “ oral exceptions,” referred to by Dr. Kellogg on page 640, have been taken and they are the ones also which will be called in question in this paper: 1. Volume alone determines whether the collected foreign matter that reaches the palps shall pro¬ ceed to the mouth or shall be sent from the body on outgoing tracts [of cilia]. 2. A Lamellibranch is able to feed only when waters are comparatively clear — when diatoms are brought to the gill surfaces a few at a time. In muddy waters, all suspended particles, of whatever nature, are led to outgoing tracts. 3. There is no selection or separation of food or¬ ganisms from other water-borne particles. 4. The direction of the beat of cilia is never changed. The exceptions taken to these statements were not based, as Dr. Kellogg states, on the fact that the waters over Chesapeake oyster beds are normally muddy for long periods of time or upon the fact that the stomach con¬ tents of oysters always contain a larger volume of sand than of food organisms, although both of these facts are difficult to explain on the Kellogg theory, but they are based primarily upon the results of experiments, to be described later, which show that oysters can and do feed rapidly and continuously in waters that are turbid with sediment. Before passing to a consideration of the re¬ sults of these experiments, however, which bear directly upon the first and second only of Dr. Kellogg’s conclusions (as numbered in this paper), reference may be made to the findings of other observers not in agreement with those of Dr. Kellogg, which indicate that the con¬ clusions numbered (3) and (4) were possibly drawn from an insufficient basis of observation or that the methods of study employed by Dr. Kellogg were not designed to reveal all of the activities of the ciliary mechanisms of lamelli¬ branchs. REVERSAL OF CILIA AND FOOD SELECTION In Stentor, Schaeffer1 has shown that there is a selection of food particles brought about by changes in the beat of the cilia of the pouch and funnel, certain particles being rejected by a localized reversal of the cilia. He also found that the behavior of the animal toward food is not the same when it is in a condition of hunger as when in a condition of satiety. Stentor is not an isolated example of proto¬ zoan possessing the power of food selection and rejection exercised through the control of the ciliary mechanism of the mouth region. Nu¬ merous other cases might be cited. Cases of reversal of cilia are also reported among metazoan animals, Parker2 having found that in Metridium the cilia on the lips, which normally beat outward, can be made to 1 Asa Arthur Schaeffer, ‘ 1 Selection of Food in Stentor cceruleus,” Jour. Exp. Zool., 1910. 2 G. H. Parker, ‘ ‘ The Reversal of Ciliary Move¬ ments in Metazoans/’ Am. Jour, of Physiology, Vol. XIII., 1905. August 4, 1916] SCIENCE 179 reverse by stimulation with pieces or the juices of crab meat, these ciliary tracts thus consti¬ tuting a mechanism through which the feed¬ ing process can be controlled. In this paper Parker refers also to a num¬ ber of papers, not easily available to the writer and not referred to by Dr. Kellogg, in which the reversal of ciliary movement in metazoans has been observed. Of special interest in this connection are those by Engelmann and others in which the reversal of cilia of the palps of lamellibranchs is described. The only positive evidence I can offer for the conclusion that the oyster is able to select food is that afforded by a microscopic examination of its stomach contents. The various species of diatoms there found are not present in the same relative proportions as they exist in speci¬ mens of water collected in the vicinity of the bed from which the oyster fed. Furthermore, certain species of diatom (for example, Rhizo- solenia), abundant in salt water, are seldom found in the alimentary tract of the oyster. The absence of these diatoms from the alimen¬ tary canal can hardly be due to their spiny structure because their size is not sufficiently great to prevent their being carried by ciliary currents or entering the mouth. The observations that have been made of the reversal of the beat of cilia in both protozoa and metazoa, and of the ability of various ani¬ mals to so control the movement of the cilia as to accept or reject food particles presented to them, at least suggest the possibility that the oyster may also have some power of food selection and that reversal of the cilia of cer¬ tain tracts on the palps, resulting perhaps from their stimulation directly or indirectly by food particles, may be the mechanism by which the selection is effected. Why, then, if a reversal of cilia and selec¬ tion of food takes place in lamellibranchs, did so good an observer as Dr. Kellogg fail to see the reversal process? To me it seems clear that it was due to the fact that the animals on which he made his observations were, in every case, in a mutilated condition. In the case of his experiments on the oysters the shell was first removed and in its removal the adductor muscle was cut and the visceral ganglion, which is embedded in this muscle, was neces¬ sarily severely injured. Under such a condi¬ tion of shock normal behavior is not to be expected, especially in the case of activities that may be subject to nervous control. The history of the animals experimented upon by Dr. Kellogg, whether they were in a state of hunger or satiety, was also unknown. EXPERIMENTS During the years 1909 and 1910 oysters planted on beds located in Buzzards Bay re¬ mained poor and the death rate among them was unusually large. Coincident with and fol¬ lowing the same period, dredging operations were carried on in the vicinity of certain of these oyster beds which caused an unusual amount of sediment to be carried from the dredges across the oyster beds with the rising tides. The oyster planters readily imagined that the poor condition and death of their oysters were in some way causally connected with this sediment in the water and they brought suit to recover their losses, with generous interest, from those responsible for the dredging opera¬ tions. During this litigation it has been the oral contention of Dr. Kellogg that, since the oysters planted on the beds located near the operating dredges were exposed on rising tides to unusually turbid water and since food-bear¬ ing sediment was therefore entering the mantle cavity of the oysters during these intervals in unusual abundance, the oysters were underfed and starved because the ciliated food-collecting mechanism of the palps must, under such con¬ ditions, transport the food-bearing material away from instead of to the mouth. The ciliated food-collecting mechanism of the oyster is so constructed, according to the theory held by Dr. Kellogg, that it can transport food material to the mouth only when the food par¬ ticles reach the ciliated tracts few at a time, for when they reach the palps more rapidly they are seized automatically by the cilia of outgoing tracts. It is an important part of his theory that the direction of the beat of the cilia composing the food-transporting mechan- 180 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1127 ism is non-reversible, hence his conclusion in this case that the oysters starved in the pres¬ ence of an abundant supply of food. Although starving, the oysters were powerless to prevent the rejection of food material for the remark¬ able reason that the food material was reach¬ ing their feeding mechanism in embarrassing abundance. It was not contended that the sediment was distasteful, for, in the organization of an ani¬ mal with such a purely automatic feeding mechanism, what possible place could be found for so useless a thing as a sense of taste? To test the validity of this contention the following experiments were carried out on the oyster beds where the oysters were said to have died from starvation, at a time when the waters were roiled and turbid from the opera¬ tions of nearby dredges. A considerable number of oysters of uniform size were first gathered from a bed far re¬ moved from the scene of the dredging opera¬ tions. Five of them were immediately opened, their stomach contents removed and preserved in a vial for future study and analysis. The remaining oysters were thoroughly cleansed of all foreign material and stored for three days in a cool damp place. Twice each day they were placed for an hour in filtered sea water in order that they might expel from their shells the accumuated excreta. They were allowed to take no food. At the end of the third day of fasting, the primary object of which was to remove from the alimentary canal all previ¬ ously ingested food material, the oysters were taken to a selected point on one of the oyster beds over which the sediment from the dredges was being carried by the rising tide and there, after five of them had been opened and their stomach contents removed, placed upon the bottom. To facilitate depositing the oysters upon and removing them from the bottom, they were placed in a coarse-meshed wire tray to which cords were attached. At the end of an hour from the time the oysters were deposited upon the bottom in the turbid water the tray was lifted for a moment, the stomach contents of five of the oysters were removed, and the tray with the remaining oysters returned to the bottom. At the end of the second hour this process was repeated and also at the end of the third hour. When the experiment was over the unused oysters were left upon the bottom in the tray for fourteen days to note the effect of the sediment upon them with the result that all thrived and made perceptible growth of shell. The microscopic examination and estimate of the number of food organisms in the stom¬ ach contents taken from this series of oysters, which was made according to the “ Rafter cell ” method, resulted as follows : Each oyster estimated to contain, when collected August 19, 10.30 a.m., 18,500 food particles. Each oyster estimated to contain, after fasting till August 22, 1.30 p.m., 8,250 food particles. Each oyster estimated to contain, after feeding 1 hour, August 22, 2.30 p.m., 11,500 food particles. Each oyster estimated to contain, after feeding 2 hours, August 22, 3.30 p.m., 17,750 food particles. Each oyster estimated to contain, after feeding 3 hours, August 22, 4.30 p.m., 3? A second experiment in every way similar to the first, except that the oysters were sub¬ jected to a preliminary fast of four instead of three days’ duration, was carried out between August 31 and September 4, 1911. The esti¬ mates of the stomach contents of the oysters used in this experiment are as follows : Each oyster estimated to contain, when collected, August 31, 10 a.m., 12,125 food organisms. Each oyster estimated to contain, after fasting till Sept. 4, 1 p.m., 2,850 food organisms. Each oyster estimated to contain, after feeding 1 hour, Sept. 4, 2 p.m., 10,250 food organisms. Each oyster estimated to contain, after feeding 2 hours, Sept. 4, 3 p.m., 16,500 food organisms. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS The results of these experiments show con¬ clusively that oysters can and did feed actively in waters that were turbid with sediment, a fact that is in direct opposition to Dr. Kel- 3 The food material removed from the stomachs of the oysters which had been feeding for three hours in the roiled water was so densely crowded with sediment that it was impossible to make the diatom counts necessary for an estimate of the total number of food organisms. August 4, 1916] SCIENCE 181 logg’s conclusion, numbered (2) in this paper, and one that casts doubt upon the correctness of the three other conclusions herein discussed. It is my belief that the results of the ex¬ periments and observations herein described when considered in connection with the obser¬ vations of other investigators on various spe¬ cies of lamellibranchs and on various protozoa and metazoa, afford a satisfactory basis for concluding that the oyster is not the helpless automaton Dr. Kellogg makes it out to be, but that it possesses sufficient control over its cili¬ ary feeding mechanism to prevent its starving in the presence of water-borne food material, even though the food particles and associated sand grains may be carried to its gills and palps in bewildering abundance. This control of the feeding mechanism and the ability to select food may conceivably be exercised through control of the direction of the effective beat of the cilia of certain tracts on the palp surfaces and, since reversal in the stroke of cilia on the palps (nebenkiemen) of lamellibranchs has actually been observed by Engelmann and others, and since selection and rejection of foreign particles through control of ciliary movement have been observed in various animals ( Stentor , Metridium, etc.), we may well expect to find that the oyster exer¬ cises control over its feeding processes through ability to change the direction of the effective stroke of the cilia of certain tracts on its palps. Caswell Grave Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF MUSEUMS The American Association of Museums held its eleventh annual meeting in Washington, D. C., May 15-18. The opening session was devoted to the transaction of business, and to a special report by Secretary Paul M. Rea on the “Condition and Needs of American Museums. ’ ’ This report sum¬ marized the work of the association during the past ten years, reviewed the studies of American museums which have been made on behalf of the association, and outlined the work which might be undertaken for the furtherance of museum de¬ velopment. The evening of May 15 was devoted to a supper in celebration of the decennial of the American Association of Museums. Following this supper the presidential address was given by Dr. Oliver C. Farrington on “Some Relations of Art and Sci¬ ence in Museums. ’ ’ The remainder of the evening was occupied with informal remarks by members of the association. This session was presided over by Dr. W. J. Holland, of the Carnegie Museum, who was one of the founders of the association and its third president. At the morning session on May 16 a group of papers was presented reporting progress in a con¬ certed experiment by several museums in the use of museums for instruction in the history of civili¬ zation. This symposium was arranged by Miss Anna D. Slocum, acting on behalf of the associa¬ tion in cooperation with the Woman’s Education Association of Boston. The titles of the papers were as follows: “A Study of Nations through the Museum,” by Miss Anna D. Slocum. ‘ ‘ History Study and Museum Exhibits, ’ ’ by Miss Delia I. Griffin. “Museum Stories of Art and Civilization,” by Miss Margaret E. Sawtelle. ‘ ‘ The Museum Story as an Introduction to His¬ tory, ” by Mrs. Laura W. L. Scales. ‘ ‘ Teaching History in the Museum, ’ ’ by Mrs. Agnes L. Vaughan. “The Museum and the School,” by Miss Lotta A. Clark. Other papers presented at this session were “A Museum Game,” by Miss Eva W. Magoon, and a paper on the “Development of the N. W. Harris Public School Extension of the Field Museum of Natural History,” by Mr. S. C. Simms. Miss Viola M. Bell, of Teachers College, Columbia Uni¬ versity, presented by invitation a paper on “Re¬ lations of Domestic Science Teaching to Mu¬ seums. ’ ’ Following these papers the association proceeded to the election of officers with the fol¬ lowing result: President, Henry R. Howland, feuffalo Society of Natural Sciences. Vice-president, Newton H. Carpenter, Art Insti¬ tute of Chicago. Secretary, Paul M. Rea, The Charleston Museum (S. C.). Treasurer, W. P. Wilson, The Philadelphia Mu¬ seums. Assistant Secretary, Laura L. Weeks, The Charles¬ ton Museum (S. C.) The retiring president, Dr. Oliver C. Farrington, 182 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1127 of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chi¬ cago, and Mr. Harold L. Madison, of the Park Museum in Providence, became members of the council. The session of Tuesday afternoon, May 16, was presided over by Mr. Henry W. Kent, of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and was devoted to a discussion of instruction service in museums. The following papers were presented: Introduction, by Mrs. Agnes L. Vaughan. ‘ ‘ Exhibitions of Children ’s Drawings, ’ ’ by Mrs. Jeannette M. Diven. “Courses offered by Museums,” by Dr. G. Clyde Fisher. 1 ‘ Required Reading and Reviews, ’ ’ by Miss Alice W. Wilcox. ‘ 1 School Credits, ’ ’ by Mr. William L. Fisher. “Experimental Examinations,” by Miss Agnes L. Pollard. “Connections with Colleges,” by Mrs. Laura W. L. Scales and Mr. William L. Fisher. The evening session of May 16 was devoted to a consideration of the relations of museums with the public. The following papers were presented: “A New Form of Museum Advertising,” by Mr. Herbert E. Sargent. ‘ ‘ Advertising an Art Museum, ’ ’ by Miss Mar¬ garet T. Jackson. ‘ ‘ How the Art Institute of Chicago has In¬ creased its Usefulness,” by Mr. Newton H. Car¬ penter. “Increasing the Usefulness of Museums,” by Mr. John C. Dana. At the morning session of May 17 the following papers dealing with museum methods were pre¬ sented : ‘ ‘ The MacLean Museum Case, ’ ’ by Mr. L. Earle Rowe. (Illustrated.) “Museum Exhibition Cases,” by Mr. Harold L. Madison. (Illustrated.) “Index Labels,” by Mr. Roy W. Miner. (Illus¬ trated.) “A New Development in Museum Groups,” by Mr. Dwight Franklin. (Illustrated.) “Some New Installation of Industrial Mate¬ rial,” by Mr. William L. Fisher. (Illustrated.) ‘ ‘ Installation of Textile Fabrics, ’ ’ by Mr. Fred¬ erick L. Lewton. “Installation of Ethnological Material,” by Dr. Walter Hough. “Suggestions for a Forestry Exhibit,” by Dr. A. R. Crook. In the afternoon of May 17 the association met with the American Federation of Arts, Dr. Edward Robinson, of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, presiding. The subject of discussion was The Art Museum and the People. The following papers were presented: ‘ ‘ The Story Method of Instruction, ’ ’ by Miss Margaret E. Sawtelle. “A Small Museum and its Value to a Com¬ munity,” by Mr. J. G. Butler, Jr. “A National Museum and School of Art,” by Mr. Henry Tupper Bailey. Wednesday evening, May 17, the regents and secretary of the Smithsonian Institution tendered a reception to the American Association of Mu¬ seums and to the American Federation of Arts. At the concluding session on Thursday, May 18, the following papers were presented: ‘ ‘ The Correlation of Art and Science in the Mu¬ seum, ” by Professor Homer R. Dill. “Administrative Organization,” by Mr. Benj. Ives Gilman. In discussing the future work of the association a general desire was expressed for the publication of a museum journal to replace the annual volume of Proceedings. This and other suggestions re¬ garding future work were referred to the council for consideration. A movement to secure a larger representation of the trustees of museums in the membership of the association was begun at the San Francisco meeting last year. Further discussion of this sub¬ ject took place at Washington, and a committee was appointed to bring to the attention of mu¬ seum trustees the intimate relation of the work of the association to the welfare of their institu¬ tions. Other committees were appointed as follows: A committee to consider a communication of the College Art Association with reference to the development of adequate training for museum workers. A committee to consider methods of cooperation with the American Federation of Arts. A committee to consider the possibility of co¬ operation between museums and the Forest Serv¬ ice in illustrating the principles of forestry by museum exhibits. Invitations for the 1917 meeting of the associa¬ tion were received from museums in Springfield (Mass.), New York City and Philadelphia. A vote of appreciation and thanks was extended to these museums, and the final decision referred to the council. Paul M. Rea, Secretary SCIENCE Friday, August 11, 1916 CONTENTS Recent Progress in our Knowledge of the Physiological Action of Atmospheric Con¬ ditions: Professor Frederic S. Lee . 183 The Origin of the Pre-Columbian Civilisation of America: Professor G. Elliot Smith. 190 The Production of Tungsten . 195 Scientific Notes and News . 196 University and Educational News . 201 Discussion and Correspondence : — Mosquitoes and Man: Allan H. Jennings. Goiter among the Indians along the Mis¬ souri: Dr. Ales Hrdlicka. Compulsory Mathematics — an Explanation : Dr. David Snedden. The Southern Bullfrog: H. A. Allard . 201 Scientific Boohs: — Thorp’s Outlines of Industrial Chemistry: S. P. Sadtler. Hoernes’s Urgeschichte der bildenden Kunst in Europa: Professor George Grant MacCurdy . 205 The Mechanism of Light Production in Ani¬ mals: Professor E. Newton Harvey - 208 Special Articles: — On the Association and Possible Identity of Root-forming and Geotropic Substances of Hormones in Bryophyllum calycinum: Dr. Jacques Loeb . 210 The American Chemical Society: Charles L. Parsons . 211 MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended for review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison- On-Hudson, N. Y. RECENT PROGRESS IN OUR KNOWL¬ EDGE OF THE PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION OF ATMOSPHERIC CONDITIONS1 Two weeks ago to-day, in the physiolog¬ ical laboratory of the Columbia School of Medicine, Dr. Fred W. Eastman and I made the following experiment : A young man, twenty-one years of age, in excellent physical condition, who was willing to act as the subject of our tests, was dressed in light underclothing and light trousers, a sweater, stockings and shoes. His systolic and diastolic blood pressures and his pulse rate were taken in the sitting posture; the carbon-dioxide content of the alveolar air of his lungs was determined; a pneumo¬ graph was attached to his chest for record¬ ing his respiratory movements ; a resistance thermometer was placed in the rectum and connected with a self-writing galvanometer for the continued record of his bodily tem¬ perature; and a flat-bulbed thermometer was strapped firmly to his forehead to serve as an indicator of the temperature of his skin. Thus equipped he entered a small chamber, provided with a door and win¬ dows and with facilities for heating and humidifying the air. He remained there, sitting quietly, for a period of four and one quarter hours. The temperature of the air in the chamber was raised as quickly as possible above the temperature of his body and reached a maximum of 43.3° C. (110° F.) with a maximum wet-bulb reading of 37.2° C. (99° F.), while the relative humid¬ ity was increased to a maximum of 85 per i Read before the American Pediatric Society, Washington, D. C., May 8, 1916. 184 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1128 cent. For a period of two and one quarter hours the door of the chamber was kept closed, although it was not wholly air-tight, and the unusual atmospheric conditions were maintained, although not continually at their maximum. Afterward the door of the chamber was opened and the air within was allowed to acquire the more comfort¬ able conditions of the room air outside, which possessed a temperature of 18° C. (64.5° F.) and a relative humidity of 51 per cent. During the whole time of the experiment a continuous record was made of the subject’s bodily temperature; at intervals of fifteen minutes measurements were made of the temperature and the humidity of the air of the chamber, of the temperature of the subject’s mouth and of the skin of his forehead, and of the rate of his pulse and his respiration; at intervals of every hour his systolic and dias¬ tolic blood pressures and the carbon diox¬ ide content of his alveolar air were deter¬ mined; while occasional records were made of the carbon dioxide content of the air of the chamber and of the subject’s sensa¬ tions. The results of the experiment will be discussed later. It is typical of many experiments, similar in object although differing in details, which have been per¬ formed in recent years inside and outside many laboratories in an endeavor to dis¬ cover the relations of the individual to the air that surrounds him. As one result of these experiments there has been a great change in our ideas con¬ cerning the physiological action of atmos¬ pheric conditions. It had long been the custom to ascribe to chemical components of the atmosphere the bad effects of living in air that had already been breathed by human beings. The discovery of oxygen and of carbon dioxide early in the last century gave a great stimulus to this no¬ tion, and it became firmly fixed in the minds of chemists, physiologists and physicians, as well as the educated masses, that air that had been breathed was vitiated chemically and rendered unfit for human use by the lack of oxygen, the accumulation of carbon dioxide, and the presence of an organic poison of unknown nature. No sooner had this notion become widely accepted than the laboratories began to demonstrate the inadequacy of the supposed proof of the notion, and — to cut a long story short — we now know that, except under very un¬ usual circumstances, the harmfulness of respired air is not due to its chemical com¬ ponents. By respiration oxygen can not be reduced to a deleterious proportion nor can carbon dioxide be produced in deleteri¬ ous quantity, except under very unusual conditions of living ; and the organic poison of respiration has no real existence. The harmfulness of living in confined air is found in certain physical rather than chem¬ ical features — the air is too warm, too moist, and too still; and if it has not these physical features it is not harmful. We all have sat in crowded assemblies; we all have experienced the hot, humid, still days of an American summer. We all know the effects of such air on our sensa¬ tions — the general bodily discomfort, the sleepiness, the flushed face, the headache, the disinclination to think or to act, the general debility, the longing for relief. But sensations are an inadequate measure of bodily conditions. In what respects is hot, humid, still air harmful? To answer this question we must consult the records of many researches, chiefly on human beings, but partly on animals, that have been undertaken since Hermans,2 more than thirty years ago, observed that in crowded theaters and churches his own bodily tem¬ perature rose. The most recent of these re¬ searches is that of the New York State 2 Hermans, Ar-ch. f. Hyg., I., 1, 1883. August 11, 1916] SCIENCE 185 Commission on Ventilation,3 which has been in progress for the past two and one half years and is not yet completed. Notwithstanding that man is supposed to be a homothermal organism, there is a cem tain relationship between his bodily tem¬ perature and the temperature of his envi¬ ronment, even under the ordinary condi¬ tions of living. This has been shown by the New York Commission, which found that during the months of June and July the rectal temperature of its subjects at 8 a.m., living in their own homes, was con¬ ditioned by the average atmospheric tem¬ perature of the preceding night. If the night had been warm the bodily tempera¬ ture in the morning was high; if cool, the bodily temperature was low. The varia¬ tion of bodily temperature was about 0.55 degrees C. (1 degree F.) for 20 degrees of atmospheric temperature, although it is probable that the degree of variation can be modified by the clothing. The commis¬ sion further found that, whatever the bodily temperature of its subjects might be at the beginning of an experiment, it was lowered by confinement in an atmosphere of 20° C. (68° F.) and 50 per cent, rela¬ tive humidity, and raised by confinement at 23.9° C. (75° F.) with the same humid¬ ity, or still more by 30° C. (86° F.) with 80 per cent, humidity. The final average bodily temperatures in certain series of ob¬ servations, where the subjects were con¬ fined in the observation chamber for from 4 to 7 hours were as follows: After 20° C. (68° F.), 50 per cent, humidity, the average bodily temperature was 36.7° C. (98° F.). 3 C.-E. A. Winslow (chairman), D. D. Kimball, Frederic S. Lee, J. A. Miller, Earle B. Phelps, E. L. Thorndike and G. T. Palmer (chief of investi¬ gating staff). The results of their investigations have yet been published only in part. For a gen¬ eral presentation of some of the results see Am. Jour, of Public Health, V., 85, 1915. After 23.9° C. (75° F.), 50 per cent, humidity, the average bodily temperature was 36.9° C. (98.5° F.). After 30° C. (86° F.), 80 per cent, humidity, the average bodily temperature was 37.4° C. (99.3° F.). Haldane4 and others have shown a greater elevation of bodily temperature in more extreme atmospheric conditions, and have pointed out the accompanying dangers of heat stroke. Eastman and I have seen the temperature of a normal adult man rise 3.3° C. (6° F.) during a stay of three and one quarter hours in an atmosphere averaging 40.4° C. (104.7° F.) in tempera¬ ture and 95 per cent, in relative humidity. The relation between bodily temperature and external cold has not been so fully studied, but enough is known to warrant the statement that, in normal individuals at least, the bodily temperature can be to a considerable degree controlled by controll¬ ing the temperature and the humidity of the surrounding air. It is altogether prob¬ able that the same is largely true in febrile diseases. External temperature exerts likewise a definite effect on the circulatory system. The rate of the heart beat is increased in warm, humid, and decreased in cool, dry air. The New York Commission found the aver, age rate of its subjects confined in an atmosphere of 30° C. (86° F.) and 80 per cent, relative humidity to be 74, and in an atmosphere of 20° C. (68° F.) and 50 per cent, humidity to be 66. Eastman and I have seen the pulse rate increase by 39 — from 67 to 106 — as the temperature of the air surrounding the subject rose from 23.3° to 43.3° C. (74° to 110° F.) and the humid¬ ity from 58 to 90 per cent. The important and involved topic of the 4 Haldane, Jour. Hyg., V., 494, 1905. Haldane, Pembrey, Collis, Boycott and Cadman, Rep. Dept. Com. on Humidity and Ventilation in Cotton Weaving Sheds, London, 1909 and 1911. 186 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1128 relation of atmospheric conditions to blood pressure I must leave until the abundant data that have been accumulated by the New York Commission have been subjected to a more careful examination than has yet been possible, although it may be said that excessively high temperatures and high humidities are accompanied by an eleva¬ tion of both systolic and diastolic pres¬ sures. A study of the commission’s records by one of the various methods for evalu¬ ating vascular data seems to reveal an¬ other fact of distinct importance. "When the human body rises from a recumbent to a vertical position the threatened settling of the blood into the lower parts by gravity, with the resultant deleterious effects, ought obviously to be counteracted. In the healthy person the most expedient way to accomplish this is by means of a vigorous vasomotor mechanism acting to constrict the arterioles and raise the blood pressure. This mechanism is assisted by a quickening of the rate of the heart ’s beat. If the mech¬ anism be enfeebled from any cause, there may be, along with the change of posture, a lessened rise of blood pressure, or even a fall, and a great increase in the heart rate. A comparison, therefore, of the change in the systolic blood pressure and the change in the rate of the pulse resulting from a change of the position of the body from the horizontal to the vertical gives a clue to the efficiency of the vasomotor mechanism. On this basis Crampton5 has constructed a scale of percentages of vasotone. In terms of this scale the New York Commission finds that the vasotone diminishes in hot and humid air, and increases as the air becomes cooler and dryer. Thus these results indi¬ cate that a distinct vascular benefit follows from exposing the body to a cool dry air. Atmospheric conditions exert on the 5 Crampton, New York Med. Jour., 98, 916, 1913. respiratory system effects of various kinds. On the rate of respiration a moderate degree of heat and humidity seems to be without effect, but more extreme conditions cause a quickening of the breathing, and this is probably accompanied by more shallow respirations. The more extreme conditions too appear to result in a lowered concentra- . tion of carbon dioxide in the air of the pul¬ monary alveoli, although I can not yet quote actual figures to demonstrate this. The matter, however, is important, since a lowered alveolar carbon dioxide may signify an increased content of hydrogen ions, in other words increased acidity, in the blood. Eastman and I are now investigating this point with much interest. The mucous membrane of the respiratory tract is markedly affected by atmospheric conditions. This was shown three years ago by Hill and Meucke,6 and it has re¬ cently been quite fully investigated by Miller and Cocks7 under the auspices of the New York Commission. Exposure to heat causes increased swelling, redness and secre¬ tion in the nasal mucosa, and these effects are more marked when the humidity of the air is high. Exposure to cold reverses the effects. When the subject passes from a cool to a hot room and a current of air is played upon the face there occurs a diminu¬ tion of the swelling and the secretion ; but passage from a hot to a cool room with a similar draught results in increased swell¬ ing and increased secretion. This latter condition seems to be especially favorable for the development of infectious micro¬ organisms. But the causative relation of the bacteria of the nasal mucosa to “colds” seems to be still in doubt. The distaste for physical labor which we feel on a hot humid day is a common experi- g Hill and Meucke, Lancet, 1291, 1913. 7 Miller and Cocks, Trans. Am. Climatol. and Clin. Assoc., 1915. August 11, 1916] SCIENCE 187 ence, and it is often interpreted as real in¬ ability to work. The New York Commission found, in their experiments with human beings, that, if pushed, the individual is capable of performing as much muscular work in an atmosphere of 30° C. (86° F.) and 80 per cent, relative humidity as in one of 20° C. (68° F.) and 50 per cent, humid¬ ity, but that he is not inclined to do so much. The lack of exact knowledge as to what the muscles themselves apart from the nervous system can do under such circum¬ stances induced Scott and myself8 to inves¬ tigate the subject on animals. Taking the comfortable condition of 20.6° C. (69° F.) with 52 per cent, relative humidity as our standard, we found that when cats were confined for six hours in a well-ventilated chamber, the air of which was kept at an average temperature of 32.8° C. (91° F.) and an average humidity of 90 per cent., the excised muscles of the animals lost in the length of their working period before exhaustion 11 per cent, and in the total amount of work which they were able to perform 24 per cent. At an intermediate temperature and humidity they lost in an intermediate degree. These results indicate that the distaste for physical labor which is felt on a hot and humid day has a deeper basis than mere inclination — the muscles themselves are actually incapable of per¬ forming as much work. We found, more¬ over, that in the extreme condition the blood lost as much as 6 per cent, of its sugar, and 2 per cent, when the intermedi¬ ate condition was maintained. There is evi¬ dently correlation between decreased blood sugar and decreased muscular power, and we have suggested that a physiological adaptation is here indicated, such that “when it is physiologically fitting that the animal reduce muscular exertion to a mini- s Lee and Scott, Am. J our. of Physiol., XL., 486, 1916. mum, in order that the output of heat may be as low as possible, as in a hot and humid environment, the supply of fuel will be lowered correspondingly.” Little can be said at present regarding the action of atmospheric conditions on the nervous system. The rise of external tem¬ perature by dilating the cutaneous blood vessels undoubtedly makes the brain anemic, but it is not certain that variations in such temperature with or without variations in humidity markedly affect the action of the nerve tissues, unless the variations are ex¬ cessive. The New York Commission, under the lead of Thorndike, has expended much time and effort in endeavors to detect a pos¬ sible influence of atmospheric variations between moderate limits on the ability to do mental work. The subjects were given such psychological tests as cancelling arith¬ metical figures, adding figures, mentally multiplying three-place by three-place fig¬ ures, typewriting, and more complex mental performances which involve choice and judgment. The range of atmospheric vari¬ ation was from a lower limit of 20° C. (68° F.) and 50 per cent, relative humidity, and an upper limit of 30° C. (86° F.) and 80 per cent, humidity. In some cases the air was quiet, in others it was kept in mo¬ tion by electric fans. The tests continued for periods of from 4 to 7 hours and in some cases they were repeated for 6 suc¬ cessive days under the same conditions. In neither the young men nor the young wo¬ men subjects of these tests could there be detected any relation between atmospheric conditions and either the accuracy or tiie amount of the mental work that was per¬ formed. A series of experiments on a larger scale has been instituted, but is not yet completed. The relation between atmospheric condi¬ tions and metabolic phenomena is not yet elucidated. During the summer of 1914 the 188 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1128 New York Commission made a partial study of this topic on human beings with the as¬ sistance of Mr. H. L. Higgins, then of the Carnegie Nutrition Laboratory. The tests employed included such subjects as total metabolism or total heat production, the metabolism of carbohydrate, and the metabolism of protein. The results were almost wholly negative. They can not, however, be regarded as conclusive. As regards lesser specific changes in meta¬ bolic processes, too, little can be said at present. But the facts that external cold increases metabolism, that profound meta¬ bolic changes occur in the fevers of infec¬ tion and that there is some evidence that in hyperthermy produced in other ways than by infections metabolism is altered, lead us to suspect that it may be changed, not only totally but in specific details, with even moderate changes in the surrounding atmo¬ sphere. It is difficult to believe that a relationship that is so amply demonstrated for the physical phenomena of the body does not involve also its chemical perform¬ ances. A further topic that is inviting is the possible relationship between atmospheric conditions and bacterial infections. Most of the experimental observations that have here been made relate especially to the ac¬ tion of temperature on the course of infec¬ tions, and it has generally been found that high external temperature with accom¬ panying pronounced increase of bodily temperature checks the progress of infec¬ tions that are already existing. Somewhat lower temperatures (30°-35° C., 86°-95° F.) on the other hand, seem to favor the multiplication of the bacteria and the ad¬ vance of the disease. In the experiments of Winslow, Miller and Noble,9 of the New York Commission, in which rabbits were o Winslow, Miller and Noble, Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol, and Med., XIII., 93, 1916. confined in air of from 29° to 32° C. (84.2° -89.6° F.) there was, in the first three weeks, a distinct decrease in the formation of hemolysins when the animals were com¬ pared with control animals kept at lower room temperatures. Similar but less stri¬ king results were obtained in the formation of agglutinins.10 It thus appears that ex¬ ternal temperatures up to about 30° C. (86° F.) are unfavorable to the develop¬ ment of immune bodies in the blood. Miller and Noble,11 of the New York Commission, found, furthermore, that respiratory infec¬ tions of rabbits with Bacillus bovisepticum (snuffles) is favored by the chilling of such animals after they have been accustomed to heat, and some of their results suggest that a change from a low to a high external tem¬ perature also predisposes to similar infec¬ tion. Although Chodounsky12 obtained only negative results, the weight of the recent experimental evidence favors the view that exposure of the body to cold is favorable to the incidence of acute respiratory disease, and it appears not improbable that the pri¬ mary seat of this deleterious influence is in the mucous membrane of the upper air passages. No review of recent progress in our knowledge of the relation of man to the atmosphere would be complete if it failed to take note of the striking observations of Mr. Ellsworth Huntington, which are set forth in his engaging book on “Civilization and Climate.”13 Mr. Huntington made a careful study of the output of industrial workers in various factories in the state of 10 Winslow, Miller and Noble, Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol, and Med., XIII., 1916. 11 Miller and Noble, “The Effects of Exposure to Cold Upon Experimental Infection of the Kes- piratory Tract.” Not yet published. i- Chodounsky, ‘ ‘ Erkaltung und Erkaltungs- krankheiten, ’ ’ Wien, 1907. i3 Huntington, ‘ ‘ Civilization and Climate, ’ ’ New Haven, 1915. August 11, 1916] SCIENCE 189 Connecticut, as determined by their monthly wages for piece work, over a period of four years. He found that the annual course of production was as follows: Low at the beginning of the calendar year, it fell still lower and reached its minimum at about the end of January; through the spring there was a gradual increase in out¬ put until June; then a moderate decrease until the end of July; in the autumn an in¬ crease to the maximum in November; and then the winter descent to the succeeding January minimum. Production was thus greatest in the spring and the autumn, and least in the winter and the summer. A very similar course was followed by the workers engaged in making electrical apparatus in Pittsburgh ; and similar confirmation of the validity of the conclusions, with changes in details, was made by the output of other industrial workers in the southern states and by strength-tests of school children in Denmark. All these data combine to dem¬ onstrate that the greatest physical efficiency of the individual is found not during the summer or the winter, but at intermediate seasons. That the same is true also of men¬ tal activity is shown by a study of the marks secured by the students at West Point and Annapolis in certain classes, especially mathematics. Of the various climatic features of the different seasons that might be responsible for these seasonal differences in achievement, temperature ap¬ pears to be the most important. Both phys¬ ical and mental activity seem to be great¬ est and most effective, not when extreme summer’s heat or extreme winter’s cold pre¬ vails, but when the body is subjected to an intermediate temperature. After a careful consideration of his many figures Hunting- ton came to the conclusion that the optimum temperature of the outside air for the phys¬ ical work of human beings is about 60° F. (15.6° C.) and for the mental work about 40° F. (4.4° C.) the greatest total efficiency of the human body culminating at the inter¬ mediate point of 50° F. (10° C.). We have thus seen that the body reacts to changes in atmospheric conditions in mani¬ fold ways. The most potent of the atmo¬ spheric agencies is undoubtedly tempera¬ ture, but high temperatures exert greater effects when they are accompanied by high humidity. I have said little of the move¬ ment of air, but it should be understood that movement is an important agency, and its share in the physiological phenomena has been studied by the New York Commis¬ sion. By way of general summary it may be said that when an existing external tem¬ perature is fairly comfortable to the indi¬ vidual an elevation of it, especially when such elevation is accompanied by an in¬ crease of humidity, is deleterious, and the deleterious effects are more pronounced when the air is stagnant. Deleterious ef¬ fects resulting from such a combination of atmospheric conditions may be in some de¬ gree obviated if the air next the skin be put into motion, but a more effective antidote is a reduction in the temperature of the air, and this may be assisted by a reduction in its humidity. All experimentation and observation go to demonstrate that a mod¬ erately cool and moderately dry air in mo¬ tion constitutes the most physiologically helpful aerial envelope of the body. The customary figure of 70° F. (approximately 21° C.) for the atmosphere in which most persons engage in the ordinary occupa¬ tions of the living room of a dwelling is too high; a range from 65° to 68° F. (approxi¬ mately 18°-20° C.) with not over 50 per cent, relative humidity, is undoubtedly better, but even such temperatures are too high when much physical activity occurs. Depending on activity and on more obscure corporeal conditions the same external tem¬ perature may feel at one time warm and at 190 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1128 another time cold. The degree of comfort that is felt — which should not be allowed too potent an influence in deciding what one’s environmental conditions shall be — depends, moreover, largely on the thickness of the clothing and on habit. It is surpris¬ ing how readily one’s habits in this respect may be altered. Uniformity in conditions should be avoided; too long a continuance of an existing temperature is dulling to the body; there should be not infrequent and marked changes. Artificial ventilating systems should not necessarily be con¬ demned, but should be operated intelli¬ gently and may advantageously be com¬ bined with window ventilation. In these days we hear much of “fresh” air and its merits. We have fresh-air funds, fresh-air schools, and fresh-air babies. All are commendable; but while giving to our funds, opening our schools, and putting our babies out of doors, let us clearly understand what constitutes fresh air. The freshness of so-called “fresh” air lies, not in more oxygen, less carbon dioxide, less organic matter of respiratory origin, and the hypothetical presence of a hypothetically stimulating ozone, but rather in a low temperature, a low humidity, and motion. So far as fresh air itself is con¬ cerned, there seems to be nothing more mysterious about it than this. To what extent ought fresh air to be used as a therapeutic agent? Here intelli¬ gent experience, and not opinion without experience, is the only guide. That a physi¬ cian, indeed, should have any article in his creed of therapeutics that is not based on the intelligent experience of somebody is not to be supposed. It can not be denied that where intelligent experience has been applied to the topic of fresh air as a thera¬ peutic agent the use of fresh air has been almost invariably extended. But no one has a right to maintain, therefore, that it is a panacea. Only when it has been tested in a great variety of pathological condi¬ tions — and this can be done with entire safety to the patient — will the therapeutic use and limitations of this physiologically significant agent become known. Frederic S. Lee Columbia University THE ORIGIN OF THE PRE-COLUMBIAN CIVILIZATION OF AMERICA In the whole range of ethnological dis¬ cussion perhaps no theme has evoked live¬ lier controversies and excited more wide¬ spread interest than the problems involved in the mysteries of the wonderful civiliza¬ tion that revealed itself to the astonished Spaniards on their first arrival in America. During the last century, which can be re¬ garded as covering the whole period of sci¬ entific investigation in anthropology, the opinions of those who have devoted atten¬ tion to such enquiries have undergone the strangest fluctuations. If one delves into the anthropological journals of forty or fifty years ago they will be found to abound in careful studies on the part of many of the leading ethnologists of the time, demon¬ strating, apparently in a convincing and unquestionable manner, the spread of curious customs or beliefs from the Old World to the New. Then an element of doubt began to creep into the attitude of many ethnologists, which gradually stiff¬ ened until it set into the rigid dogma — there is no other term for it — that as the re¬ sult of “the similarity of the working of the human mind” similar needs and like circumstances will lead various isolated groups of men in a similar phase of culture independently one of the other to invent similar arts and crafts, and to evolve iden¬ tical beliefs. The modern generation of ethnologists has thoughtlessly seized hold of this creed and used it as a soporific drug against the need for mental exertion. For August 11, 1916] SCIENCE 191 when any cultural resemblance is discov¬ ered there is no incentive on the part of those whose faculties have been so lulled to sleep to seek for an explanation : all that is necessary is to murmur the incantation and bow the knee to a fetish certainly no less puerile and unsatisfying than that of an African negro. It does not seem to occur to most modern ethnologists that the whole teaching of history is fatal to the idea of inventions being made independently. Originality is one of the rarest manifesta¬ tions of human faculty. For many cen¬ turies countless millions of men must have witnessed the effects of steam before the simple and obvious inference was made and it was put to a mechanical use ; but if, not knowing the history of the invention of the steam engine, we were to adopt the stereo¬ typed ethnological doctrines of the present day the wide geographical distribution of the steam-engine should be regarded as a most striking illustration of the ‘ ‘ similarity of the working of the human mind.” Nor does it appear to have struck the orthodox ethnologist that his so-called “psycholog¬ ical” explanation and the meaningless phrase “similarity of the working of the human mind” run counter to all the teach¬ ing of modern psychology. For it is the outstanding feature of human instincts that they are extremely generalized and vaguely defined, and not of the precise and highly- specialized character which modern ethno¬ logical speculation attributes to them. Nor again is the case strengthened by the mis¬ use of the word “evolution,” for the inde¬ pendent development of such an artificial confection as civilization postulates the existence of factors utterly alien to the biol¬ ogist ’s conception of evolution. Why then, it will be asked, in the face of the overwhelming mass of definite and well- authenticated evidence clearly pointing to the sources in the Old World from which American civilization sprung, do so many ethnologists refuse to accept the clear and obvious meaning of the facts and resort to such childish subterfuges as I have men¬ tioned ? Putting aside the influence of Darwin’s work, the misunderstanding of which, as Huxley remarked, “led shallow persons to talk nonsense in the name of anthropolog¬ ical science,” the main factor in blinding so many investigators to appreciate the significance of the data they themselves so laboriously collect results from a defect incidental to the nature of their researches. The intensive study of a localized area re¬ veals difficulties in explaining every stage in the process of transmission of customs from one spot to another, which the in¬ vestigator is apt to magnify into insuper¬ able obstacles against the view that the practises or beliefs in question did spread. The failure to recognize the fact, recently demonstrated so convincingly by Dr. Rivers, that useful arts are often lost is another, and perhaps the chief, difficulty that has stood in the way of an adequate apprecia¬ tion of the history of the spread of civiliza¬ tion. Bearing these considerations in mind and turning to the positive evidence that estab¬ lishes the reality of the migrations of cul¬ ture-bearing peoples, it will be found that there is now available a vast mass of precise and unquestionable testimony in substan¬ tiation of the conclusion that the curiously distinctive culture-complex which was gradually built up in Egypt between the years b.c. 4,000 and b.c. 900 began to be widely diffused, at some time after the latter date, west, south and east, and that the latter (the easterly migration), with many additions and modifications which it received on the way (in the Soudan, East Africa, and Arabia ; in the eastern Mediter¬ ranean, Phoenicia, Armenia and Babylonia ; 192 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1128 Map showing Cultural Routes in India, Ceylon, Burma and the Malay Peninsula; in Indonesia and China; and finally in Polynesia) ultimately reached the Pacific coast of the Americas and leavened the aboriginal population of the vast conti¬ nent with the ferment of the ancient civili¬ zations of the Old World. During the thirty centuries from b.c. 4,000 onwards there was built up slowly in Egypt, partly as the result of a natural and logical development, but also in part by the accidental addition of many foreign ele¬ ments, a cultural fabric of a peculiarly complex and artificial texture, the pattern of which is so distinctive that it can be identified wherever and under whatsoever circumstances it occurs. A people who in b.c. 4,000 were already accpiainted with the art of weaving linen, and who practised the curious rite of cir¬ cumcision, a few centuries later learned to appreciate the usefulness of metals and invented the elements of the metallurgical arts and crafts. It was the merest chance that this particular group of people should have been led by force of circumstances to have been impelled to mummify their dead. But intimately interwoven with the devel¬ opment of the art of embalming and casu¬ ally related to it was the making of rock-cut tombs and the building of stone super¬ structures, the possibility of the making of which was suggested by the use of metal tools. The use of linen was also closely re¬ lated to these developments. Thus the acci¬ dental association of a series of naturally disparate factors became welded about b.c. 3,000 into the nucleus of a peculiar culture of which mummification, the making of rock-cut tombs and a great variety of mega- lithic monuments, the use of copper and gold and the weaving of linen, and the practise of the rite of circumcision, were some of the outstanding features. In connection with the ritual associated with mummification statues of the deceased were made and a crop of curious beliefs and rites developed. Thus originated the be¬ lief in the indwelling of human beings in stones, and the possibility of petrifying men and animals, the rites of incense-burn¬ ing and offering libations, and a whole series of other bizarre practises and beliefs, which later became so widespread as in August 11, 1916] SCIENCE 193 some measure to seem to justify the preva¬ lent conviction that they were independent expressions of a common human instinct. It was the merest chance that the people amongst whom this remarkable culture- complex was gradually being built up should have been sun-worshipers, and that the particular group amongst whom the royal family of Egypt originated regarded the Horus-hawk as the symbol of their roy¬ alty. It was no less fortuitous that the seat of the capital after the first unification of Egypt should have been in a place (Buto) where the urams-serpent was venerated. Thus there is the clearest evidence that the complex symbolism of the Sun-god — the sun’s disc, the serpent and the hawk’s wings — is purely a chance association which was established in Egypt. The intimate connection of sun-worship and its peculiar symbolism with megalithic monuments, with mummification, and with the concep¬ tion of the king as the son of the god are equally fortuitous associations. It was no less a chance that this distinc¬ tive culture-complex was built up amongst an agricultural people who by force of cir¬ cumstances were expert in a peculiar method of irrigation. In the times of the New Empire (from b.c. 1,600 onward) a great variety of acci¬ dental accretions were made to this compli¬ cated type of civilization which for long centuries had been growing up in Egypt. Such practises as piercing the ears, and a remarkable series of new tricks in the em- balmer’s technique, are examples of the innovations, some of which are so definite as to enable us to state that the type of Egyptian culture-complex which was dis¬ tributed so widely in the world could not have started on its wanderings before b.c. 900 at the earliest. It was probably at least a century later before the great migration left the African shores. It reached the Persian Gulf by various routes. The fact that it passed up the Nile, through Nubia and the Soudan, thence by East Africa and the Arabian coast, is proved by a large series of Ethiopian accre¬ tions to and modifications of Egyptian practises when they appear in India and farther east. There are historical reasons for believing that a good deal of intercourse took place via the Red Sea and the Arabian littoral. The transmission of a number of Medi¬ terranean customs, such as the use of pearls, Purpura and conch-shell trumpets, and cer¬ tain peculiar modifications of embalming indicate the influence of the Levant. The use of the Swastika-symbol, the peculiarly distinctive Black Sea type of dolmen, and the Armenian custom of skull deformation, are further tokens of the part taken by western Asia in adding to and modifying the purely Egyptian contributions to the strange cargoes these ancient mariners car¬ ried to India. There are also manifold wit¬ nesses of the influence of Babylonia, not only in modifying the Egyptian architec¬ tural ideas of the wanderers, but also in contributing new ideas and beliefs. An ex¬ ample is the greater definiteness assumed by the story of the creation, the deluge, the destruction of the sons of men by petrifac¬ tion, and the perpetuation of the chosen race by incestuous unions. This cultural stream from the Persian Gulf to the Indian coast probably began at the end of the eighth century b.c. and per¬ sisted for many centuries; and the Pre- Aryan population of India became thor¬ oughly leavened with its potent influence. Ceylon and further India, Burma and the Malay Archipelago, in turn were brought within the sphere of its activities, probably as early as the sixth and fifth centuries b.c. From Indonesia the whole eastern Asiatic littoral and all the neighboring islands were 194 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1128 stirred by the new ideas ; and civilizations bearing the distinctive marks of the cul¬ ture-complex which I have traced from Egypt sprang up in Cochin-China, China, Corea, Japan and eventually in all the is¬ lands of the Pacific and the western coast of America. The proof of the reality of this great migration of culture is provided not merely by the identical geographical distribution of a very extensive series of curiously distinctive, and often utterly bizarre, customs and beliefs, the precise dates and circumstances of the origin of which are known in their parent countries ; but the fact that these strange ingredients are compounded in a definite and highly complex manner to form an artificial cul¬ tural structure, which no theory of inde¬ pendent evolution can possibly explain, be¬ cause chance played so large a part in building it up in its original home. For instance, it is quite conceivable (though I believe utterly opposed to the evidence at our disposal) that different people might, independently the one of the other, have invented the practises of mum¬ mification, building megalithic monuments, circumcision, tattooing and terraced irriga¬ tion ; evolved the stories of the petrification of human beings, the strange adventures of the dead in the underworld, and the divine origin of kings; and adopted sun-worship. But why should the people of America and Egypt who built megalithic monu¬ ments build them in accordance with very definite plans compounded of Egyptian, Babylonian, Indian and East Asiatic mod¬ els ? And why should the same people who did so also have their wives’ chins tattooed, their sons circumcised, their dead mummi¬ fied ? Or why should it be the same people who worshiped the sun and adopted the curiously artificial winged-sun-and-serpent symbolism, who practised terraced irriga¬ tion in precisely the same way, who made idols and held similar beliefs regarding them, who had identical stories of the wan¬ derings of the dead in the underworld ? If any theory of evolution of customs and beliefs is adequate to explain the inde¬ pendent origin of each item in the extensive repertoire, either of the New Empire Egyp¬ tian or the Pre-Columbian American civili¬ zation (which I deny), it is utterly incon¬ ceivable that the fortuitous combination of hundreds of utterly incongruous and fan¬ tastic elements could possibly have hap¬ pened twice. It is idle to deny the com¬ pleteness of the demonstration which the existence of such a civilization in America supplies of the fact that it was derived from the late New Empire Egyptian civili¬ zation, modified by Ethiopian, Mediter¬ ranean, West Asiatic, Indian, Indonesian, East Asiatic and Polynesian influences. The complete overthrow of all the objec¬ tions of a general nature to the recognition of the facts has already been explained. There is nothing to hinder one, there¬ fore, from accepting the obvious significance of the evidence. Moreover, every link in this chain of con¬ nections is admitted by investigators of localized areas along the great migration route, even by those who most strenuously deny the more extensive migrations of cul¬ ture. The connections of the New Empire Egypt with the Soudan and with Syria and its relations with Babylonia ; the intercourse between the latter and India in the eighth and seventh centuries b.c. ; the migrations of culture from India to Indonesia and to the farthest limits of Polynesia — all these are well authenticated and generally ad¬ mitted. All that I claim, then, is that the influence of Egypt was handed on from place to place; that the links which all ethnologists recognize as genuine bonds of union can August 11, 1916] SCIENCE 195 with equal certainty be joined up into a cultural chain uniting Egypt to America. In almost every one of the focal points along this great migration route the folk¬ lore of to-day has preserved legends of the culture-heroes who introduced some one or other of the elements of this peculiarly dis¬ tinctive civilization. Those familiar with the literature of ethnology must he acquainted with hun¬ dreds of scraps of corroborative evidence testifying to the reality of the spread postulated. For I have mentioned only a small part of the extraordinary cargo of bizarre practises and beliefs with which these ancient mariners (carrying of course their characteristic ideas of naval construc¬ tion and craftsmanship) set out from the African coast more than twenty-five cen¬ turies ago on the great expedition which eventually led their successors some cen¬ turies later to the New World. At every spot where they touched and tarried, whether on the coasts of Asia, the islands of the Pacific or on the continent of America, the new culture took root and flourished in its own distinctive manner, as it was subjected to the influence of the aborigines or to that of later comers of other ideas and traditions; and each place became a fresh focus from which the new knowledge continued to radiate for long ages after the primary inoculation. The first great cultural wave (or the series of waves of which it was composed) continued to flow for several centuries. It must have begun some time after b.c. 900, because the initial equipment of the great wanderers included practises which were not invented in Egypt until that time. The last of the series of ripples in the great wave set out from India just after the practise of cremation made its appearance there, for at the end of the series the custom of inciner¬ ating the dead made its appearance in Indo¬ nesia, Polynesia, Mexico and elsewhere. In asking you to publish this crude sketch of views which I have set forth in greater detail elsewhere1 I wish especially to appeal to that band of American ethnol¬ ogists, whose devoted labors in rescuing the information concerning the ethnography of their country have called forth the admira¬ tion of all anthropologists, seriously to re¬ consider the significance of the data they are amassing. G. Elliot Smith THE PRODUCTION OF TUNGSTEN The tungsten production of the United States during the first six months of 1916 ex¬ ceed the production of this or any other coun¬ try in any previous twelve months. Prices were even more phenomenal than production and reached more than ten times their ordi¬ nary level. The output was equivalent to about 3,290 short tons of concentrates carry¬ ing 60 per cent. WOs, valued at $9,113,000, ac¬ cording to an estimate made by F rank L. Hess, of the United States Geological Survey, De¬ partment of the Interior. Statistics are valu¬ able only so far as their accuracy is known, and this estimate is believed to be correct within 10 per cent, and to be under rather than over the true figures. These figures are no less noteworthy when it is known that in 1915 much the larger part of the production was in the second half of the year, so that the total domestic output for the twelve months ending June 30, 1916, probably amounted to about 5,000 tons. Colorado has regained its lead in the pro¬ duction of tungsten ores and, between January 1 and June 30, marketed 1,505 tons, valued at $3,638,000, of which the Boulder field fur¬ nished 1,494 tons. California sold 984 tons, valued at $3,005,000. The reason for the higher value of the California ore was that it i ‘ ‘ The Significance of the Geographical Distri¬ bution of the Practise of Mummification, ’ ’ now being published in the Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester. 196 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1128 was nearly all sold as high-grade concentrates, hut a large part of the Colorado ore sold was of low percentage and had to be milled and concentrated, with consequent expense and loss. From Nevada 461 tons, valued at $1,432,000, and from Arizona 175 tons, worth $565,000, are estimated to have been shipped. Smaller quantities were mined in Alaska, Connecticut, Idaho, Missouri, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah and Washington. Not only were the output and prices unique, but the ratio of the several tungsten minerals produced was different from that of other countries of large production. The quantities and values were approximately as follows : Ferberite, 1,495 tons, $3,590,000; scheelite, 1,404 tons, $4,322,000 ; wolframite, 201 tons, $613,000; and hiibnerite, 185 tons, $587,000. In most countries the prevailing mineral is wolframite, and no other country approaches the United States in the quantity of ferberite or scheelite produced. The scheelite comes mostly from Atolia, Calif., but significant quantities are mined in Nevada, Arizona, Idaho and Connecticut. The tremendous increase of prices caused by the need for “ high speed ” tools to cut war steel ordered by the governments of Europe of course caused the great increase in- production. Prices at the beginning of the year were irreg¬ ular and depended on the buyer’s need of the ore and probably on his fear of the possibility of not being able to get it when he might need it even more. Ores carrying 60 per cent, tungsten trioxide brought at that time as much as $66 a unit, but by the last of March some ferberite sold for $93.50 a unit at the mills, and even higher prices were quoted in the newspapers, though they could not be con¬ firmed. The prices of the same ore in the New York market would naturally be some¬ what higher. Under the stimulus of these high prices production, not only in this coun¬ try but in the world at large, has been at the highest point ever known. At first the sud¬ den demand created by the orders for war steel were far ahead of the instant productive power of the country. The rapid increase in prices, starting last fall at a time when tungsten min¬ ing was at a low ebb and culminating in the undreamed maximum mentioned, caused pros¬ pecting and consequent discoveries of new de¬ posits, increase of development of known de¬ posits, the operating at high tension of old mills, and the hasty building of new mills. As a result, the production increased faster than the consumption and soon overran the demand that would absorb the output at the extremely high prices prevailing, so that a drop in prices was inevitable. June closed with the price around $25 a unit, which was still much higher than any price known before this year. The highest price previously reported to the Geo¬ logical Survey was $15 a unit, paid in 1907. The normal price has been $6 to $7. During the six months under consideration 40 mills of various types and sizes were in operation part or all of the time on tungsten ores, and, at the end of June, 14 were under construction. In the tungsten mining camps the excite¬ ment that followed the increase of prices was similar to that caused by important gold dis¬ coveries. Nederland, Colo., a little village of two or three dozen homes, suddenly became a town of 3,000 or more inhabitants. East of Nederland two settlements, each containing several hundred people, sprang into existence. Atolia, Calif., a camp of 60 or 80 people, grew to more than a thousand. SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS The Paris Academy of Sciences on June 26 elected as corresponding members Dr. Ramon y Cajal of Madrid to fill the place of M. Perez, in the section of anatomy and zoology, and Dr. Morat, professor of physiology at Lyons, to succeed Dr. Zambaco Pasha in the section of medicine and surgery. Dr. E. Perroncito, professor of bacteriology at the University of Turin, and Professor Ivita- sato, director of the bacteriologic institute at Tokyo, have been elected foreign members of the Paris Academy of Medicine. Professor Hugo de Yries, professor of the University of Amsterdam and director of the Botanical Garden, has removed his residence to Lunteren, -where he is building a small AUGUST 11, 1916] SCIENCE 197 private laboratory in connection with an ex¬ perimental garden. Professor de Yries must by law retire from bis professorship at Amster¬ dam within two years and plans to continue his experimental researches at Lunteren. A. A. Stevenson, Philadelphia, has been elected president, and S. S. Yoorhees, Wash¬ ington, D. C., vice-president, of the American Society for Testing Materials. Dr. Alfred E. Cameron, formerly of the department of agricultural entomology, Uni¬ versity of Manchester, has taken up duties in the entomological branch, Department of Agriculture, Ottawa, Canada. Professor R. P. Strong, of the Harvard Medical School, has been visiting the American camps in Mexico to study their sanitary condi¬ tion. Dr. Chas. H. Herty, professor of chemistry and dean of the School of Applied Science of the University of North Carolina; Dr. W. R. Whitney, director of the research laboratory of the General Electric Company, Schenectady, N. Y.; Dr. Leo H. Baekeland, of Yonkers, N. Y., and Warren K. Lewis, of Newton, Mass., have been appointed by the American Chemical Society to cooperate with the com¬ mittee of the National Academy of Sciences on the nitrate supply for the United States government. The president of Cuba issued a decree on July 3, creating a plant quarantine and in¬ spection service under the name Comision de Sanidad Yegetal. The commission is com¬ posed of John R. Johnston, pathologist of the Estacion Experimental Agronomica as presi¬ dent; Mario Sanchez Roig, professor of nat¬ ural history in the Agricultural School of Havana, as secretary, and Patricio Cardin, entomologist of the Estacion Experimental Agronomica. Three field inspectors have been appointed, one to attempt control of the spiny white fly of citrus, one to begin the “ sanitation ” of the coconut groves on ac¬ count of the budrot, and the third to clean up the banana plantations affected by the Panama disease. In addition to the attempt at con¬ trol of these most serious plagues, the commis¬ sion will also have in charge the arrange¬ ments for quarantine regulations affecting the importations and exportations of plants. At the conference on infantile paralysis held last week in New York, Dr. Simon Elexner, director of the laboratories of the Rockefeller Institute, was elected to preside, and two com¬ mittees were appointed. One, which is to study laboratory methods, is made up of Dr. Ludwig Hektoen of the University of Chi¬ cago, Dr. Hans Zinsser, professor of bacteriol¬ ogy in the College of Physicians and Surgeons ; Dr. Richard M. Pearce, Jr., professor of re¬ search medicine in the University of Pennsyl¬ vania; Dr. J. W. Jobling of Yanderbilt Uni¬ versity, Dr. G. W. McCoy of the Government Hygienic Laboratories in Washington, and Dr. Theobald Smith of the Rockefeller Insti¬ tute. The members of the second committee, which is to study methods of prevention, are Dr. Yictor C. Yaughan of the University of Michigan, Dr. M. J. Rosenau of Harvard, Dr. William H. Park of the New York Health Department Laboratories, Dr. Francis W. Pea¬ body of the Peter Brent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Dr. John Howland of Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Augustus Wadsworth of the State Health Department, and Dr. Charles C. Bass of Tulane University, New Orleans. The British prime minister has appointed, as we learn from Nature , a committee to con¬ sider the commercial and industrial policy to be adopted after the war, with special reference to the conclusions reached at the economic conference of the allies, and to the following questions: (a) What industries are essential to the future safety of the nation; and what steps should be taken to maintain or establish them. (&) What steps should be taken to re¬ cover home and foreign trade lost during the war, and to secure new markets. ( c ) To what extent and by what means the resources of the Empire should and can be developed. ( d ) To what extent and by what means the sources of supply within the Empire can be prevented from falling under foreign control. The com¬ mittee is composed as follows : Lord Balfour of Burleigh (chairman), Mr. Arthur Balfour, Mr. H. Gosling, Mr. W. A. S. Hewins, M.P., Mr. A. H. Illingworth, M.P., Sir J. P. Maclay, 198 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1128 Sir A. Mond, M.P., Mr. Arthur Pease, Mr. R. E. Prothero, M.P., Sir Frederick H. Smith, Mr. G. J. Wardle, M.P., together with the fol¬ lowing gentlemen, who are presiding over the Board of Trade committees on the position of important industries after the war: Sir H. Birchenough, Lord Faringdon, Sir C. G. Hyde, Sir C. A. Parsons, F.R.S., Lord Rhondda and Mr. G. Scoby-Smith. Mr. Percy Ashley, of the Board of Trade, and Mr. G. C. Upcott, of the Treasury, have been appointed secretaries to the committee. The trustees of the Beit fellowships for scientific research, which were founded and en¬ dowed three years ago by Mr. Otto Beit, in order to promote the advancement of science by means of research, have elected to fellow¬ ships for 1916-17: Mr. H. H. Walsh, Cork (extension for a second year) ; Mr. W. A. Haward, Tufnell Park, and Mr. C. C. Smith, Bristol. The three fellows will carry on their researches in the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London. Messrs. A. J. Grove and L. Harrison have been appointed by the British War Office to advise on entomological problems in connec¬ tion with the military operations in Mesopo¬ tamia. The services of Dr. W. A. Lamborn have been lent by the Imperial Bureau of Entomology to the War Office and he is now attached to the expeditionary force in East Africa. According to a cablegram from England Lieutenant Sir Ernest Shackleton has again failed to rescue the main body of his Antarctic expedition left on Elephant Island and has returned to the Falkland Islands. Sir Ernest returned on board the steamer Emma from Port Stanley. The ship was forced back by heavy gales and ice and it was found impos¬ sible to get near Elephant Island through the pack ice. The ship was battered, the engines w;ere injured and the Emma was obliged to proceed under sail. Sir Ernest, the corre¬ spondent adds, recognizes that it is useless to attempt to force a passage with a light ship and he is waiting for the steamer Discovery to come from England. Professor Samuel Wendell Williston, of the department of geology and paleontology of the University of Chicago, has given four lec¬ tures on the afternoons of August 1 to 4 inclu¬ sive, the subjects of the separate lectures being : “ The Earliest Land Animals — Amphi¬ bians, ” “ The Earliest Land Animals — Rep¬ tiles,” “ The Evolution of Reptiles ” and “ The Evolution of Mammals.” The death, at the age of fifty -three years, is announced of Elton Fulmer, professor of chemistry and dean of the faculty in the Wash¬ ington State College at Pullman. Frederick William Frankland, associate actuary for the Equitable Life Assurance So¬ ciety, died on July 26 at his home in Hew York City. He was a son of the late Sir Edward Frankland, and was born in Manchester, Eng¬ land, sixty-three years ago. Mr. Frankland came to this country nine years ago, and was for some years connected with the Hew York Life Insurance Company. He had written many papers on mathematical, metaphysical and sociological subjects. Dr. Rowland Cox, Jr., of Paterson, H. J., who was for seven years instructor in opera¬ tive surgery in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, has died in his forty-fifth year. The- death is announced of Ludwig Sieg- mund Albert Heisser, professor of skin and venereal diseases at the University of Breslau, one of the distinguished German pathologists. He was born sixty-one years ago at Breslau, where his father was a physician, who trans¬ lated several American works into German, including G. M. Beard’s “ Heurasthenia.” The secretary of war has submitted a sup¬ plemental estimate of appropriation of $7,000,- 000 required for the service of the fiscal year, 1917, by the medical and hospital department for the medical needs of an active military force of 400,000 men, in addition to amounts heretofore estimated for such purpose. Announcement is made that the Psycho¬ pathic Clinic for Mentally Deranged and Feebleminded Persons at the State Prison, August 11, 1916] SCIENCE 199 Sing Sing, has received an endowment of $10,000 from John D. Rockefeller. The clinic was opened on August 3, and the advisory board is composed of Drs. Terry M. Townsend, George S. Burns and William Seaman Bain- bridge. The Journal of the American Medical As¬ sociation notes that an anonymous donor has offered a prize of $10,000 to be handed over to the maker of the mechanical apparatus best supplying the place of the hand. All competi¬ tors must belong to allied or neutral nations. They are to demonstrate before the French Surgical Association mutilated men who have been using their apparatus for at least six months. The surgical association will experi¬ ment with each apparatus on mutilated men for the length of time it thinks fit. The appa¬ ratus rewarded is to remain the property of its inventor. The competition will be closed two years after the end of the war. Any per¬ son wishing to compete should write M. le Secretaire General de la Soci6te Rationale de Chirurgie, 12, rue de Seine, Paris, France. The Mary Murdoch Memorial Loan Fund has been raised to perpetuate the memory of Dr. Mary Murdoch, of Hull, her high profes¬ sional standard and the inspiration and en¬ couragement she was to her colleagues and friends. The committee which has been formed to administer the fund is prepared to grant loans of £100 or less, free of interest, so as to give women doctors some financial help at a time when they may specially need it. Such special need might be during their early years of establishment in practise, to enable them to study some special subject or purchase some particular apparatus, etc. This fund will be open to all medical women, but preference will be given to those who have been trained at the London School of Medi¬ cine for Women, which was Dr. Murdoch’s school. Presenting a report on the year’s work at Commemoration Day at King’s College, the principal, Dr. Burrows, said that regular men students of English birth had fallen from over 800 in the year previous to the war to a little over 100. The college had contributed 512 officers to the army and navy. Fifty-seven stu¬ dents had lost their lives. Twenty-one mem¬ bers of the staff were on war or munition serv¬ ice, three of whom held the rank of lieutenant- colonel. On the science side every laboratory in the college was being worked in the service of the government. Professor J ackson, in the chemistry department, had solved the formulae for making all the delicate kinds of glass, in¬ cluding miners’ safety lamps, which had hitherto been made in Germany and Austria. Professor Bottomley was still engaged on his researches on baeterized peat, which, it was hoped, would effect a revolution in the treat¬ ment of poor soil. The department of engi¬ neering had devoted itself to the training of unskilled labor for munition factories. The Hawaii National Park, just created by Congress, is the first national park lying out¬ side the continental boundaries of the United States. It sets the three Hawaiian volcanoes, Kilauea, Mauna Loa and Haleakala, and en¬ trusts their protection and development to the Department of the Interior. “ The Hawaiian volcanoes,” writes T. A. Jaggar, director of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, “are truly a national asset, wholly unique of their kind, the most famous in the world of science and the most continuously, variously and harm¬ lessly active volcanoes on earth. Kilauea crater has been nearly continuously active with a lake or lakes of molten lava for a cen¬ tury; Mauna Loa is the largest active volcano and mountain mass in the world, with erup¬ tions about once a decade, and has poured out more lava during the last century than any other volcano on the globe. Haleakala is a mountain mass 10,000 feet high, with a tre¬ mendous crater rift in its summit eight miles in diameter and 3,000 feet deep, with many high lava cones built up inside the crater. It is probably the largest of all known craters among volcanoes that are technically known as active. Haleakala erupted less than 200 years ago. The crater at sunrise is the grand¬ est volcanic spectacle on earth.” Van H. Manning, director of the Bureau of Mines of the Department of the Interior, will 200 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIAb No. 1128 visit the University of Washington in the near future to determine whether it shall have the mining experiment station to be established in the northwest. Congress recently authorized the establishment of ten of these stations. One has already been established at Fair¬ banks, Alaska, and another is to be located in one of the North Pacific states. The Univer¬ sity of Washington has asked that this station be located here. It is pointed out that Seattle is ideally located for the North Pacific sta¬ tion, and that the university with its school of mines, is well equipped to do the scientific research and experimental work that will be required. While the University of Washing¬ ton’s request for the station has the endorse¬ ment of the senators and representatives it is meeting with some opposition. The Univer¬ sity of Idaho, at Moscow, is also anxious to obtain the station, and the Montana delegation in congress favors Idaho. The chief work of the stations will be to find ways and means for the profitable handling of low grade ore. Each station will be given $25,000 annually by the federal government for the establishment and maintenance of the station. Some time ago the British government ap¬ pointed a committee of the privy council for scientific and industrial research, so as to co¬ ordinate science with industrial work. When the White paper elaborating the proposed re¬ searches of the committee reached Mr. Hagel- thorn, then minister for public works of the Australian Commonwealth, he suggested that the operations of the committee should be im¬ perial in scope, and not limited to Great Brit¬ ain. With this view the prime minister (Mr. Hughes) agreed, and at once constituted a Science Congress, which has had several meet¬ ings, and has submitted a report to the Com¬ monwealth government. The suggestion of Mr. Hagelthorn was brought under the notice of the Secretary of State for the colonies, and a reply has been received agreeing that the committee of the privy council should be given a wider scope, and it will therefore include the empire on all questions that extend beyond the boundaries of Great Britain or the special do¬ minions. Mr. Hughes has been in consulta¬ tion with the committee of the privy council since he has been in London, and on his re¬ turn the work of the Science Congress in Aus¬ tralia will be coordinated with that of the committee of the privy council. In the forty-seventh annual report of the American Museum of Natural History, Presi¬ dent Henry Fairfield Osborn lays stress upon the urgent need of the institution for more space. No building has been added since the erection of the southwest wing under the law of 1905, while the collections have doubled in extent, important educational departments have been opened, available space in the pres¬ ent building is crowded to capacity, and the scientific and educational value of some of the finest collections in the world is lost for lack of a building in which to house them. The esti¬ mated cost of the proposed new southeast wing and court building is $750,000. It will provide space for the collections of mammals of the sea and fauna of Europe and Asia; for the splendid collections of existing fishes and reptiles, now crowded away in the dark and out of sight; for the superb collection of whales hitherto not exhibited; for other col¬ lections, and for offices, laboratories and storage room which are seriously needed. Since it seems possible that the finances of New York City will not permit of the building of this extension in the near future, the question is being considered by the trus¬ tees of the museum as to the advisability of raising funds for the new wing by private sub¬ scription and solving in this way a problem that is rapidly reaching a crisis. The medical committee of the British Sci¬ ence Guild, under the chairmanship of Sir Ronald Boss, passed, as we learn from Nature, the following resolutions at a recent meeting: (I) The medical committee of the British Science Guild views with disfavor the sugges¬ tion that has been made by certain district councils to cease watering the streets as a war economy, and -is convinced that such a step would be prejudicial to the public health. (2) The medical committee also views with great disfavor the pollution of the streets of London, and of most cities and big towns, by dogs, and August 11, 1916] SCIENCE 201 considers that the attention of the govern¬ ment and of municipalities should be called to the possibility of reducing the evil by in¬ creasing the tax on dogs and by enforcing by¬ laws. The committee considers that in towns the tax on one dog should be doubled and a large progressive increase imposed on each ad¬ ditional dog. The Henry S. Upson Foundation has been organized in Philadelphia for the purpose of encouraging the systematic study of problems wherein dental pathologic conditions are cor¬ related with those of internal medicine, surg¬ ery, neurology and psychiatry. The late Henry S. Upson, professor of neurology in the West¬ ern Reserve University, had been for years deeply interested in the subject, and the foun¬ dation has been endowed by Mrs. Upson as a memorial to her husband. The organization is composed of a commission, the members con¬ sisting of Drs. Edward C. Kirk, chairman, J. Madison Taylor, Charles E. deM. Sajous, Nathaniel Gildersleeve, Hermann Prinz and Arthur Hopewell- Smith. This commission elected an executive committee consisting of three members of the commission — namely, Dr. Edward C. Kirk, chairman, Dr. J. Madison Taylor, secretary, and Dr. Nathaniel Gilder¬ sleeve. This committee selected a board of as¬ sociate experts in lines which include the more cognate subjects, consisting of Dr. De Forrest P. Willard, orthopedist; Dr. Wendell Reber, ophthalmologist ; Dr. Morris Piersol, internist ; Dr. Charles R. Turner, prosthetist; Dr. M. H. Cryer, oral surgeon; Dr. John V. Mershon, orthodontist; Dr. S. D. W. Ludlum, neurolo¬ gist; Dr. Ralph Butler, rhinologist and laryn¬ gologist, and Dr. Edward Schuman, pedia¬ trist. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS The vocational-educational bill, 'providing for federal cooperation with the states in pro¬ moting agricultural and industrial education, makes an annual appropriation beginning at $500,000 and increasing each year by $250,000 until $3,000,000 is reached, to be apportioned to the states in proportion to their rural popu¬ lation. The trustees of the University of Indiana have recommended that a new medical school building, power house, laundry and nurses’ home be erected on the grounds of the Robert W. Long Hospital, Indianapolis. A committee was appointed, including the president of the university, Drs. Samuel Smith, Richmond; Charles P. Emerson, John H. Oliver and Frank F. Hutchins, Indianapolis, to formulate plans for the proposed building and report to the board. Lord Crewe at a meeting of the governing body of the Imperial College of Science and Technology, speaking, on June 30, of the pro¬ fessor’s memorial on the neglected teaching of science, said that the government intended to appoint a committee of scientific men to inquire into the position of natural science in the English educational system, especially in the universities and secondary schools. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE MOSQUITOES AND MAN In Science for June 2, 1916, p. 784, Dr. C. S. Ludlow calls attention to the association with man of those species of mosquitoes con¬ cerned in disease transmission, laying partic¬ ular stress upon Anopheles and malaria. This is an important factor in epidemiology all too frequently overlooked by the sanitarian, but it is surprising to find that Dr. Ludlow claims for Major P. M. Ashburn, as indeed he does for himself, the discovery of this relation. The fact is, this relationship has been long recognized by careful students. Its considera¬ tion unquestionably led Finlay to his deduc¬ tion as to the transmission of yellow fever, the truth of which was afterward so thoroughly demonstrated by the American Army Com¬ mission. In the case of malaria, Grassi was led to the discovery of the Anopheline host by similar considerations. He attacked the problem from the ecological viewpoint, eliminating those blood-sucking forms which did not coincide with the disease in distribution. This is really only a different formulation of the same idea. India has probably produced a larger num- 202 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1128 ber of careful investigators of malaria and Anopheles than any other region. The fact that certain species of Anopheles occurred only in proximity to man, while others were “ wild ” was appreciated as early as 1902 and 1903 and it is set forth in the classic “ Monograph of the Anopheles mosquitoes of India,” by James and Liston (1904). A single brief quotation from Stephens and Christophers will be suffi¬ cient to demonstrate this. Anopheles rossii was found by us always near human dwellings, and often in very foul water. In spite of this commonness of the species, larvae were never found more than a stone’s throw from dwellings. If in any place larvae were discovered at a greater distance, they invariably turned out to be the larvae of other species. A. rossii ap¬ pears, then, in Bengal to be “foveal” in its dis¬ tribution, in contradistinction to other species of Anopheles to be described.1 This difference in habits of the different species of Anopheles is generally recognized among workers in India, and one finds fre¬ quent allusions to it in their writings. In Africa, a similar tendency on the part of certain species of Anopheles to associate with man has been noted and a number of authors could be cited in demonstration. In America, the interrelation, at least in connection with malaria, seems to have been recognized rather tardily. Knab enunciated and discussed it in a series of papers published during 1912 and 1913 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). His deductions were based, he asserts, upon observations made by the writer in the Panama Canal Zone. The adaptation was indicated very clearly in discussing Anopheles albi- manus, precisely the species, it is interesting to note, which also impressed Major Ashburn. I quote from the original statement. While not domestic in the same sense as Stego- myia calopus, Anopheles albimanus is closely as¬ sociated with man and finds its most congenial surroundings about his habitations and in the con¬ ditions he creates in the course of agricultural, engineering and other work. This fact is corre¬ lated with the highly developed blood-sucking habit and has been an active factor in its develop- 1 Reports to the Malaria Committee of the Royal Society, London, 6th Series, p. 15, 1902. ment and in establishing the economic importance of the species (6). The same relation of Anopheles albimanus toward man was observed by another worker in the Panama Canal Zone, James Zetek, and discussed in a paper published in 1915. Quoting briefly: The writer in his inspection of the Canal Zone, found A. albimanus to breed only near settle¬ ments. It therefore seems quite plausible to be¬ lieve that the pathogenic species of Anopheles be¬ come more and more restricted to human settle¬ ments, an adaptation which no doubt will hold for all animals which play a r6le similar to that of albimanus in the transmission of disease (10). But too sweeping claims regarding the adap¬ tation of the malaria-transmitting Anopheles should not be made. The writer, as quoted above, has already indicated that the associa¬ tion with man is a much looser one than in the case of AEdes calopus , and, it should be added, Culex quinquefasciatus ( fatigans ). Knab points out that the long period during which the malarial gametes are present in the human circulation effectively compensates for less frequent opportunity for infection of the mosquito. Dr. Adolph Lutz of Brazil even goes so far as to condemn altogether the idea of adaptation in the case of Anopheles (7, 8). He asserts that in Brazil, Anopheles albi¬ manus occurs in uninhabited localities. Mor will he admit any predilection for man on the part of this mosquito, since he has observed that it prefers the horse to the rider (1. c.). In fact, no such predilection has been demon¬ strated for any Anopheles , except, perhaps, it can be inferred in the case of the Indian Anopheles rossii. That it does not exist in the European Anopheles maculipennis, which un¬ questionably has had all possible opportunity to develop such a taste, has been very clearly shown by Muhlens (9). Grassi and others have gone on record that the degree of attraction depends upon the size of the animal, a man being preferred to a dog, a horse or cow to a man. This much must be admitted in any case; that the highly developed appetite for blood of certain species of Anopheles and frequent op- August 11, 1916] SCIENCE 203 portunities to satisfy that appetite froiti the same host, man, has made the malarial rela¬ tion possible. The important malaria transmitters are to be found among the most bloodthirsty species, and such species will mutiply rapidly in the presence of an abundant food-supply, as when laborers are massed at some previously unin¬ habited point. That there will be a corre¬ sponding decrease in these Anopheles when the food-supply is removed goes without saying. Returning to the conditions in India, it is interesting to note that the most “ domestic ” species of Anopheles rossii, already indicated in the foregoing, is not a malaria transmitter. The most important transmitters are species normally breeding at a distance from human habitations and showing no special “ domes¬ ticity.” They have, however, a very highly developed appetite for blood, and this, in spite of their very much smaller numbers, makes them most effective transmitters of the mala¬ rial parasites. 1. (1912, April 27.) Knab, F., Unconsidered Factors in Disease Transmission by Blood¬ sucking Insects. Jour. Econ. Ent., Yol. 5, pp. 196-200. 2. (1912.) Knab, F., [Dependence of Disease Transmission by Blood-sucking Insects upon Habits]. Proc. Ent. Wash., Vol. 14, pp. 79-81. 3. (1913, Jan. 13.) Knab, F., Blood-sucking Insects as Transmitters of Human Disease. Proc. Ent. Soc. Wash., Yol. 14, pp. 219-221. 4. (1913, July.) Knab, F., The Species of Anopheles that Transmit Human Malaria. Amer. Jour. Prop. Bis. and Prev. Med., Vol. 1, pp. 33-43, 277. 5. (1913, Oct. 3.) Knab, F., The Contentions regarding “Forest Malaria.” Proc. Ent. Wash., Yol. 15, pp. 110-114. 6. (1912.) Jennings, Allan H., Some Problems of Mosquito Control in the Tropics. Jour. Econ. Ent., Yol. 5, pp. 131-141. 7. (1913.) Lutz, A., The Insect Host of Forest Malaria. Proc. Ent. Soc. Wash., Vol. 15, pp. 108-109. 8. (1913.) Lutz, A., Forest Malaria. Proc. Ent. Wash., Vol. 15, pp. 169-170. 9. (1908.) Miihlens, P., Ueber einheimische Malariaerkrankungen in der Umgegend von Wilhelmsliaven und ihre Bekampfung. Arch. f. Schiffs- u. Tropen-Hyg., Bd. 5, pp. 58-70; Malariabekiimpfung in Wilhelms- haven und Umgegend. ii. Arch. f. Schiffs- u. Tropen-Hyg., 1909, Beiheft 6, pp. 166- 173. 10. (1915.) Zetek, James, Behavior of Anopheles albimanus Wied. and tarsimaculata Goeldi. Ann. Ent. Soc. Amer., Vol. 3, pp. 221-271. Allan H. Jennings U. S. Bureau of Entomology GOITER AMONG THE INDIANS ALONG THE MISSOURI The writer would like to call the attention of those interested to the excessive prevalence of goiter and symptoms of thyroid derange¬ ment among the Indians along that part of the Missouri Yalley comprised between the Can¬ non Ball Creek and Cheyenne River, in North and South Dakota. The prevalence and rela¬ tive acuteness of these conditions are such as to demand some special steps for their control or relief, and invite a thorough local investi¬ gation of conditions by specialists or institu¬ tions. The people in question are the Cheyenne River and Tort Yates Sioux, and were visited by the writer last April. The frequency of goiter among the Cheyenne River bands (“ Blackfeet ” and “ Two-Kettle ”) has been known for many years. In 1908, on the occa¬ sion of the writer’s report on various diseases among the Indians,1 they were in that respect at the head of the column, with 61.4 cases of goiter per thousand population, compared to 3 per thousand for the U. S. Indians as a whole. But the present extent and the equally great or even greater frequency of the disease in cer¬ tain parts of the Fort Yates territory have not been suspected. The writer examined in the, two localities mentioned between 400 and 500 children and adults. The examinations were for anthropo¬ logical purposes, and no record was kept of the exact proportion of thyroid enlargements; but the subject soon forced itself upon his atten¬ tion. Case after case was met, particularly i Hrdlicka, Ales, ' ‘ Physical and Medical Obser¬ vations among the Indians of Southwestern U. S. and Northern Mexico,” p. 201. 204 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1128 among the adults, in which the pulse was ex¬ cited, the heart enlarged and the temperature slightly above normal. There were over 30 per cent, of such cases among the younger and middle-aged adults among the Cheyenne River Sioux, and about the same proportion at Fort Yates, particularly in the vicinity of the Farm School. At first the symptoms were puzzling and attributed to rheumatism, exces¬ sive use of coffee, or tobacco ; but it was soon seen that in most if not all cases they were connected with a greater or lesser thyroid en¬ largement, and eventually it became plain that they were due to the latter and were the symp¬ toms of thyroid derangement. The foremost question in this connection is, what are the causes of this localized prevalence of serious disturbances of the thyroid gland. It is not a tribal peculiarity, for other branches of the Sioux away from the river are less affected. There is no evidence that the disease extends for any great distance along the Mis¬ souri, or is common among the whites of same localities. The water used by the natives is mostly that of the Missouri and its small affluents. The present habits of these Indians are those of fairly civilized Indians in general. They were always hunters and great meat eaters, and are doubtless still more so than agricultural tribes, but this is true of all the Sioux. The country is of the rolling prairie type, the climate rigorous but not over-severe. Malarial infections are infrequent, but scrof¬ ula, consumption and venereal diseases pre¬ vail; all of which affords no clue as to the causes of the goiter. It seems that here, if anywhere, in this coun¬ try there is a good chance for a thorough in¬ vestigation, by modern means, of the condi¬ tions leading to thyroid enlargement. The people concerned are very tractable, and both reservations are within easy reach of the rail¬ road. The Bureau of Indian Affairs would doubtless favor and assist the investigations. In his visits to upwards of 50 tribes the writer has never met with a locality where the thyroid “ infection ” was as prevalent and active, and where conditions for research into its causes In conclusion it may be added that goiter among Indians is not, so far as the writer’s experience goes, connected with cretinism, which seems not to occur at all in that race, or with myxedema, and only rarely and mod¬ erately with exopthalmy. Ales Hrdlicka U. S. National Museum COMPULSORY MATHEMATICS— AN EXPLANATION To the Editor of Science: Professor Key- ser, in reviewing Professor Miller’s “ Histor¬ ical Introduction to Mathematical Litera¬ ture ”x speaks of “ the nation-wide deprecia¬ tory utterances of such educational leaders and agitators as Commissioner Snedden and Abraham Flexner ” (relative to the value of the study of mathematics, I infer). I think he can not be fully informed as to my position. My objection is merely against giving high- school mathematics a highly “ protected ” posi¬ tion, shared by no other subject except Eng¬ lish, as we do now through college entrance re¬ quirements and the traditions controlling in secondary schools. I know (having been a moderately successful teacher of high-school mathematics myself for several years) that a substantial percentage of high-school pupils, otherwise of good ability and promise, do not respond well to mathematic teaching, and, I believe, do not materially profit from the as¬ signed tasks, which are uninteresting, discour¬ aging, and even, at times, obnoxious, to them. I think this is frequently the case with pupils of literary bent, and artistic leanings. I naturally very much favor the extended study (preferably under better teaching than we now obtain from the teachers prepared by our college departments of mathematics) of secondary school mathematics by all those an¬ ticipating vocational studies or pursuits where the results of such study serve a demonstrably instrumental purpose. Furthermore, I should strongly encourage other pupils to undertake these studies and to pursue them vigorously as long as they can be made to find the drill and the broadening outlook given by them in¬ teresting and, probably, fruitful. i Science for July 7, 1916, pp. 25-28. August 11, 1916] SCIENCE 205 But I do not attach much weight to the pedagogical principle, succinctly stated by Dooley that “ It doesn’t matter what you teach a boy, so long as he doesn’t like it.” To give point to my attitude, I have frequently asked the question “ Why should a girl be required to 1 pass ’ in mathematics as a condition of entering an American college and (usually) of graduating from an American high school ? ” Is algebra, as usually taught, a subject of such unique educational excellence in general education, and does it in so exceptional a measure train the mind or give rise to the appreciations and insights which we call cul¬ ture, that it should have the monopolistic position in our secondary schools which we now give it? To me this is an important question ; and in asking it, I have no intention of depreciating the values, demonstrable or assumed, which that subject may still possess for a large proportion of the one million three hundred thousand pupils now found in our public high schools. David Snedden Columbia University, July 18, 1916 THE SOUTHERN BULLFROG, RANA GRYLIO STEJNEGER The southern bullfrog was first pronounced a distinct species by Dr. Leonhard Stejneger of the U. S. National Museum in 1902.1 Miss Dickerson in “The Frog Book” (1906) de¬ scribes and gives photographs of this southern frog. It has been reported only from Pensa¬ cola, Kissimmee and Ozona, in Florida, and from Bay St. Louis, in Mississippi. It is evi¬ dent that little is known concerning the limits of the range, of this frog. Although the frog was first obtained at Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, it appears to have been known to some of the older naturalists more than a century ago. It is interesting to note that William Bartram appears to have been well acquainted with this frog and considered it distinct from the common bullfrog, Rana catesbiana. This excellent naturalist, on page i“A New Species of Bullfrog from Florida and the Gulf Coast,” Proc. Nat. Museum U. S., Yol. 24, pp. 211-215, 1902. 272 of his book, “ Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida” (1792), says: The largest frog known in Florida and on the seacoast of Carolina is about eight or nine inches in length from the nose to the extremity of the toes; they are of a dusky brown or black color on the upper side, and their belly or underside is white, spotted and clouded with dusky spots of various size and figure; their legs and thighs also are variegated with dark brown or black; and they are yellow and green about their mouth and lips. They live in wet swamps, on the shores of large rivers and lakes; their voice is loud and hideous, greatly resembling the grunting of swine; but not near as loud as the voice of the bullfrog from Virginia and Pennsylvania: neither do they arrive to half the size, the bullfrog being fre¬ quently 18 inches in length and their roaring as loud as that of a bull. From Bartram’s description of tbe color and markings, one can not say with certainty that he did not confuse the southern bullfrog to some extent with the common bullfrog, which is also known to extend its range into Florida. However, his description of the voice makes it certain that he had heard the frog Rana Grylio as named by Stejneger. H. A. Allard Washington, D. C., April, 1916. SCIENTIFIC BOOKS Outlines of Industrial Chemistry. By Frank Hall Thorp, Ph.D., with assistance in re¬ vision from Warren K. Lewis, Ph.D., pro¬ fessor of chemical engineering in the Massa¬ chusetts Institute of Technology. Third revised and enlarged edition. Published by the Macmillan Co., New York. Cloth. 8vo. Pp. 665. Price $3.75. As the second edition of this well-known text-book appeared in 1905, a material revision of its pages was found necessary and many sections have in consequence been altogether rewritten with elimination of obsolete matter and introduction of new material. One of the problems which must necessarily present itself to the writer of a one-volume text-book on so extensive a subject as indus¬ trial chemistry is to know how to choose the 206 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1128 fundamental facts needed to enable the stu¬ dent to get a properly proportioned picture of an important individual industry. Too much detail can not be indulged in or the book soon becomes encyclopedic and the relationship and interdependence of related industries is lost sight of. German text -books on chemical tech¬ nology, like Wagner’s well-known work, be¬ come ultimately too bulky to be available as text-books, and of quite a number published in that language there is at present only one that may be called sufficiently inclusive and yet re¬ mains compacted into one volume of modern size, viz., Ost’s “ Chemische Technologie,” which has in consequence run quite rapidly through many editions. Professor Thorp planned at first to omit metallurgy because it was generally treated separately in special text-books, but he has reconsidered this, and Part III. of the present edition is devoted to metallurgy. He has sought to economize space by leaving the chemistry of coal-tar colors out of special con¬ sideration, although a classification of them ac¬ cording to the conditions of their application in dyeing processes has been found necessary. With the awakening interest in the establish¬ ment of an American dye-color industry, it will probably be found desirable to take up the chemistry of coal-tar intermediates and ulti¬ mate color products for all advanced chemical students. When congressmen and the daily newspapers begin to discuss the merits of our new dye-color tariff, the graduates of our tech¬ nical schools must be ready to talk intelligently on the subject. The new edition of Professor Thorp’s book covers, however, a great range of important subj'ects and covers them well, presenting the outlines of processes clearly and making the subject interesting to the reader or student. As an illustration we would note the article on Glass Manufacture on pp. 196 et seq. The presentation shows the clearness of view ac¬ quired by the teacher who has learned clarity of expression by the experience of the class¬ room. The same may be said of the section on Pigments, p. 222, which is excellent in form and substance. If we may be allowed to criti¬ cize the treatment, of some of the sections, we would say that the asphalt section is hardly adequate in its handling of either the chemis¬ try or the technology of this important sub¬ ject, and the present view of asphalt as poly¬ merized petroleums rather than oxidation prod¬ ucts is not mentioned. Similarly under the Match Industry we find no mention of the use of P4S3, phosphorus ses- quisulphide, in the manufacture of the “ strike- anywhere ” matches which have come in with the legislation against the use of white phos¬ phorus for match compositions. The modern theories with regard to colloids are noted and in several sections, the phraseol¬ ogy of modern colloid chemistry has been applied to explain fundamental phenomena. We can not be sure that the understanding of these processes has always been improved by this unreserved application of colloid theories, as, for example in the explanation of leather manufacture on p. 573. The book, however, as before said, is gen¬ erally up to date and clearly written, with a uniformity of method of presentation which makes it much better for a text-book than works made up of contributed articles of vary¬ ing degrees of value from a number of writers. S. P. Sadtler UrgescTiichte der bildenden Kunst in Euro pa von den Anfangen bis um 500 vor Chr. Von M. Hoernes. Zweite durchaus umge- arbeitete und neu illustrierte Auflage mit 1330 Abbildungen im Text. Mit Unterstiit- zung der Kais. Akademie der Wissen- schaften in Wien. Wien 1915. Kunstverlag Anton Schroll & Co., Ges. M. B. H. Pp. xiv + 661. The period elapsing since 1898, when the first edition of this important work appeared, has been one of marked progress in our knowl¬ edge of prehistoric art. The author, being able to take full advantage of the opportunity, has made of the new edition practically a new work. The first part deals with primitive art in general. Geometric art is found to be neither older or younger than realistic art. One can say however that it is the more common, the August 11, 1916] SCIENCE 207 easier ; in fact among some races it is the only art, and hence among such presumably the older. In other cases it plays a secondary role. In Europe at least it appeared only after a long and brilliant period of naturalism. The realistic art of the Cave period may be looked upon as the art of the male, and that of the neolithic period as that of the female; in other words sex is supposed to be at the basis of the differences between realism and conventionalism. The making of basketry and pottery was the work of woman, and their or¬ namentation, the product of her mind. In this cleavage religion, or the absence of it, might also have had something to do; for the tendency of religious art is toward the con¬ ventional, while that of profane art is toward the natural. Thus in the opinion of the author idols were unknown until the neolithic age. Our conception of prehistoric art is of neces¬ sity based on partial evidence only. We can know nothing of the then existing dance, music and poesy; and very little of art as expressed in personal adornment. It is justly pointed out that the differentia¬ tion between the historic and the prehistoric does not consist in a knowledge of any par¬ ticular one of the three principal metals of antiquity ; for in the Orient the historic period long antedates the closing of the bronze age, whereas the historic period in Europe begins during the iron age. Differences equally marked are to be noted elsewhere. The negroes of Africa, for example, with their knowledge of iron, have not yet reached so high a stage of culture as did the prehistoric peoples of Central and South America, among whom the use of iron was absolutely unknown. The three great culture stages in Europe — the paleolithic, the neolithic, and the age of metals — correspond to three great phases of art: Jagertum, Bauerntum, and Herren- or Kriegertum. The art of the hunter stage lasted longest and reached its highest develop¬ ment in western Europe, especially southern France and northern Spain; that of the peas¬ ant stage took deepest root in central and northern Europe; while the martial stage first came to fruition in southern Europe. The art of the first stage was naturalistic, of the second geometric, and of the third a return to a higher realism under the control of con¬ ventionalism. The author takes issue with Breuil respect¬ ing the age of the wall paintings of southern and southeastern Spain. From the viewpoint of art these certainly differ from the paleo¬ lithic mural art of the Cantabrian region. It is probable therefore that they belong to a later epoch, even later than the Azilian, although many of the designs on the painted pebbles of Mas d’Azil have their counterparts in the mural art of southern Spain as recently noted by Obermaier. For Hoernes the Cave art of southern France and northern Spain is a highly specialized type, a peripheral culture phenomenon. Hence from it the art of the succeeding epochs did not and could not spring, because of a well- known law in evolution that highly specialized types of one geologic horizon do not give rise to the types of subsequent epochs. In the field of ceramic art Hoernes distin¬ guishes two fundamental methods of orna¬ mental treatment: the Umlaufstil and the Rahmenstil. The first with its space-filling banded ornament is supposed to be the older, although neither is wholly confined to the neolithic period. The second with its panel or¬ namentation goes logically with the various forms of handled ware. The banded style, on the other hand, is expressive of ware with¬ out handles ; to it belong the spiral and mean¬ der decoration. During the bronze age the best examples of decorative art are to be seen in metal work; this is especially true of northern Europe. It was during this age that plant motives first appeared. The passage from the bronze age to the iron age took place slowly, at first in the Orient and in Egypt; in Greece about 1200, in Italy 1100, and in central Europe about B.c. 1000. In the ceramic field the Hallstatt epoch is not so much an outgrowth from the bronze age as from the neolithic age. The banded as well as the panel style of the Hallstatt epoch is foreshadowed in the neolithic pottery of 208 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1128 east central Europe. The Dipylon and the Villanova style representing the earliest phase of the iron age in Greece and Italy, respec¬ tively, both abound in banded and panel pat¬ terns, especially the meander and the swastika. (The swastika is supposed to date as far back as the neolithic period.) The art of the smith made rapid strides during the Hallstatt epoch. A process was developed of at least superficially hardening a blade of iron, although steel proper was as yet unknown. The engraved ornaments of the bronze age now give place largely to em¬ bossed patterns produced by hammering. With the epoch of La Tene the art of the third and last great stage (Kriegertum) spread over western and northern Europe. The revision is everywhere both conserva¬ tive and thorough; some thirty pages of ad¬ denda and references will contribute much toward its usefulness as a source book. George Grant MacCurdy Yale University, New Haven, Conn. THE MECHANISM OF LIGHT PRODUC¬ TION IN ANIMALS It has long been known that the dried pow¬ dered luminous organs of the fire-fly will glow if moistened with water containing oxygen. No light is given off if oxygen is absent. In a previous issue of Science I pointed out that if we allow this dried powder to stand for an hour in contact with water carefully freed of its dissolved oxygen and then admit oxygen, no phosphorescence is to be observed. It is quite obvious that the photogenic sub¬ stance has been changed in some way even though no oxidation has taken place. The substance, therefore, which in presence of oxy¬ gen is oxidized with the production of light, in absence of oxygen is also decomposed but without light production. We have an analo¬ gous instance in the compound lophin (tri- phenylglyoxaline) investigated by Radzis- zewski. If hydrolyzed in presence of oxygen by alcoholic potassium hydrate, light is pro¬ duced and benzoic acid and ammonia formed. In absence of oxygen, no light is produced and benzaldehyde is formed instead of benzoic acid. The alkali acts as a catalyzer. In the fire-fly it is natural to suppose that an organic catalyzer, an enzyme, is concerned in light production and it is the purpose of this paper to point out the fact that the existence of such an enzyme has been defi¬ nitely proved and to add certain new facts to our knowledge of bioluminescence. The credit of this discovery belongs entirely to Professor Raphael Dubois, of the University of Lyons. As early as 1884 Dubois made the crucial ex¬ periments in which he showed that two sub¬ stances are present in the luminous organs of Pyrophorus noctilucus, the West Indian cucullo, a thermostabile substance, luciferin, which oxidizes with light production and a thermolabile enzyme luciferase. In 1887 Du¬ bois showed that the same was true for the luminous mollusc, Pholas dactylus. If the luminous slime from glands on the siphon and mantle of this mollusc are collected in sea water in two test tubes the solutions will phosphoresce for some time. Boil the solu¬ tion in one tube and the light disappears in¬ stantly; allow the solution in the other tube to stand until the light disappears spontane¬ ously. Then if both tubes, now dark, be mixed, the light reappears. The boiled tube contained luciferin but no luciferase while the other tube contained luciferase but all the luciferin had been oxidized by standing. On mixing, the two substances were again brought into contact and light resulted. In later papers Dubois has studied especially the properties of the Pholas luciferin and lucif¬ erase and the results are published in many papers in the C. R. Acad. 8c. Paris and the C. R. Soc. Biol. He says that luciferin is an albumin having acid properties and an active reducing power. It oxidizes readily with lucif¬ erase, potassium permanganate, barium perox¬ ide and lead peroxide, giving off light and forming amino-acids and minute crystals giv¬ ing the test for xanthin. Luciferase, on the other hand, has all the properties of an enzyme, an oxidizing enzyme acting in the presence of iron salts, which will oxidize luciferin and also tannin, guaiac, a- August 11, 1916] SCIENCE 209 napthol, etc. It resembles the oxydones of Batelli and Stern which are destroyed by ether, chloroform and acetone. It passes with diffi¬ culty through porcelain and is non-dialyzing. At 60° C. it is destroyed by heat, as also by digestion with trypsin. It is astonishing that work such as that re¬ ferred to above, published in well-known jour¬ nals by a competent physiologist, should have received so little attention. No good account of Dubois’s work is to be found in any of the physiologies in English or German, although he is mentioned as the author of the luciferin- luciferase “ theory.” I have recently been able to confirm a great many of Dubois’s statements and to add some new facts. My material has been the "West Indian cucullo, Pyrophorus / the eastern American fire-flies, Photinus and Photuris , and luminous bacteria. There is ab¬ solutely no doubt of the existence of lucif- erase and luciferin and the possibility of sep¬ arating these two substances. I find that luminous bacteria also contain luciferin in very small amount and this can be precipitated by treating the bacteria with absolute alcohol and drying quickly. Such a dry powder gives no light with water, but a faint light with the luciferase of the fire-fly. I have been unable to obtain luciferase from the bacteria, due probably to the fact that, like so many of the bacterial enzymes, it is present as an endoenzyme and can only be extracted by high pressures. Curiously enough the bac¬ terial luciferin can not be obtained by de¬ stroying the luciferase through heat. Lack of space does not permit of a discussion of this here, but the full details will be published later. Luciferase of one form will act with lucif¬ erin of another, and vice versa. This is true for the two genera of eastern fire-flies ( Photi¬ nus and Photuris ) and for the West Indian Pyrophorus ( Elsteridce ) and Photuris or Pho¬ tinus (Lampyridce) . Eire-fly luciferin will give no light with extracts of non-luminous parts of the fire-fly or with non-luminous in- i My studies of Pyrophorus were made under the auspices of the department of marine biology of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. sects or extracts of pill bugs, earthworms or slugs. Whether the luceferin and luciferase of all forms are identical is still an open question. We know of many organic substances such as oils, alcohols, lophin, etc., which will phos¬ phoresce at relatively low temperatures with alkalies, so that it would be by no means re¬ markable to find that the luciferin of different forms was different. I have this past winter discovered a luminous reaction which is re¬ markable in many ways and which closely parallels the method of light production in luminous forms. Pyrogallol will produce light with the vegetable oxidases (potato or turnip juice) if we add some hydrogen peroxide. As little as one part of pyrogallol in 254,000 parts water (m/32,000) will give perceptible light and m/8,000 a good light. Faint light is pro¬ duced at 0° C. and a good light at 10° C. A characteristic of luminous animals is that they still produce light at 0° C. The pyrogallol + H,0, corresponds to luciferin and the vege¬ table oxidase to luciferase. Like the lucif¬ erase of luminous forms the oxidase is de¬ stroyed by boiling. We might therefore sep¬ arate a luminous mixture of pyrogallol + H202 and potato juice into a thermostabile and ther- molabile component which would again give light if brought together. Mammalian blood may take the place of the oxidase of plant juices. In a general way, then, we may say that the problem of bioluminescence has been solved at least in its broad aspects. There still remain many details to be filled in, details which will take some time to complete. The exact chem¬ ical nature of luciferin is unknown, but the method of attack of the problem has been out¬ lined and all that is necessary is a sufficient quantity of the luminescent material for the determination of its chemical nature. That it may be difficult to obtain enough for anal¬ ysis is indicated by the luminescence of pyrogallol which takes place in the almost in¬ conceivably small concentration of 1 : 254,000. E. Newton Harvey Tokio, Japan, May 1, 1916 210 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1128 SPECIAL ARTICLES ON THE ASSOCIATION AND POSSIBLE IDEN¬ TITY OF ROOT-FORMING AND GEOTROPIC SUBSTANCES OR HORMONES IN BRYOPHYLLUM CALYCINUM Recent experiments have led me to results which suggest that the substances responsible for root-formation in the stem of Bryophyllum calycinum are associated or possibly identical with the substances responsible for geotropic curvatures of the stem of this plant. la. When we cut out a piece of the stem of Bryophyllum and suspend it horizontally in a vessel saturated with water vapor, the stem will bend to such an extent that it assumes the shape of a U, the concave side being on the upper side. It was found that this geo¬ tropic curvature is due to a growth (or some other form of active stretching) of the cortex in the convex region of the lower half of the stem. The upper half of the stem is bent pas¬ sively through the growth of the lower half. This was ascertained by measurements on marked stems split longitudinally, and sus¬ pended horizontally. lb. It was found that root-formation appears generally in that node around which the curva¬ ture takes place and that it is confined in the bending region to the nodes on the lower side of a horizontally suspended stem. It is thus seen that the geo tropic growth (or active stretching) and the root-formation both take place on the lower side and in the same region of the stem. 2 a. When we cut out a piece of stem from Bryophyllum containing from four to seven nodes (but with the two most apical nodes cut off) and if we remove all the leaves such a stem will form roots at the two most basal nodes (and sometimes also at the basal surface) and new shoots at the two most apical nodes, but this new growth is extremely slow. If, however, a leaf is left on the stem the new organs will grow out much more rapidly. 2 b. When such a stem without leaves is sus¬ pended horizontally it will bend geotropically, but the bending will take place very slowly. If, however, a leaf is left on the stem the geotropic curvature takes place with much greater rapidity. 3 a. When we remove all but one apical leaf on the lower side of such a horizontally sus¬ pended stem, the stem will form roots first in the second node from the leaf; but only from the node on the under side of the stem. Roots will also grow out from the two most basal nodes. 2>b. In the same stem the geotropic curva¬ ture will occur in the region where the first growth of roots takes place; namely around the second node behind the leaf. 4 a'. When all the leaves are removed with the exception of one leaf in the basal node (on the under side of the horizontally suspended stem), root-formation will be scant and will only take place at the cut surface at the basal end of the stem behind the leaf; and some¬ times also from the axilla of the leaf. 4b. In such a stem the geotropic curvature is generally considerably less than when an apical leaf is left and is confined to the piece of internode behind the leaf and to the imme¬ diate neighborhood in front of the leaf. 5. In all these experiments the region of curvature (and of growth of the cortex) coin¬ cides with the region where the most rapid growth of the roots takes place (or where root¬ forming substances or hormones collect). 6. The effect of the position of a single leaf on the stem is much more striking when we remove the upper half of the cortex in a hori¬ zontally suspended stem of Bryophyllum. Such stems become at once very strongly con¬ vex on the upper side, due to the release of the passively contracted wood and pith on the upper side, where the cortex is removed. When in such a stem all the leaves are removed ex¬ cept the one on the lower side at the apical end of the stem, the latter will gradually over¬ come the convexity on the upper side and as¬ sume the geotropic U shape with the concavity on the upper side due to geotropic growth of the cortex on the lower side of the stem, in the region around the second node behind the leaf. If, however, the leaf is left at the basal end no geotropic curvature will occur (at least none appeared as long as the stems were observed). If the cortex is removed on the lower side no geotropic curvature is possible since this curva- August 11, 1916] SCIENCE 211 ture is due to the growth of the cortex on the lower side of the stem. 7. It is known that the geotropic “ stimulus ” can travel around a corner, i. e., around an incision through half the thickness of the stem, which is to be expected if the “ stimulus ” con¬ sists in the flow of a liquid. If such incisions are made alternately across the upper and lower half of each internode of a horizontally suspended stem with only one leaf on the under side, the stem will show geotropic curvature if the leaf is in the apical node ; but will show as a rule no curvature if the leaf is in the basal node; or a slight curvature in the neighbor¬ hood of the basal node may occur after con¬ siderable delay. 8. All these experiments agree with the as¬ sumption that each leaf sends a current of root¬ forming substances towards the base of the stem, and a current of shoot-forming sub¬ stances towards the apical end of the stem; that the root-forming substances have a ten¬ dency to collect at the lower side of a hori¬ zontally suspended stem, and that they are associated or identical with the substances causing the growth of the cortex on the lower side of the stem to which the geotropic curvature is due. 9. This idea is further supported by experi¬ ments with stems split into two longitudinally. If such split stems are suspended horizontally only those halves show geotropic curvatures whose cortex is below. If the cortex is above (and the cut surface of the stem below) almost no geotropic curvature takes place, no matter where the leaf is, for the simple reason that such stems are lacking the cortex on the lower surface. If the cortex is below and one leaf left at the apical end, root-formation will take place just as rapidly as in the intact stem and geotropic curvature still more rapidly (since the passive resistance of the upper half is re¬ moved). If, however, the leaf is left at the basal end, in about 50 per cent, of the cases no geotropic curvature takes place, or if it takes place it is confined to the region of the basal node; and is considerably less than if the leaf is left at the apical end. If the pieces have no leaf they will bend more strongly than when a leaf is left at the basal end only, thus indicating a possible in¬ hibiting influence of the basal leaf upon the curvature in the more apical regions of the split stem. 10. All these facts suggest a close association if not identity between the root-forming sub¬ stances and the substances (or hormones?) causing geotropic curvatures. Such a close association or identity between organ-forming and geotropic substances might also explain why it is that in some cases geotropism can restore the form in the same way as does re¬ generation, as, e. g., in certain fir trees, where one of the upmost horizontal branches will begin to grow vertically when the apex is cut off. Jacques Loeb The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, New York THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY The 52d meeting of the American Chemical So¬ ciety was held at the University of Illinois, Ur- bana-Champaign, April 17 to 21, 1916. The meet¬ ing was an unusually enthusiastic one, the total registration being the largest to date, namely, 728. A detailed description of the social and other events of the meeting will be found on page 396 of the Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry for May, 1916. The general meeting and meetings of the Divisions of the Society were held in the lecture rooms of the chemistry building of the University of Illinois. Some notable fea¬ tures were presented in the ‘‘Special Program for Home Economics” by the Division of Biological Chemistry; in the “Symposium on the Activated Sludge Method of Sewage Purification,” by the Division of Water, Sewage and Sanitation, and in the ‘ ‘ Symposium on the Chemist in Pood Control, ’ ’ by the Division of Agricultural and Pood Chem¬ istry. The following general addresses were given: The Composition of Corn as affected by Nineteen Generations of Seed Selection: L. H. Smith. (Lantern.) The Manufacture of Chemical Apparatus in the United States: Arthur H. Thomas. The War and the American Chemical Industry: Raymond P. Bacon. On the Influence exerted by Electrolytes on the Equilibrium of Emulsions, Jellies and Living Cells: G. H. A. Clowes. (With demonstration.) (Lantern.) 212 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1128 Some Effect of High Pressures: John Johnston. (Lantern.) Public Lectures. Complimentary to the citizens of Champaign and Urbana. Charles L. Parsons, ‘ ‘ Production of Radium, ’ ’ il¬ lustrated by lantern slides and moving pictures. Curtis F. Burnam, “Use of Radium in Treatment of Cancer,” illustrated. All divisions of the society held well-attended meetings. The titles of papers presented follow with abstract so far as abstracts could be ob¬ tained. DIVISION OF AGRICULTURAL AND FOOD CHEMISTRY L. M. Tolman, Chairman Glen F. Mason, Secretary Cattle Foods: Carl S. Miner. Starch and Glucose: A. P. Bryant. The Chemist in the Canned-food Industry: W. I). Bigelow. The canner, like other manufacturers, sometimes finds it advantageous to have miscellaneous sup¬ plies examined. The laboratory finds a greater field of usefulness, however, in determining the cause of and finding a means of preventing various kinds of spoilage and real and apparent inferiority. This sometimes involves the systematic study of methods of canning in order that the exact tech¬ nique that will uniformly give the best results may be accurately defined. All this work requires an intimate knowledge of the technology of the in¬ dustry. Laboratories frequently make serious errors in answering questions submitted by canners, because of an imperfect knowledge of the facts. Errors of this sort do great damage to the industry and work injury to the reputation of the chemical profession. Greater care on the part of chemists is urged in such matters. The Chemical Control of Gelatin Manufacture : J. R. Powell. Chemical control has been limited until quite re¬ cently, but when demanded by the advance in food requirements, its installation has proved of value to the manufacturer. This control covers the in¬ spection of raw material and chemicals; the con¬ trol of the actual manufacturing process, and the inspection of the finished product and by-products. Raw material is examined for its yields and the presence of interfering impurities. Manufactur¬ ing processes require such attention as will prevent the introduction of impurities, and the deteriora¬ tion of the gelatin. The finished product is exam¬ ined to judge its commercial value, and suitability for food purposes. Flour: Harry Snyder. The Removal of Barium Clilorid from Table Salt: W. W. Skinner. A preliminary investigation by the Bureau of Chemistry showed that salts of certain grades con¬ tain considerable amounts of barium chlorid. As barium chlorid is a poisonous substance the use of such salt in food products is a menace to health. Therefore, the elimination from the market of salt containing barium chlorid in any appreciable quantity is highly desirable. A method of treatment has been developed for the removal of the barium from the brine. This method depends upon the addition of sodium sul¬ phate and calcium oxide in proper proportions and the blowing of air through the treated brine to de¬ compose the ferrous bicarbonate, naturally present, thus obtaining a rapid precipitation. The method gave such promising results in the laboratory and from a test run of six days in the works, that one large salt manufacturer decided to try it out and installed the necessary equipment for the treatment of 200,000 gallons of brine per day. The treat¬ ment was begun in September, 1915, and has been in operation continuously ever since. The results so far obtained indicate that the process is a com¬ plete success. Ordinarily two and sometimes three grades of salt are produced. Since the installation of the process, however, the entire output of the plant has been of the No. 1 grade known to the trade as table and dairy salt. No off grade or No. 2 salt is produced. The cost of treatment is esti¬ mated at from l:j to 1| cents per barrel. About sixty thousand barrels of salt containing only in¬ significant traces of barium have been produced by the new process. Flavoring Extracts: George Lloyd. The High Character of the Manufactured Foods offered the Public To-day: A. Y. H. Mory. Experience gained from careful examination of several hundred samples of manufactured food products, representing nearly all varieties, shows that adulteration and misbranding are seldom met with to-day in the goods of reputable producers, and that the adulteration that represents a serious menace to health is practically non-existent. About the only service the laboratory of a large distributing house has been able to render is that of helping the expert buyers to select the best from a number of perfectly legal and wholesome products submitted for consideration; all of which is a testimonial to the present efficiency of law enforce- August 11, 1916] SCIENCE 213 ment made increasingly efficient by cooperation on the part of the reputable producer and distributer, who finds in the enforcement of these laws the elimination of unfair competition. Preventing the Staling of Bread by Cooling in a Predetermined Atmosphere: Arnold Wahl. Bread and like products absorb while cooling a considerable volume of gas from the atmosphere in which it rests, due to a vacuum caused by the physical condensation of the carbon dioxide in the pores of the loaf and by the solution of carbon di¬ oxide in the free water of the bread, the solubility increasing as the product cools. Bread cooled in an atmosphere of oxygen becomes stale in a few hours while bread cooled in an atmosphere of car¬ bon dioxide is so modified as to remain fresh for several weeks, the reason being that in the former case oxidation of the protein occurs similarly to the effect of oxygen on the nitrogenous constituents of beer, while in the latter oxidation is prevented. I prefer to employ carbon dioxide freshly produced by fermentation for this purpose, having been de¬ termined by long experience in brewing to be best suited to combine chemically with nitrogenous food substances. Use of Picric Acid in Meat Sugar Solutions: W. B. Smith. Proteoses, peptones and the greater portion of the amino-acids are removed from meat extracts by excess of picric acid combined with excess of phos- photungstic acid in aqueous solution. More amino- phosphotungstates are removed by adding hydro¬ chloric acid to the filtrate. Little free hydrochloric acid remains, permitting estimation of reducing sugar if quickly done. Ber¬ trand ’s copper solutions and Low’s iodid method are used. Total sugar is determined after inver¬ sion. Mercuric acetate, followed by phosphotungstic and hydrochloric acids, gives the same results, but removal of excess mercury is essential. Picric acid does not interfere with reduction of Pehling’s so¬ lution. The Analysis of Maple Products VIII. The Appli¬ cation of the Conductivity and Volumetric Lead Subacetate Tests to Maple Sugar: J. F. Snell and G. J. Van Zoeren. A representative sample of the sugar, say 100 grams, is dissolved in hot water, boiled to 219° F. (103.9° C.) and filtered through cotton wool. The resulting syrup is tested as directed in Papers VI. and VII. Pure products give conductivity values and volumetric lead values within the limits re¬ ported for genuine syrups in Papers VI. and VII. Chinese Preserved Eggs — Pidan: Katharine Blunt and Chi Che Wang. Pidan is a kind of Chinese edible preserved eggs made by covering fresh ducks’ eggs by a pasty mass of lime, wood ashes, salt and tea, and finally rice hulls. It is solid, the yolk and white still sepa¬ rate and very dark colored, and with remarkably ammoniacal odor. The moisture of pidan yolk is higher than that of fresh ducks ’ eggs, and of the white very much lower, hence water has been trans¬ ferred from the white to the yolk and lost to the air. The ether extract of the yolk is low (only 21 per cent.) and its acidity high (8 per cent.). The ash is high and alkaline. Coagulable protein is lower than fresh hens ’ eggs, and, the most marked change, ammoniacal nitrogen by Folin’s method is extraordinarily high (0.06 per cent, de¬ termined on the filtrate from the coagulable ni¬ trogen). A Study of American Beers to show the Effects on Their Composition of Various Raw Materials used in Their Production: L. M. Tolman and J. G. Biley. division op agricultural chemistry The Effects of Plant Foods .upon the Amount and Quality of Substances used for Foods, particu¬ larly Fruit and Vegetables : H. A. Huston. Does the Oxidation of Tetratliionate to Sulfur affect the Accuracy of the Estimation of Thio¬ sulfate by Means of Iodine? Philip L. Blumen- THAL AND S. D. AVERITT. In neutral or barely acid solutions, an excess of iodine oxidizes tetrathionates to sulfates. Experi¬ ments showed an oxidation of 18 per cent, of the total sulfur in two weeks, with the excess of iodine as 2:1. Whenever thiosulfate is titrated with io¬ dine, a small amount of sulfate is formed. This does not cause an appreciable error when N/10 solutions are used. In the analysis of lime-sulfur solutions by iodine titration, the volumetric results on thiosulfate agree very closely with the value ob¬ tained by oxidizing the tetrathionate with bromine weighing as BaSO*. The sulfate formation noted might be due to presence of a. little sulfite, but there is reason to believe none is present. Separation and Estimation of Polysulfides and Thiosulfate in Lime Sulfur Solutions: S. D. Averitt. The quantitative separation of polysulfides pre¬ paratory to the determination of thiosulfate is ac¬ complished by means of standard solutions of io¬ dine or hydrochloric acid using appropriate indi¬ cators. 214 SCIENCE [N. S. Yol. XLIV. No. 1128 The precipitated sulfur from either titration may be weighed directly. A quick accurate method of weighing it is described. It is shown that H2S may be removed from a slightly acid solution by boiling without decom¬ posing thiosulfate, also that tetrathionate is con¬ verted into thiosulfate by an excess of soluble sulfid, the latter decomposed with HC1, the H2S re¬ moved by boiling and the thiosulfate titrated. Sodium nitroprusside may be used as internal indicator. Some Studies on Liquid Fertilizer : G. D. Beal and D. T. Englis. The Detection of Lime used as a Neutralizer in Dairy Products : H. J. Wichman. DIVISION OF BIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY C. L. Alsberg, Chairman I. K. Phelps, Secretary The following papers were read by title: Mutarotation of Gelatine and its Significance in Gelatin: C. E. Smith. Chemical Studies on the Decomposition of Fed Oak by Fomes applanatus and of Fed Spruce by Trametes pini var. abietis: E. J. Piper, C. J. Humphrey and S. E. Acree. Some Observations on the Bacterial Metabolism of Sulfur Compounds : E. W. Tanner. A Study of the Ethereal Sulphates of the Urine in Certain Chronic Diseases: J. Eosenbloom. The Ammonia Content of Human Gastric Juice: J. Eosenbloom and Jena Miltan. Some Auxoamylases : E. W. Eockwood. The Non-Protein Constituents of Foods and Feed¬ ing Stuffs : H. S. Grindley and H. C. Eckstein. Swine Feeding Experiments to determine the Nu¬ tritive Value of the Amino Acids: J. C. Eoss. Further Observations on the Surface Tension of Saponin Solutions: C. L. Alsberg and H. E. Woodward. The Changes in the Amino-acid Nitrogen and Sol¬ uble Non-protein Nitrogen: E. S. Potter and E. S. Snyder. Diet in its relation to the Treatment of Diabetes: E. E. Butterfield. The Nitrogen Distribution in Certain Seeds: C. L. Alsberg and F. Brewster. Phospholipins, Lecithin, Cephalin and Similar Sub¬ stances: M. Louise Foster. The Fate of Methylene Disalicylic Acid and De¬ rivatives in the Body: E. A. Hall and E. D. Brown. The Pharmacological Action of Citrates: E. A. Hall and E. E. Morris. On the Esterfication of Amino Acids: H. H. Siionle and H. H. Mitchell. Digest of Data on Mineral Substances in Diet: Grace MacLeod. The Temperature of Potatoes while Cooking and a Method of Measuring Temperature during Cooking and Canning: E. D. Milner. The Or garlic Phosphorus of Soil: E. S. Potter and T. H. Benton. The Chemical Aspect of Photosynthesis in Plants: H. A. Spoehr. The Growth of Isolated Plant Embryos: G. D. Buckner and J. H. Kastle. A Chemical and Bacteriological Study of some N on-Pathological Gastric Fesiduums: C. C. Fowler, M. Levine and S. B. More. A Study of Eighty Samples of Gastric Fesiduums Obtained from Apparently Normal Women: C. C. Fowler and Z. Zentmire. Felative Sensitivity of Some Commercial Litmus Papers: Arno Viehoever and Clare O. Ewing. Blue, neutral, red litmus papers from nine Amer¬ ican manufacturers and one foreign manufacturer were found to vary in sensitivity within very wide limits. Best results were obtained when the ‘ ‘ blue ’ ’ papers were of a dull or grayish blue color; the “neutral, ” a dull lavender or pinkish- violet ; and the ‘ ‘ red, ’ ’ a light pinkish red. It is considered that good papers should respond quickly to Y/500 acid or alkaline solutions. By means of a “ spot test, ’ ’ in which one or more drops of the solution to be tested were superim¬ posed on the test paper, thus in effect concentrating the solution, the reaction of solutions as dilute as A/25,000 (1:500,000) HJSO* and N/2,000 (1: 50,000) NaOH could be determined. On the Determination of the Digestibility of the Constituents of a Mixed Diet: H. H. Mitchell and H. S. Grindley. A method of determining the digestibility of the constituents of a mixed diet is proposed, based on the produet-moment method of correlation. The daily intake of nitrogen from each food ingested is correlated with the daily excretion of nitrogen in the feces. Coefficients or regression of fecal nitro¬ gen on each type of food nitrogen are then calcu¬ lated, giving figures representing the average in¬ crease of fecal nitrogen for an increase in intake of 1 gram in meat nitrogen, bread nitrogen, etc. From these coefficients, the digestibility of the nitrogen of each of the foods ingested may be cal¬ culated. The digestibility of the fat, phosphorus, chlorine, etc., of the individual foods may be cal¬ culated in a similar fashion. August 11, 1916] SCIENCE 215 Feeding Experiments on the Nutritive Value of Casein: E. M. K. Geiling and H. H. Mitchell. Casein boiled for 2 hours is still able to maintain adult mice for at least 50 days. Casein moistened and heated in an autoclave for 1 hour at 15 lbs. does not appear to lose its value for maintenance of adult mice. Eour mice were maintained for 70 days and 2 for 84 days on a ration containing this product. Casein was digested with pancreatin and then treated with 9.5 volumes 95 per cent, alcohol. The filtrate, evaporated to dryness, was unable to maintain mice for longer than 30 to 40 days. Mice fed this product plus cystine returned to normal weight and condition. Substitution of cystine by flowers of sulfur had no beneficial effect. The Hydrogen Electrode Potentials of Phthalate, Phosphate and Borate Buffer Mixtures: Wm. Mansfield Clark and Herbert A. Lubs. The hydrogen electrode potentials of M/ 20 solu¬ tions of the following mixtures were measured at 20°. Acid potassium or the phthalate — Hydrochloric Acid. Acid potassium or the phthalate — Sodium Hy- droxid. Acid potassium phosphate — Sodium Hydroxid. Boric acid and Kbl — Sodium Hydroxid. The solids crystallize beautifully and are all free from water of crystallization. The acid potassium phthalate, as shown by Hodge, is an excellent sub¬ stance for the standardization of the sodium hy¬ droxid solution. The sodium hydroxid may be prepared sufficiently carbonate-free by a method outlined and the hydrochloric acid may be purified by distillation and is easily standardized. These mixtures then form a convenient system of buffer solutions to be used as standards in the color¬ imeter method of determining hydrogen ion con¬ centrations. Solutions of acid potassium phthalate alone have a strong buffer effect. This combined with the ease with which the substance can be prepared makes it an excellent standard for hydrogen electrode meas¬ urements. A Colorimetric Method of Estimating Amylolytic Activity: Victor C. Myers. To 10 c.c. of 1 per cent, soluble starch solution add 9 c.c. of water and 1 c.c. of a solution contain¬ ing the amylolytic enzyme (ptyalin, amylopsin, etc.). Digest at 38° C. At the end of some defi¬ nite time, such as 30 min. (or appropriate inter¬ vals), 1 c.c. of the solution is removed, at once treated with 3 c.c. of saturated picric acid solution and 1 c.c. of saturated sodium carbonate and then heated in a beaker of boiling water for 15 min¬ utes. After cooling, the solution is diluted to proper volume for comparison with a standard pie- ramic acid solution in a colorimeter. From this the sugar formation (maltose), and, therefore, the amylolytic activity may readily be calculated. The Colorimetric Determination of Glucose, Suc¬ rose, Dextrin and Starch in Foodstuffs : V. C. Myers and A. B. Bose. A portion of a saturated picric acid extract of a 2-5 g. sample (e. g., banana) is diluted with picric acid solution, so as to contain about 0.02 per cent, of soluble carbohydrates. Portions of 3 c.c. are heated with 1 c.c. of saturated sodium carbonate at 100° C. for 15 minutes and the color which de¬ velops matched against a standard solution of pi- cramic acid. From the readings obtained and dilu¬ tions used, the reducing sugars (glucose, frutose) are readily calculated. Another 3 c.c. portion is heated for 5 minutes at 100° C. before the carbon¬ ate is added and then continued as above. This portion gives the sum of the glucose (and frutose) plus the inverted sucrose. Dextrin and starch are similarly determined after hydrolysis. On the Citric Acid Production of Aspergillus Niger: James N. Currie. In a previous paper the author reported that many cultures of black aspergillus produced citric acid. For the purpose of this discussion the acid fermentation of this group of fungi may be con¬ sidered as an oxidation process proceeding in three phases which may be represented by the following scheme : Carbohydrate — > citric acid — > oxalic acid — > car¬ bon dioxide. Under optimum conditions of growth the chief end product is carbon dioxide and only small amounts of citric and oxalic acids accumulate. Under restricted conditions of growth which may be obtained on synthetic media large amounts of free acids accumulate. Any one of fifteen cultures studied can be made to produce both oxalic and citric acids in various proportions, depending upon the conditions of culture and the particular strain of A. niger employed. The chief object has been to ascertain under what conditions the largest yield of citric acid could be obtained. The largest yields were ob¬ tained on media to which calcium carbonate was added. This may be due to the effect of maintain¬ ing neutrality or at least a low hydrogen ion con¬ centration in the media. Highest yields of cal¬ cium citrate were obtained on the following media : 216 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1128 Water . 1,000 gm. Saccharose . 50 Sodium nitrate . 2.0 “ Potassium dihydrogen phosphate .... 1.0 ‘ * Magnesium sulphate . .25 “ Potassium chloride . .25 ‘ ‘ Ferrous sulphate . -01 “ Calcimn carbonate . 40 The form in which nitrogen is supplied and also the amount of nitrogen are the most important fac¬ tors when growth is conducted in the absence of calcium carbonate. Cultures which produce no citric acid when grown in the above media with 3.0 grams of sodium nitrate per liter will produce very considerable amounts of citric acid if the sodium nitrate be reduced to 1.2 grams per liter. The most favorable media found for the produc¬ tion of free citric acid was Water . 1,000 gm. Saccharose . 50 Ammonium dihydrogen phosphate .... 2.0 “ Magnesium sulphate . .25 “ Potassium chloride . .25 “ Ferrous sulphate . .01 ‘ 1 On this media several strains of A. niger will produce almost pure citric acid with only traces of oxalic. Growth was conducted on 50 c.c. of media con¬ tained in a 200 c.c. Erlenmeyer flask at 30° C. Cultures were examined at 6 to 10 days of age. The cultures employed were obtained from Dr. Charles Thom. The influence of hydrogen ion concentration, the substitution of other sugars for saccharose and the influence of numerous inorganic salts on this reac¬ tion have been studied but can not be reported in detail at this time. The Equation of Fermentation of Glucose by Ba¬ cillus coli communis: Oliver Kamm. The acid, alcohol, gas fermentation of glucose by B. coli, as given by Harden^ was found to be a combination of several fermentations. In particu¬ lar, the lactic acid fermentation was found to proceed independently. In the absence of most in¬ organic salts and especially of phosphates, evidence was obtained that the gas formation (carbon di¬ oxide and hydrogen) is due to the secondary fer¬ mentations of formic acid. The Liberation of Ammonia from Ammonium Salts by B. Coli Communis : Bobert Bengis and A. B. Bose. A synthetic medium containing ammonia lactate and ammonia phosphate was used in growing B. Coli communis in quantity. The bouillon, when aerated, lost appreciable amounts of NH3 and the 2J. Chem. Soc., 79 [1], 610-28. amount that could be removed in this way was in¬ creased by inoculation with B. Coli communis. In agar media the amount of ammonia given off under sterile conditions was very minute, but upon inocu¬ lation with B. Coli more NH3 was liberated than in the bouillon media. The Change in Urinary Constituents following the Feeding of B. Coli Communis: Arthur Knudson and A. B. Bose. The dogs were kept on a basal ration for long periods. This ration consisted, in part, of a fixed amount of bouillon which was inoculated at stated intervals with B. Coli communis. There was a rapid increase of indican and etherial sulfur elimi¬ nated in the urine following the inoculation of the bouillon, but these gradually decreased for a period of 2 to 3 weeks to the status of the normal periods, though B. Coli was still introduced. After a period of rest from B. Coli, the inoculation again produced an increase in these two constituents in the urine of the dogs, with the same gradual de¬ crease. Other changes were noted. The Analysis of the Urine as a Part of the Physical Examination of the College Student: G. O. Higley, E. T. Lowrey and C. T. J. Dodge. This work was begun in September, 1915. From the urine voided by the student at the close of the physical examination a sample was taken and tested for albumen and dextrose and, in some cases, for other pathological substances. If any such substance was found, the student was advised to consult a physician. Also, the student’s urine was reexamined twice, at intervals of a month or so, if found necessary. Of 426 students who took the test, the urine of 15 showed albumin in two successive tests, and 5 showed sugar. A strong test for bile was obtained in one case. This work will be continued next year. Plant Immuno-Chemistry : B. W. Thatcher. The question as to whether there is in plants a series of phenomena comparable to those of anti¬ bodies in animals has not yet been settled, but is now being investigated. Two general methods of investigation are being employed: (a) a compara¬ tive biochemical study of the composition of healthy and diseased plants, and (b) a biochemical and microchemical study of the reactions pro¬ duced in the host by the growing parasite. Suffi¬ cient progress has been made to justify the recog¬ nition of two types of resistance, or immunity; (a) an antagonism of the tissue substances of the infected plant to the action of the enzymes or other agents excreted by the growing hyphae of the para¬ site, and (b) a hyper-sensitiveness of the host, whereby its tissues at the point of entrance of the August 11, 1916] SCIENCE 217 parasite are killed and no longer supply nutrient material for the latter, thereby causing its death by starvation. The Presence and Origin of Volatile Fatty Acids in Soils: E. H. Walters. In a recent examination of a sample of Susque¬ hanna sandy loam soil from Texas acetic acid and propionic acid have been isolated and identified. The soil was found to contain approximately 41 parts per million of acetic acid and 13 parts per million of propionic acid. In determining the kinds and amounts of vola¬ tile acids produced during the decomposition of green manure it was found that 98.5 c.c. N/10 acetic acid and 49.5 c.c. N/10 propionic acid were produced from 100 grams of rye when this amount of finely ground material was mixed with one kilo¬ gram of soil and allowed to decompose for six months under optimum moisture conditions in a loosely covered jar. During the decomposition of alfalfa under similar conditions it was found that 44.6 c.c. N/10 acetic acid and 35.4 c.c. N/10 prop¬ ionic acid were produced from 100 grams. Meth¬ ods used in the isolation and estimation of these acids are described in detail. On the Reaction of the Pancreas and other Organs: J. H. Long and F. Fenger. These investigations are in part a continuation of those reported at the Seattle meeting. In a large number of qualitative tests it was found that the pancreas “press juice,” obtained by centrif¬ ugal action, is constantly acid in the organs of hogs, beef and sheep. The P R values, the hydrogen coefficient or potential, were found to vary within narrow limits, 5.5 to 5.7. The livers of a number of animals and the press juice from the parotid glands of cattle were like¬ wise found acid. An acid reaction was recognized also in the juice of the spleen of hogs, but the liquid from the thyroid was practically neutral. Some explanation of the possible reason for this variation in reaction is discussed. The pancreas reaction is undoubtedly an impor¬ tant physiological phenomenon and the source of the acidity was found to lie in two directions. A complete quantitative analysis of the salts in the press juice shows that they consist largely of alkali phosphates, with potassium acid phosphate in larg¬ est amount. A combination of the various ions de¬ termined discloses the fact that the solution must have an acid behavior. Another source of acid re¬ action is found in the character of the nucleo-pro- teins present. Among these the a-proteid of Ham- marsten is probably the most important. Contributions of Chemistry to the Science and Art of Medicine: L. J. Desha. The fundamental relationship between chemistry and medicine is emphasized by a resume of chem¬ ical contributions to progress in physiology, path¬ ology, therapeutics, diagnosis, etc. Such contribu¬ tions will be increased by providing more men adequately trained in both chemistry and medicine. The question is raised as to the feasibility of pro¬ viding for regularly trained chemists a special one- or two-year course in those branches of medicine most intimately related to chemistry. A field for such men exists in teaching the new medical chem¬ istry, in research, and particularly in the widening applications of quantitative methods in diagnosis. Chemical Aids in Diagnosis. I. A Comparative Study of the Tests of Renal Function: L. J. Desha. A preliminary report is made including the data on thirty-six cases in which the Hedinger-Schlayer- Mosenthal test diet has beeii used. The normal standards and diagnostic advantages set forth by Mosenthal are in general confirmed. The Green- wald precipitation of the blood proteins has been successfully employed. Most eases with established nephritis show increased nonprotein nitrogen in the blood, but there appears no close relationship be¬ tween this value and prospective fatal termination. The work is being continued to include the Ambard and other tests. Oxalic Acid and its Salts in Foods and Spices: Arno Viehoever and Joseph F. Clevenger.s Information is given as to the presence and dis¬ tribution of oxalic acid and its salts in foods and spices. Some of the data are taken from literature and some are the results of a special microscopical and microchemical investigation. Oxalic acid is present in many of our daily foods, usually in the form of calcium oxalate. Very small amounts of oxalic acid have been reported in po¬ tatoes, cabbage and pickles, where its presence was not detected microscopically by us. No calcium ox¬ alate has been found so far in peas, carrots, pars¬ nips, kale, cranberries or any of tire cereals. A new specific microchemical reaction with re¬ sorcin sulphuric acid was applied. On Some Proteins from the Jack Bean, Canavalia ensiformis: Carl 0. Johns and D. Breese Jones. When meal made from the Jack bean was ex¬ tracted with 10 per cent, sodium chloride about 10 3 Contribution from the Pharmacognosy Labora¬ tory, Bureau of Chemistry, Washington, D. C. 218 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1128 per cent, of globulin was obtained by dialyzing the extract. This globulin was composed of two pro¬ teins which may be separated by fractional precipi¬ tation with ammonium sulphate. These are desig¬ nated globulin A and globulin B. Globulin A was present in very small amount and gave the follow¬ ing figures: C = 53.35, H = 6.95, N = 16.62, S = 0.81, 0 = 22.27. Globulin B, which was the chief protein present, gave the following percent¬ ages: C = 53.21, H = 7.02, N = 16.77, 8 = 0.51, O = 22.49. The nitrogen in globulin B was distri¬ buted as follows: Humin nitrogen 0.30, amide ni¬ trogen 1.40, basic nitrogen 3.17, non-basic nitrogen 11.53, total nitrogen 16.40. An albumin of the legumelin type was also ob¬ tained from the Jack bean. This gave the follow¬ ing figures: C = 53.23, H = 6.99, N = 16.30, S = 0.87, O = 22.61. The nitrogen was distributed as follows: Humin nitrogen 0.23, amide nitrogen 1.16, basic nitrogen 3.73, non-basic nitrogen 11.18, total nitrogen 16.30. On an Alcohol- Soluble Protein from Kafir-Corn, Andropogon sorghum: Carl O. Johns and J. F. Brewster. About three per cent, of an alcohol-soluble pro¬ tein was obtained by extracting kafir-corn meal with hot 70 per cent, alcohol. The purified protein gave the following percentages: C = 55.41, H = 7.25, N = 16.38, S = 0.62, O = 20.34 The nitrogen distribution calculated from a Van Slyke analysis was as follows: Humin nitrogen . 0.17 Amide nitrogen . 3.46 Basic nitrogen . 1.04 Non-basic nitrogen . 11.97 Total nitrogen . 16.64 The distribution of the basic nitrogen, calculated to the per cent, of amino acids in the proteins, was as follows: Arginin . 1.58 Lysin . 0.90 Cystm . 0.78 Histidin . 1.00 Tryptophan present. While this protein resembles zein from maize in its ultimate composition, it differs from zein which is lacking in lysin and tryptophan. Further investi¬ gations are in progress. A Synthesis of Tetracarbonimid: David E. Wor- RALL AND MARION K. McNaMARA. The oxidation of uric acid by hydrogen peroxide in alkaline solution results in the formation of tetracarbonimid. This substance has been synthe¬ sized in this laboratory by heating, in alcoholic solutions, molecular amounts of carbonyl dimethan and urea. The two substances slowly combine with the elimination of two molecules of alcohol OC< CO :OC2H5 H: + CO :OCsH5 H H — Nv >CO H — N' NHCONHv >CO + 2C2H5OH. NH-CO-NH/ A Chemical and Bacteriological Study of some Non-Pathological Gastric Besiduums: Chester C. Fowler, Max Levins and Sue B. More. The contents of forty fasting human stomachs free from gastric symptoms were examined for free and total acid, pepsin, trypsin and bile. The volumes and physical characteristics were noted and the number and kinds of organisms determined by plating on wort agar and plain and glucose agar. The stomachs fall into three groups: (a) prac¬ tically sterile, ( b ) containing less than 2,000 or¬ ganisms per c.c., (c) containing more than 4,000 per c.c. There were three main groups of yeasts, (1) not producing gas from substance tested, (2) forming gas from glucose, fructose and galactose, (3) forming gas from these mono-saccharides and maltose. Many of these yeasts formed acetyl-methyl-car- binol ( CH3CHOH . CO . CH3) . A Study of Eighty Samples of Gastric Besiduums obtained from Apparently Normal Women: Chester C. Fowler and Zelma Zentmire. Sixty women were the subjects of this experi¬ ment. Twenty-one submitted to the collection of samples a second time; making a total of eighty- one samples. The determinations made were: total and free acid, pepsin and trypsin. The averages obtained were: volume 49.44 c.c., total acid 30.31 c.c. (V/10 alkali to neutralize 100 c.c. of juice), free acid 15.63 c.c., pepsin 3.32, and trypsin 5.22. A marked constancy in the residuum of the same individual at different times was noted. In gen¬ eral the results -of Fowler, Rehfuss and Hawk ob¬ tained on men at Philadelphia were confirmed. Charles L. Parsons, Secretary ( To be continued ) SCIENCE Friday, August 18, 1916 CONTENTS The Basis of Individuality in Organisms: Professor O. C. Glaser . 219 The Necessity for Biological Bases for Leg¬ islation and Practise in the Fisheries In¬ dustries: G. W. Field . 224 Grants for Scientific Besearch: Professor Charles R. Cross . 229 Karl Schwarzschild : Dr. J. A. Parkhurst. 234 Beport on Infantile Paralysis . 234 Scientific Notes and News . 235 University and Educational News . 237 Discussion and Correspondence : — Culture Media for Paramecia and Euglena: Professor R. M. Strong. Severe Bestric- tions to Normal Geographic Cycle: Dr. Charles Keyes. Ugo Schiff : Professor J. Bishop Tingle . 238 Scientific Boohs: — Chamberlin on the Origin of the Earth: Professor Joseph Barrell . 239 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sci¬ ences: Professor Edwin Bidwell Wilson. 244 Special Articles: — Soil Bacteria and Phosphates: Professor Cyril G. Hopkins and Albert L. Whiting. 246 The American Chemical Society: Charles L. Parsons . 249 MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended for review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison- On-Hudson, N. Y. THE BASIS OF INDIVIDUALITY IN ORGANISMS1 INTRODUCTORY' To enter upon the “higher criticism” of the concept individuality, is far beyond my powers. Even the humble attempt to think of it, in the organic realm, in what I con¬ ceive to be the simplest terms, offers diffi¬ culties most of which must be bequeathed in their entirety to future generations. Yet to point these out and to take a few soundings, unsatisfactory though they be, may not prove entirely futile even at this time. For me, the basis of individuality in organisms is the mechanism by which liv¬ ing things, despite profound and constant change, keep themselves capable of identifi¬ cation. Some of the changes through which organisms pass are so radical that by com¬ mon consent we treat them separately under the head of development, but since there is no evidence that living things be¬ come individuals at a particular point in their history, we may expect to find any¬ where in the life-cycle the mechanism upon whose workings the possibility of identifica¬ tion rests. For obvious reasons the ar¬ rangements that make for constancy must occur in their least complicated form in the simplest of all the stages of development. Fortunately, since it forces us at once to engage with fundamentals, the beginnings of development offer no refuge from our most insistent problem. We habitually identify a given organism qt two more or i Read at a joint symposium of the American So¬ ciety of Zoologists and Section F of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Co¬ lumbus, Ohio, December 30, 1915. 220 SCIENCE [N. S. Yol. XLIY. No. 1129 less remote points of time, blit no biologist limits himself to this relatively simple pur¬ suit, since every living thing can be, at least partly, identified also with the better known portions of its ancestry. Indeed, these so-called genetic similarities are so striking and constant that one generation can be inferred from another with con¬ siderable precision. If there is a substantial basis for the resemblances between parents and off¬ spring, it must be the chromatin, for this is the only material capable of being con¬ tributed to each generation in essentially equivalent values by all the members of a given lineage. But if chromatin is respon¬ sible for the partial identifications possible between the individuals of two or more generations, we must also suspect that the specific recognition of a given individual at any of the numerous phases of his life is traceable to the same source. THE SYNTHESIS OF CHROMATIN Strictly speaking, ‘ 1 chromatin ” is a mor¬ phological concept. Chemical analysis shows that it contains a conjugated phos- pho-protein provided with a nucleic acid group, the latter a complex of phosphoric acid and a nuclein base. During the so- called resting state of the cell, this material appears segregated in the nucleus. We must attach to this substance a de¬ gree of specificity not less exact than the specificities we are seeking to explain. In this we have ample encouragement from cytologists and geneticists. But the ques¬ tion at once arises how chromatin can in¬ crease in quantity during more than one life cycle and yet lose none of its original characteristics. Brothers, who in the one- celled state derived from their mother the kind or arrangement of chromatin which in her father was associated with color¬ blindness, not only exhibit this defect in their own persons, but between the ages of 25 and 55 produce each some 169,692,750,- 000 examples of the same factor, all trace¬ able to their own original endowment. Compared with cytoplasm, the nucleus seems meager in the diversity of its chem¬ ical make-up. It is free from salts; it is devoid of fats and carbohydrates. More¬ over, iron and phosphorus, easily demon¬ strable in the cytoplasm, are present in nuclei in forms difficult to detect and for that reason spoken of as masked or organic. These facts are not altered by doubting the localization of the iron in chromatin2 or the accuracy of the tests for organic phos¬ phorus.3 From the constancy of their occurrence we must conclude that both elements, as nuclear constituents, are essential. How¬ ever, their absence in inorganic form, coupled with the general chemical poverty of the nucleus, indicates that simple raw materials for the synthesis of chromatin are excluded by the nuclear membrane (Macallum). This conclusion is out of harmony with prevalent interpretation. Yet no one need be misled. That nuclei are rendered con¬ spicuous by staining, are scrupulously di¬ vided in cleavage and maturation, and combined with equal exactitude in fertili¬ zation, are all beside the point. Further, though no cell devoid of a certain propor¬ tion of nuclear material can live, it is no less true that a nucleus embarrassed by the loss of cytoplasm also fails to maintain itself. Chromatin, moreover, is present in the bacteria, but not in the form of a nu¬ cleus. Here its complete cytoplasmic syn¬ thesis is not open to doubt. We are ready enough to admit that the cytoplasm of nu- - References in Aristides Kanitz, * ‘ Handbuch d. Biochemie, ” etc. Herausgegeben von Carl Op- penheimer, pp. 253-254, Bd. II., Teil 1. 3 R. R. Bensley,. Biological Bulletin, Yol. X., pp. 49-65. August 18, 1916] SCIENCE 221 cleated cells can synthetize fats, carbohy¬ drates, and proteins in general, including the most complicated compound forms. "What real evidence have we that nucleo- proteins constitute the sole exception?4 If we reckon with the synthetic powers of the cytoplasm as a possibility, we must next inquire how these can be influenced by the presence of a specific nucleus. That cytoplasmic response, in general, is de¬ pendent on the chemism of the cell, and that these activities are specifically and profoundly modified by changes in the va¬ riety of nuclear material present, are well- known facts shown nowhere more clearly than in the structural differentiations called forth in hybrids. These, especially, are important for us since the introduction of nuclei into foreign cytoplasm demon¬ strates most strikingly their ability to regu¬ late syntheses so that more nuclei like themselves are produced. In what terms are we to conceive this regulation ? The influence of a specific chromatin on cellular processes can be directly attrib¬ uted to the samples which are known to leave the nucleus and come directly into the cytoplasmic reaction-sphere. But the details of their activity there remain ob¬ scure. Autocatalysis, suggested on quite inadequate grounds, is not necessarily ex¬ cluded by the recent work of Conklin5 and other effects are also thinkable. A fitness, chemical or physical in nature, between the liberated chromatin or its products, on the one hand, and certain of the reaction-prod¬ ucts of cytoplasmic synthesis on the other, leading to the formation of different, or 4 For a fuller discussion of the methods, evidence, and conclusions, see the articles by A. B. Macallum in Abderhalden, ‘ ‘ Handb. d. Biochem. Arbeit- methoden, ” and in Ascher-Spiro ‘ ‘ Ergebnisse d. Physiol., ’ 1 VII. s E. G. Conklin, Journal of Experimental Zool¬ ogy, Vol. 12, pp. 1-98. larger, non-reacting aggregates, would automatically increase the production of such substances, provided always the ma¬ chinery necessary for their production is given at all. Very possibly the reciprocal relation suggested here is one of the keys to successful hybridization. It is useless to hope for intellectual satis¬ faction in this matter at the present time. We can, however, assert with confidence that a cell is viable and assured of the pos¬ sibility of offspring, essentially like itself, if it contains, at the beginning of its life- cycle, samples of all the various kinds of chromatin possessed by its immediate par¬ ent, and moreover, contains these in quanti¬ ties sufficient to influence cytoplasmic syn¬ theses so that they shall ultimately yield a chromosomal complex in which the original proportions among the several variants are quantitatively preserved. THE SYNTHESIS OP CHROMOSOMES If chromatin or its immediate forerun¬ ners are cytoplasmic in origin, how do they get into the nucleus? The impermeability of nuclear membranes for most constitu¬ ents of the cell is probable; likewise, their permeability for nucleins, since these, even in the form of visible aggregates, seem to pass freely into the cytoplasm. If they can get through the membrane, going out, they can also get through, going in. The nucleus, therefore, is to be thought of as a kind of sanctuary into which certain pro¬ teins may enter, and, so long as they re¬ main behind their wall, be free from the in¬ fluence of other substances '(Macallum). These considerations are only an enter¬ ing wedge. We infer a specific chromatin for each race, for every individual, and even for particular cells of the individual. More than this, in its intranuclear state, the chromatin is organized, in all likeli¬ hood, permanently, into chromosomes which 222 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1129 exhibit symptoms, increasingly serious, of linear differentiation.6 If we admit the permeability of the nu¬ clear membrane for chromatin or its im¬ mediate forerunners, we can with equal justification attribute the exact character of this membrane to the quantities and qualities of the substances enclosed. Spe¬ cific permeabilities at once suggest them¬ selves and so, by selective exclusion, any elements not true to one or the other of the types already present within the nucleus may, conceivably, be warded off (Macal- • lum). Having admitted only specific elements to the nucleus, it becomes our duty to at¬ tach them to particular places in specific chromosomes. Here we are, necessarily, thrown on our resources in analogies. Most suggestive is the behavior of opti¬ cally active substances in various degrees of dispersion. The common Japanese cam¬ phor, dextro-rotatory in alcoholic solution, is also dextral in gaseous as well as solid form. A property therefore which in the highest and intermediate states of dispersal must be attributed to the configuration of individual molecules, is preserved in ag¬ gregates of these. This can only result from specific orientation. Taken alone, this analogy is too simple. It may enable us to form some notion of the terms in which differentiation among the chromosomes is conceivable; but each chromosome, instead of being homogeneous, is, if we can trust ourselves, a system of heterogeneous complexes definitely ar¬ ranged in space. Our starting point may again be a rela¬ tively simple analog. The hexoses are also systems of heterogeneous complexes defi- s This evidence has been brought together con¬ veniently by T. H. Morgan and others, in “The Mechanism of Mendelian Inheritance. ’ ’ The Mac¬ millan Co., 1915. nitely arranged in space. While the actual form of the hexose molecule is unknown, the carbon atoms are distributed in a man¬ ner conceivable as a linear series in which aldehyde and ketone groups occupy the only positions possible. Chromosomes, of course, are not large molecules, but aggregates of complexes of these. While the chemical forces deter¬ mining the specific structure of the indi¬ vidual molecules may be precisely analo¬ gous to those which account for the nature of the hexose molecule, aggregation into linear series, in the case of the chromo¬ somes, very likely involves elements not strictly molecular. There is one sugges¬ tion, however, that is bodily transferable to the situation presented by the chromo¬ some, namely: factors, in the Mendelian sense, may occupy certain positions be¬ cause these are the only loci possible. In this connection, the temporary unions between enzymes and their specific sub¬ strates are especially interesting because they depend on the stereo-relations of large complexes of molecules. Conditions, gen- erically similar, may play a determining role in the formation of more permanent unions even though these are not chemical. Stereometrically determinable fitness, de¬ grees of fitness, or possibilities of fitness, between various regions of persistent dif¬ ferentiated chromosomes and the newly synthetized elements by the lateral accre¬ tion or incorporation of which, these re¬ gions grow, enable us to visualize not only the periodic restoration of chromosomes to full size, but even the physical require¬ ments for such phenomena as the single and double cross-over. THE DIVERSITY OF DESCENDANTS We can hammer out, on the lines sug¬ gested, a provisional interpretation of that constancy in organisms which makes us August 18, 1916] SCIENCE 223 call them individuals. But no two descend¬ ants of either compound or unicellular or¬ ganisms are strictly alike. Each maintains an individuality of its own different from that of its immediate forerunners. This diversity must also he accounted for. The differences between parents and off¬ spring are adequately explained by the de¬ tails of maturation. Why, however, do the units derived from the fertilized egg differ ? This question is the inevitable consequence of our inability to consider more than one thing at a time. As yet we have neither reckoned with the differential distribution of cytoplasmic substances nor with the inti¬ mate history of the chromosomes during and after division. Students of embryology are familiar with the distribution of “organ-forming” substances. These have been convincingly traced in a number of eggs (Conklin). The remarkable homologies found in the early development of molluscan and annelidan eggs of various types can be understood only as expressions of the accuracy with which these materials manceuver. The visibility of an “organ-forming” substance is the merest accident. In the egg or cell from which an individual comes there may be and probably are materials whose accurate but uneven distribution during cleavage has not been noticed. Ob¬ viously there may be many occasions on which the cytoplasmic composition is changed during development. Differential localization of itself indi¬ rectly increases the possibilities of further differentiation. With increase in the num¬ ber of cells come purely physical and me¬ chanical disturbances of equilibrium. In the readjustments that follow, changes of relation, themselves certain to influence the greatest variety of subsequent events, are inevitable. A crisis like gastrulation can not but affect, directly or indirectly, every cell in the system. I am not forgetting the work of the Drieschian school of experimentalists. They have sinned abundantly in this field for the origin of two or four individuals from an egg whose blastomeres are separated at the appropriate moment by no means demonstrates a harmonious equipotential system. Harmonious it probably is, but equipotentiality is proved by meridional divisions only to those who consider them identical with equatorial or latitudinal cleavages. The production of viable organ¬ isms from blastulas has been misinterpreted in the same way. Differentiation may also be nuclear in origin. Not only are we unable to exclude the possibility of qualitative and quantita¬ tive disparities in ordinary mitosis, but we know positively that differences in nuclei may come about after division. We should recall the somatic cells of Ascaris and es¬ pecially the differential growth of chromo¬ somes. As Conklin has pointed out7 the chro¬ matin mass does not necessarily double with each doubling in the number of cleav¬ age cells, since growth is not shared pro¬ portionately by all the chromosomes. This fact, which very likely does not apply to the divisions of the sex cells, has been ob¬ served in the mitoses of early development, divisions which have been but little studied in detail. Such diminutions in the relative sizes of chromosomes may be accompanied by changes in the chromosomal balance and, through this, bring on changes of equilibrium among cytoplasmic processes. Some chromosomes may, in one respect or another, become ineffective, or in their altered circumstances may have effects qualitatively different from their earlier ones. 7 Loc. cit. 224 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1129 CONCLUSION From the standpoint here adopted, dif¬ ferentiation is the expression of internal as well as external specificities. It is a cyto¬ plasmic reaction and when it occurs de¬ notes that something is not as it was before. Here as elsewhere, we do not deal with iso¬ lated events, but correlative changes with specific antecedents and specific conse¬ quences. This linkage of specified hap¬ penings persists through the entire life- cycle but in the adult, having few or rela¬ tively unimportant morphogenetic results, constitutes the basis for a physiology of maintenance. In development as well as maintenance, that which constitutes our problem is a harmonic relation among all the processes whose net result makes possible the identi¬ fication not only of an organism at any stage of life, but also of its ancestors. Such constancy, maintained despite the be¬ wildering complexity and multiplicity of processes, is thinkable only in terms of the most rigid determinism. The results of destroying portions of an embryo, the restoration of lost parts, heter- omorphoses, the development of entire or¬ ganisms from egg-fragments, grafting, the reorganization of an individual from its disjointed cells, and the fluidity of certain types of behavior, are in no sense counter arguments. All that these show is that the equilibria within which specificity is possible, have a certain range. When the eye-stalk of a crustacean regenerates, not an eye, which it does only under certain circumstances, but an antenna, the antenna is species-true, and when the stump grows an eye, which it does under circumstances of a different sort, but no less specific, the eye is not that of a man or an octopus. If the developmental history of an indi¬ vidual yields a result from which his an¬ cestry can be inferred, what other proof is needed for the accuracy of all the under¬ lying processes? And what need have we who can think through our problems in materialistic terms for regulatory inter¬ ference by metaphysical vapors? Far from making these things easier to under¬ stand, the table-rappings of the vitalist only withdraw attention from the one basis on which we can hope, at present, for a scientific account of the individual at all. O. C. Glaser University of Michigan THE NECESSITY FOR BIOLOGICAL BASES FOR LEGISLATION AND PRACTISE IN THE FISHER¬ IES INDUSTRIES It is lack of knowledge of the world he lives in that makes civilized man an actual catas¬ trophe to nature’s resources and methods. In this, as in every new country, earlier generations began a series of stupendous eco¬ nomic blunders of turning into cash every nat¬ ural asset available, blindly regardless of fu¬ ture necessities. Public assets have been, and in some instances are still, legitimate private booty for those whose imagination may be sufficiently keen to see the gold dollar hidden there. It is only within recent years that evi¬ dence has accumulated of the imperative ne¬ cessity of developing the converse method of solving the economic problems of how best to transform free public goods, e. g., lands, min¬ erals, forests, water power, aquatic life, wild birds and quadrupeds, and scenery, into pri¬ vate property or adequately safeguarded pub¬ lic assets. The problem itself is of huge pro¬ portions and extensive in its ramifications. We are only beginning to grasp its funda¬ mentalness and to awaken to the extent of our failure to find the correct solution. We still need a system of education which enables the child, the teacher, the parent, the state and federal legislator better to acquire the funda¬ mental facts and their bearings upon human life and human progress. This alone would have made improbable, if not impossible, the present status where in some respects, in any August 18, 1916] SCIENCE 225 event, we are dangerously approaching biolog¬ ical bankruptcy and a condition which if not speedily mended will become more speedily be¬ yond recourse. Even over and beyond such earlier blunders as our methods of distribu¬ tion and alienation of such national assets as the public agricultural domain, mineral and forest lands, the inconceivable slaughter of the wandering herds of buffalo, elk, antelope and deer, of the clouds of migratory birds on land and the fleets of fish, birds and mammals swimming in the sea, much of the capital of this national wealth has been unwisely turned into cash and reinvested in less stable and per¬ manent form of property, and vast sums put into non-productive and depreciating forms of property. To render the future secure, a con¬ siderable portion of the primary proceeds must be again converted back into the original form of investment in nature’s laboratory. When obliged to do this we see how difficult and costly, even if not impossible, is the process, and how woefully the capital has shrunk as a result of ignorant and selfish manipulation. An illustration in a very broad sense is our usual method of dealing with our rivers and streams. The fundamental law of water is that a stream may be used, but in such a man¬ ner as not to impair its value to property on the stream below. Yet “ civilized ” man’s first conception of a natural stream is that of a sewer, provided by nature for use as such by municipalities, corporations and individuals. The ocean is falsely regarded as the proper ultimate receptacle of all sorts of material debris of civilization. The next generation will be convinced that vast sums have been unwisely expended in construction of “ trunk lines of sewers to the ocean,” not to mention the cost to the state of the legislation neces¬ sary, or of the prodigious waste of nitrogenous material which is diverted from its immediate useful purpose of nourishing vegetation on land, and the irrevocable loss of other valuable recoverable materials valuable in manufactur¬ ing and in the arts. The immediate effects, however, of the bio¬ logically and economically indefensible pres¬ ent methods of disposal of manufacturing and municipal wastes are destruction of fish life and menaces to the public health. I am of the opinion that the annual waste of such mate¬ rials in the little state of Massachusetts alone results in the loss of at least $8,000,000 each year to the manufacturers and citizens in sub¬ stances recoverable at a relatively small cost. In addition in that state at least $1,000,000 in potential food value could be annually pro¬ duced in water now for that purpose made valueless or worse, by pollution. There can be no doubt that the present unsatisfactory con¬ ditions in the oyster and fish business in gen¬ eral are due to the false impressions of the sanitary condition of fish and shell fish con¬ veyed to the public mind by the appearance of the shores as a result of our indefensible prac¬ tises in the disposal of municipal and trade waters. All this is directly connected with our fail¬ ure to correlate our practises, whether federal, state, municipal or individual, with the essen¬ tial basic biological principles. Methods and constructions must ultimately be devised and executed to check this vast waste. As a nation and as individuals we have failed to recognize and to utilize in adequate measure the necessary and correct biological bases for legislation, and though a beginning has been made in many federal departments, including notably among others the Depart¬ ment of Agriculture and the Bureau of Fish¬ eries, progress elsewhere is still retarded and handicapped by unfortunate precedents, by prevalence of local or merely transient ex¬ pediencies by amateur “ near-statesmen ” and by personal opinions forcibly expounded by those who have more enthusiasm or authority than special information or training. In gen¬ eral our state and federal governments are open to severe arraignment for obvious fail¬ ure to equitably and readily secure, to meet required increased production, the transforma¬ tion into property of those free goods still held in that type of primitive communism which was possible before the development of an increasing population. With reckless haste and too frequently dangerously close to cor¬ rupt methods, we have seen the conversion into private wealth of such public assets as not only the forests, fish, birds and quadru- 226 SCIENCE [N. S. VOL. XLIV. No. 1129 peds, the products of land and water, but as well much of the public domain itself, both land and water, the agricultural, timber and mineral lands, the sea shores and the lands under water inside the three-mile limit, etc., directly or by indirection, with the result that we have changed the forms of our investment, destroyed nature’s perennial dividend pro¬ ducer, only to find after trial on other lines that we must restore nature’s plant and meth¬ ods, be content to assist nature, and to be sat¬ isfied with smaller, though more regular in¬ crement. The tendency is to replace, fre¬ quently at public expense, what the lethargy of the people has permitted to be destructively turned into private property. We burn our forests, then laboriously replant them. We de¬ stroy the native birds, and import foreign spe¬ cies to replace them, and even then are com¬ pelled to resort to expensive spraying opera¬ tions to check insect depredations which under natural conditions would have been controlled in considerable measure by birds. We pollute our sources of drinking water, and then devise costly and sometimes ineffective methods of purification. We poison our rivers, and im¬ port food fish from wiser nations, or spend our money for outdoor recreation in more far¬ sighted communities. Many of the major abuses have happily now come within the public view and into line for ultimate correction. There remain, however, many minor abuses, similar in that they have arisen from the same causes as have the major ones, viz., the personal acquisitive habits of man. These abuses menace the usefulness, even the existence, of many important public assets because in addition they include an underlying biological fallacy which escaped the notice of the legislators. A biological joker in a legislative bill is sometimes more difficult to deal with than the proverbial “ col¬ ored gentleman in the pile of ligneous fuel” and is a more certain source of trouble. The most prominent weakness in original legisla¬ tion dealing with wild life, whether fish, birds or quadrupeds, is the too great emphasis upon “ don’t.” Restrictive legislation, piled Pelion on Ossa, at enormous waste of energy and time, frequently fails to meet expectations, for the reason that it usually ignores the question of increased production. It restricts the de¬ mand without increasing the supply. In gen¬ eral, for example, legislation restricting the time (close seasons) and manner of taking, unless closely connected with the breeding habits of such species as can not be readily propagated artificially and thereby made inde¬ pendent of the natural conditions necessary for existence, fails to be effective, in that in many cases they do not increase the supply in proportion to the restriction upon demand. The true method is to increase the annual pro¬ duction by bringing about conditions which augment the number of eggs or young pro¬ duced and brought to maturity, by minimizing the enemies which prey upon young and adults, by improving the feeding conditions, inducing more rapid growth or improved qualities. Both the terrestrial and aquatic conditions are closely similar and require practically identical treatment. We more quickly, however, detect changing conditions on land and apply the proper remedy without loss of time. The Pilgrim Fathers had scarcely become fairly settled at Plymouth, where fish were so abundant that it was “ enacted by the Court, that six score and 12 fishes shall be accounted to the 100 of all sorts of fishes,” before estab¬ lishing by Article 8 of the laws of 1623, that principle of public rights which has opened at once the wealth of Croesus and given oppor¬ tunities to the modern Aeolus of legislative bodies, that “ fowling, fishing and hunting be free to all inhabitants of this government, pro¬ vided, that all the orders from time to time made by the General Court for the due regula¬ tion of fishing and fowling be observed in place or places wherein special interest and property is justly claimed by the Court or any particular person.” This marks the beginning in this country of the principle of primitive communism which had a basis in genuine altruism, and which be¬ yond doubt then met existing conditions, as seen by those who could not forecast the fu¬ ture and whose mental point of view and hori¬ zon was obstructed by unfortunate experi¬ ences across the sea. August 18, 1916] SCIENCE 227 Present conditions, however, render impera¬ tive a modification of this view. Restrictive legislation which is the logical concomitant of this primitive communism, no longer meets the situation. Agriculture has passed through this stage of evolution, into which the fisher¬ ies, the wild birds and quadrupeds are now entering, and already species have passed be¬ yond recall as a result of this method of treat¬ ment. During a period of scarcity of corn, wheat or potatoes we do not legislate for a “ close season ” or to limit the quantity to he taken in a day, or to prescribe the methods of taking or marketing, but we use every intelli¬ gent device available for stimulating an in¬ creased production. Similarly, for example, a close season and a limit upon the day’s catch did not prevent the commercial extirpation of the scallop ( Pecten ) in certain localities. The fundamental fact necessary for recognition was that here is a specialized animal which breeds but once in its life time, viz., when one year old; the only adequate remedy possible was to save the young under one year old, per¬ mit them to breed, and then in the following autumn and winter market the adults before the end of their natural life. In the case of the lobster ( Homarus ) the re¬ verse condition obtains. The lobster produces approximately 97 per cent, of the normal total number of eggs after it has reached the size of 12 inches and an age of five to eight years. These breeding lobsters are then beyond the danger from all enemies except man. To pre¬ vent an undue diminution of the productive capacity of the lobster as a race the adults which have reached the breeding age must be conserved by uniform laws, if we are to have an annual supply of young produced. The public and the legislators in relation to the oyster problem have passed the purely bio¬ logical stages where the methods of increased production were involved and the problem now is to secure legislation for permitting in¬ creased production by adequate and well known methods, and to reassure the public upon the sanitary problems involved in the production, distribution and marketing, in order that the market may readily absorb the increasing quantities which can be produced, and thus have the benefit of one of the most important sources of a cheap and valuable food, as yet relatively unexploited. The crab, shrimp, spiny lobster, are already feeling the effects of over-exploitation, and of neglect to consider proper methods for increas¬ ing the required production. The dogfish, de¬ stroying more food fish than are marketed, is to-day putting an enormous burden upon the fisherman, and through these upon the fish¬ consuming public. The existing conditions are unappreciated because unseen. The ocean has not yet become apportioned for purposes of securing increased efficiency of food produc¬ tion. The first evident signs are the world¬ wide acknowledgment of the desirability of ex¬ tending the national three-mile limit. It is a significant feature that while the reason given is the increased range of gun fire, the chief op¬ ponents are those who wish to carry on com¬ mercial fisheries as close as possible to the shores of other nations, or of states. The re¬ cent quahaug war in Nantucket Sound, though a minor incident, has its significance. An extensive bed of hard clams, locally called “quahaugs” (Venus mercenaria ) was discov¬ ered just outside the three-mile limit off the mouth of Nantucket Harbor, Mass. The op¬ portunity for “ easy money ” was quickly and widely apparent and steam dredges from other states speedily “ spoiled the market ” for the local Nantucket hand-takers. Much bitterness was developed among the fishermen, and on account of the undeveloped facilities for distri¬ bution the public failed to secure a just ad¬ vantage. The future stocking of the sur¬ rounding shallows was postponed by destruc¬ tion of this bed of old spawners, designated as “blunts” in the trade, which yield a low market price compared to the young pr “ little necks.” This vast expense of sandy shallows outside the “ three-mile limit ” to the edge of the conti¬ nental plateau is a submarine plain, richer even than the Mississippi Yalley in potential capacity for producing human food, but is relatively small when compared with the pop¬ ulation which even now depends upon it for its sea-food. With the same degree of support ac¬ corded to the Bureau of Fisheries as the agri- 228 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1129 cultural interests have accorded to their de¬ partment, this territory can he made as pro¬ ductive as the best farming and grazing lands of the nation. We are but pioneers in this field, and, like our forefathers, may never see the realization of our dreams, but just as they pictured in prophecy the boundless fields of wheat, corn and cotton, so we may picture the development of aquatic farming, where even now hand labor is being replaced by machinery, and by more efficient methods of distribution. The great problem is how best to replace destruc¬ tive exploitation by constructive methods of increasing production through annual crops. To this end instruction in economic biology is needed. The federal commissioner, Dr. Smith, has ably pointed out the need of such educational facilities, and until such develop¬ ment can be secured the necessary safeguards for time and capital invested in this work are lacking, and progress must be as of the halt and of the blind. As a practical matter it is exceedingly diffi¬ cult for either state or federal departments to draw from a reluctant committee on appro¬ priations money to be used upon projects of which they have no first-hand information and which are exploited by relatively few people. In Massachusetts the problem has resolved itself to a dilemma, whether the fisheries and the shell fisheries shall be maintained from the public treasury and freely open to the public, or whether the fishing rights on the tidal flats shall be leased to individuals and the maintenance and enforcement of the law be provided from the money secured from the leases or licenses and the balance used for re¬ ducing the state tax, thus regarding the lands under water and the public fishing rights as a state asset for the benefit of all the people. Consideration of the first proposition clearly leads to the result that if the community plants and cares for the annual crops for the benefit of the fishermen, why should it not do the same for the farmer? And just as the communistic growing of corn and potatoes has proved an economic failure, so must appro¬ priations of money by the town or county for planting clams to be turned into cash by a few people whose interests or necessities impel, be futile unless it is frankly regarded as eleemo¬ synary. The history of nations and of the ages proves that for increased production in¬ dividual initiative and responsibility is neces¬ sary, and the time is not far distant when we must revise our practises and our laws so that all the suitable land below high-water mark may be utilized. No longer will obtain the anomalous condition where, as in Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and other states, oysters may be artificially propagated, but not all other varieties of food and bait mol- lusks. The several state governments and the federal Bureau of Fisheries are now taking up the plan advocated in 1892, which evoked little response in this country, but which was reprinted in English and German current pub¬ lications, wherein the writer advocated these practises and pointed out the similarity be¬ tween the possibilities of agriculture and aqui- culture for increasing the yield of food per acre. It is a deplorable characteristic of human psychology that it is relatively easy to inter¬ est people in what is readily seen. The propa¬ gation of aquatic forms must overcome the handicap of lack of popular knowledge of the processes involved. It is comparatively simple to secure money to raise black foxes, dena¬ tured skunks, or guinea-pigs; but it is still difficult to interest people in commercial utili¬ zation of waters for growing fish and shell fish. Our methods of disposal of sewage and waste have militated against this type of in¬ vestment and development of potentialities. Those who have been accustomed to exploit free goods and still scent opportunities for personal gain at public cost, have learned methods of putting pressure upon public offi¬ cials and there are relatively few state or fed¬ eral departments which are not to some extent hampered by some degree of political, personal or local pressure.- The situation in Massachu¬ setts is peculiar in that the town is still a dominant community unit, and town and county politicians recognize the advantage of political manipulation of such public assets as August 18, 1916] SCIENCE 229 the fisheries, and are loath to promote any de¬ velopment which is likely to curtail their op¬ portunities for personal influence. It is most encouraging to see evidence that the federal departments are each year becoming less domi¬ nated by personal and party politics, and that the officials are permitted to follow the facts wherever they may lead, and to apply the pos¬ sible corrections. So long as this obtains it is the duty of every organization and right- minded individual to support the federal and state authorities in their attempts to admin¬ ister these assets for the public good. Many thinking persons view with alarm the increasing tendency to substitute bureaucracy for democracy and state or federal control or regulation made necessary by changing condi¬ tions. The danger lies not so much in the form as in the facts. If the bureaus cease to be the real representatives of the demos, and instead of representing the whole people on the firm basis of judicially ascertained facts, their opinions and acts are coerced and warped from the truth by either subjective or objec¬ tive considerations, so that they no longer rep¬ resent the federal democratic ideals, but merely localities and special interests, bending to political and transient expediencies, the danger is not only threatening but is already here. The remedy is plain. It is in the hands of the people and must be speedily applied. G. W. Field GRANTS FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ( Continued from p. 57) CHIEFLY COLLEGIATE INSTITUTIONS The following schedule embodies informa¬ tion obtained regarding research funds held chiefly by universities and collegiate institu¬ tions. With some marked exceptions these funds are available for use only under the immediate direction of the institution possess¬ ing the fund and by those connected with it either as members of the staff of instruction or as holding a fellowship. Funds devoted to agriculture and the mechanic arts, as for ex¬ ample those created by the federal govern¬ ment, it has seemed best to reserve for sepa¬ rate treatment later and more fully than is possible at present. The same is true with regard to funds devoted to astronomical re¬ search. Also information has yet to be re¬ ceived regarding marine biological laboratories. Consideration of the appropriations made by Congress for the support of the “ Scientific Bureaus ” of the United States would seem to come more particularly within the scope of consideration of another sub-committee. The data already published regarding re¬ search funds for scientific purposes which are of general availability throughout the coun¬ try, and of medical research funds have been gathered from replies to a circular letter issued by the Subcommittee on Research Funds in the spring of 1915, which asked the question: Will you be so kind as to inform me whether the institution with which you are connected pos¬ sesses any research fund and if so what is its amount and for what purposes and under what conditions is it available. The letter referred to was sent to such insti¬ tutions as seemed likely to possess funds of this character, the publications “ Minerva ” and “ Who’s Who in Science (International) ” serving as guides. It was widely distributed among collegiate institutions. Upon the re¬ plies received from these last the statements here presented are based. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. Harry Burns Hutchins, President. Three research assistantships have been established to aid researches of designated professors. University of California, Berkeley, Calif. Benja¬ min Ide Wheeler, President. Research in gen¬ eral maintained by appropriations from the university funds. There is a considerable en¬ dowment for graduate fellowships. Appro¬ priations for scientific publications are made from general funds, in 1916-17, $30,000. California Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Supported by annual gift from Miss Annie M. Alexander, of $7,500. Scripps Institution for Biological Research, lo¬ cated at La Jolla. Wm. E. Ritter, Scientific Director. Supported by annual gift of $10,- 500 from Miss Ellen B. Scripps for which an endowment is pledged, and annual appropria¬ tion of $12,500 from state. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, Mass. Richard C. Maclaurin, President. 230 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1129 Ellen H. Bichards Fund. $16,250. For re¬ search in chemistry. Charlotte B. Bichardson Fund. $33,379. For research in industrial chemistry. Whitney Fund. $26,890. For research in seis¬ mology. Samuel Cabot Fund. $55,190. For equipment in industrial chemistry. For research in sanitary science, the institute has received annually for many years a gift of $5,000-$6,000. For researches in electrical engineering a gift from the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. per annum for a period of five years from 1913, $15,000. The institute makes regularly an appropriation from its general funds for research in phys¬ ical chemistry. Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. A. Law¬ rence Lowell, President. Jefferson Physical Laboratory. Income from Coolidge Fund (1914-15), $2,700. Joseph Lovering Fund for physical research, $7,720. Ernest B. Dane Fund, available in part for research in physics, $50,000. Department of Chemistry. Income from C. M. Warren Fund (1913-14). $334. Gray Herbarium. Bemainder of income from endowment of $300,000 not needed to care for collections is chiefly devoted to furthering re¬ search. Peabody Museum. Peabody Foundation Fund. $45,000. Income used for collection and re¬ search in archeology and ethnology with spe¬ cial reference to the aboriginal American races. Huntington-Frothingham- Wolcott Fund. $20,- 000. Income devoted to archeological and ethnological research and exploration and publication. Henry C. Warren Fund. $10,000. For carrying on exploration. Principal and interest to be used at the discretion of the corporation. Mary Hemenway Fund for Archeology. $45,- 000. Income available for original research in archeology. The following research fellowships are awarded annually in the Peabody Museum. Thaw Fellowship. $1,140 per annum. For “work and research relating to the Indian race of America or other ethnological and archeological investigations. ’ ’ Hemenway Fellowship. $575 per annum. For the study of American archeology and eth¬ nology. Winthrop Scholarship. $275 per annum. For the study of archeology and ethnology. Fellowship in Central American Archeology. $600 per annum. For the study of this sub¬ ject. Harvard Fellowship in the International School of American archeology and ethnology, Mex¬ ico City. $600 per annum. Department of Geology. Shaler Memorial Fund. $30,367. For original research in geology in the broadest sense, including pale¬ ontology, mineralogy, economic geology, etc. The persons nominated for such research are not necessarily officers or students of Harvard University. Secondary Enrichment Fund. $50,000. Sub¬ scribed mainly by American Copper Com¬ panies for investigation regarding secondary enrichment of copper ores in the United States, Alaska and Mexico. Frederick Sheldon Fund for Traveling Fellow¬ ships. $396,157. Applicable to the aid of students of Harvard University in further study or investigation “either in this coun¬ try — outside Harvard University — or abroad. ’ ’ University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa. Carl E. Sea¬ shore, Dean. The University possesses a fund of $16,000, about half of the income from which may be used in emergency for research. University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. C. E. Van Hise, President. Usual appropriation in college of engineering for specific research work $5,000 per annum. Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. Wm. Ar¬ nold Shanklin, President. Crawford Memorial Fund. $5,000. Available for purchase of apparatus and promotion of research in physics. Amos Jay Given Biological Fund. $25,000. Available for maintenance of the department of biology and for the promotion of research in that subject. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn. George E. Vincent, President. Funds for re¬ search and publication, $10,000 annually, divided as exigencies may dictate. McGill University, Montreal, Canada. William Peterson, Principal. Besearch Fellowships in Mining. $10,000. Besearch Fund- in Metallurgy. $7,500. Besearch work chiefly carried on by annual ap¬ propriation. Eutgers College, New Brunswick, N. J. W. H. S. Demarest, President. Agricultural Besearch August 18, 1916] SCIENCE 231 Fellowships of limited duration have been established as follows: Sulphur Research Fellowship in plant pathol¬ ogy. $1,000 per annum for three years; ex¬ pires 1916. Established by the Union Sul¬ phur Co., of N. Y. Pulverized Limestone Research Fellowship. $600 per annum for three years; expires 1917. Established by Thomas A. Edison. Potash Research Fellowship. $1,000 per annum for three years; expires 1917. Established by German Kali Works. Sodium Nitrate Research Fellowship. $700 ap¬ proximately per annum for three years; ex¬ pires 1917. Established by the Nitrate Propa¬ ganda. The Amo-Phos Research Fellowship. $600 per annum for three years; expires 1918. Estab¬ lished by the American Cyanamide Co., Buffalo. The Soy Bean Research Fellowship. $600 per annum for three years; expires 1918. Estab¬ lished by the Murphy Varnish Co., Newark. New Jersey Zinc Company Fellowship. $1,000 per annum for three years; expires 1919. Yale University, New Haven, Conn. Arthur T. Hadley, President. Dana Fund. $24,000 (ultimately). Available for original investigation in geology. Hadley University Fund. $1,030. Available for research in general. Elias Loomis University Fund. $314,000. Available for payment of salaries of astro¬ nomical observers and the cost of reducing and publishing observations. Seessel University Fellowship Fund. $43,500. Available for original research in biological studies. Hepsa Ely Silliman Fund. $85,000. Applicable to a certain extent for scientific research. Sloane University Fund. $50,000. Applicable to the payment of research assistants in the Sloane Laboratory of Physics. Sloane Laboratory Fund. $75,000. Income used for the promotion of research and study in physics. Thomas C. Sloane Fund. $75,000. Available for the study of physics in the Sloane Phys¬ ical Laboratory. Russell H. Chittenden Fund. $4,000. Available for research in physiological chemistry. American Museum of Natural History, New York. Henry F. Osborn, President. Jesup Fund. $1,000,000. To promote research, exploration and publication. Morris K. Jesup Fund. $5,000,000. Bequest for purposes similar to preceding fund. Not yet available. Columbia University, New York, N. Y. Nicholas Murray Butler, President. Adams Fund. $50,000. Available for the sup¬ port of a research fellow in physical science and for the publication of the results of his investigations. Dyekman Fund. $10,000. Available for re¬ search in biology. Peters Fund for Engineering Research. $50,- 000. Available for research in the depart¬ ment of civil engineering. Throop College of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. James A. B. Scherer, President. $10,000 per annum guaranteed for maintenance of a de¬ partment of chemical research. $10,000 given for equipment of same. Princeton University, Princeton, N. J. John G. Hibben, President. Departmental Fund yield¬ ing about $9,000 per annum. Available in part for research. Brown University, Providence, R. I. William H. P. Faunce, President. Research Fellowships have been founded as follows: Grand Army of the Republic Fellowships, $10,- 000. Applicable to advanced liberal study. Arnold Biological Fellowships. $10,000. Ap¬ plicable to biological research. Morgan Edwards Fellowship. $10,000. Ap¬ plicable to original research in any depart¬ ment of knowledge. University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. J. T. Kingsbury, President. Fund for research in School of Mines. $7,500. Also some depart¬ mental funds for research. University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario. Robert Falconer, President. Exhibition of 1857 Scholarship for Scientific Research, awarded biennially £150. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N. Y. Palmer C. Ricketts, Director. Louis E. Laflin Research Fund. $10,000. Appropriations for research also made from general funds. University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill. Edmund J. James, President. Trustees assign amount of general appropriation from legislature which shall be devoted to research. Graduate School appropriation about $60,000 per annum. Clarlc University, Worcester, Mass. G. Stanley Hall, President. Smith-Battles Fund for Psychological Research. $5,000. 232 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1129 It will be obvious from the preceding data that the number of university research funds and especially of permanent endowments is small, and that several of our universities which are distinguished for the amount and the excellence of the scientific papers ema¬ nating from them do not possess such funds, so that by far the greater amount of scientific research which is carried on in this country is sustained by special appropriations. And, fur¬ thermore, much of the research work pursued in institutions possessing research funds is also sustained by such budget and special ap¬ propriations. In many of the replies received by the com¬ mittee attention is called to the fact that while there is no endowment for research yet appro¬ priations sometimes large in amount are reg¬ ularly made for the purpose. The following abstracts of certain of these replies, although lying somewhat outside of the immediate scope of the inquiry made, will be of interest. Ohio State University: several graduate fellow¬ ships established requiring research work. Johns Hopkins University: besides appropriations for research made in budget for each department, in¬ come of various funds is drawn upon for purposes of research. Bowdoin College: maintains a table at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole. University of Chicago: special appropria¬ tions for research made from time to time from the general funds of the university. Field Mu¬ seum of Natural History: appropriations for sur¬ veys, investigation, etc., made from general fund. University of North Dakota: $700 annually from departmental appropriations used for research. Denison University: annual appropriation, $500, made for publication of research work done in the university. Dartmouth College: besides general departmental appropriation in budget, special ap¬ propriations for research are made from time to time. Drexel Institute: pays in part fees for professors engaged in investigation. Cornell Uni¬ versity: besides appropriations in budget, the uni¬ versity sometimes releases a professor from teach¬ ing in order to carry on research. University of Kansas: $8,000 available for fellowships. Mellon Institute of Industrial Research: expenses of re¬ searches met by private subscription. Leland Stan¬ ford Junior University: appropriations for re¬ search made from budget. Pennsylvania State College School of Engineering: expended for re¬ search, 1915-16, $1,549. Rose Polytechnic Insti¬ tute: research work provided for by special ap¬ propriation. University of Arizona: will prob¬ ably receive $5,000 from the state for research in mining. Tufts College : department of biology maintains a room at Harpswell Laboratory. Wel¬ lesley College : occasionally an appropriation is made for research carried on by a professor on leave of absence. University of Manitoba: sum of $1,000 has been collected for research in physiol¬ ogy. Worcester Polytechnic Institute: part of annual appropriation spent for research. The data which the committee has gathered regarding research funds, while fulfilling the ends which it was intended to reach, can not furnish any definite idea of the real amount expended annually in this country in aid of the progress of scientific research. Such informa¬ tion is very desirable, but to obtain it will re¬ quire a much more extended inquiry than the present one. While much care has been exercised in the compilation of the foregoing matter, there will doubtless be found errors both of omission and of statement. The undersigned will be glad to receive corrections of such and to insert them later. Charles R. Cross, Chairman KARL SCHWARZSCHILD The American friends of Professor Schwarz- schild hoped that the report of his death was a mistake, but since its confirmation by private letters from Germany, they have felt a great sense of sorrow and loss, not only to science, but to themselves personally. Schwarzschild made a visit to this country in 1910, attending the meeting of the Astronomical and Astro- physical Society of America at the Harvard College Observatory and the meeting of the Solar Union at Pasadena. This visit gave an opportunity for closer acquaintance which ripened into personal friendship, and increased our admiration for the man as well as for the astronomer. Schwarzschild was born at Prankfort-on-the Main, 1873, October 9. His first astronomical work was done as assistant at the von Kuffner Observatory in Vienna from 1896 to 1899. This work appeared in volume five of the pub- August 18, 1916] SCIENCE 233 lications of the von Kuffner Observatory en¬ titled B, “ Die Bestimmung von Sternhellig- keiten aus Extrafocalen Photographischen Aufnahmen,” C, “ Beitrage zur Photographi¬ schen Photometrie der Gestime.” This was pioneer work in the use of extrafocal images, in that it was brought to a successful outcome and applied to various regions of the sky. The Director de Ball published a very appreciative description of Schwarzschild’s work in the Bulletin Astronomique for 1905. From 1899 to 1901 Schwarzschild was “ privatdocent ” at the University in Munich, and in 1901 was called to the University of Gottingen as director of the observatory and professor of astronomy. He held this position for eight years, which were rich in astronom¬ ical results, both theoretical and practical. The theoretical work appeared in parts 9-11 of the “ Astronomische Mittheilungen der Konig- lichen Sternwarte zu Gottingen.’’ Perhaps the most interesting part relates to the improve¬ ment of the reflecting telescope by a combina¬ tion of curves of the two mirrors which would give a field as flat as the refractor used for the “ Astrographic Chart.” The practical part of the work at Gottingen included an improvement on the method of extra-focal images which had been used at Vienna. This consisted in giving a motion to the plate during the exposure, so that the image (itself in focus) was built up into a square area sufficiently large to be measured as an extra-focal image. This attachment was called the “ Schraffierkassette,” and there re¬ sulted from its use the “ Gottingen Aktino- metrie,” which covered the zone 0° to +20° declination. This appeared as part fourteen of the Gottingen publications, and gave the photographic magnitudes of 3,522 stars, also the visual magnitudes as measured at Potsdam by Muller and Kempf. About this time Schwarzschild suggested the use of the difference between the photographic and the visual magnitudes as a measure of the color of the stars. He suggested the term “ Farbentonung ” (color-index), and gave this quantity for each of the stars in the “ Aktin- ometrie.” He was also one of the first to apply the color-index to the determination of the temperature of the stars. During his stay at Gottingen he also devised instruments for determining geographical posi¬ tions in the navigation of airships. The sex¬ tant as modified for this purpose was described in “ Zeitsclirift fur Flugtechnik und Motor- luftschiffahrt,” 1913. Schwarzschild was called to succeed Vogel as director of the Astrophysical Observatory at Potsdam in 1909. He brought to this trying position a talent exceptionally ripened for a man only thirty-six years of age, and he filled the position with distinguished success. Dur¬ ing his term the astrophysical work at Pots¬ dam was carried forward in a way worthy of its first director and his brilliant staff, and the list of publications bears witness not only to the work of the different astronomers, but also to Schwarzschild’s ability as a director. Among Schwarzschild’s theoretical contribu¬ tions during this period may be mentioned his work on the distribution of stars in space. The remarkable range included in Schwarz¬ schild’s work, from the improvement in the sextant to the distribution of stars in space, showed that he combined theoretical and prac¬ tical ability in an unusual degree, thus fitting him especially for the directorship of a great astrophysical observatory. Schwarzschild’s personality was especially pleasing. He was lacking entirely in that stiff formality which renders so many men in high positions unapproachable. He had a great capacity for friendships, and his admiration for Dyson, the English Astronomer Royal, was very pronounced. What could be finer than the simple statement which he made in regard to Dyson, “We nearly always think alike.” Schwarzschild’s disposition was not in the least jealous. As an example of this may be men¬ tioned his suggestion to the International Committee, that the magnitudes of the Har¬ vard System should be taken as the interna¬ tional standards, and that the other systems should be reduced to this by the application of suitable corrections. Schwarzschild was happy in his domestic re¬ lations and his home was always open to his 234 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1129 friends without any formality. It will be ex¬ tremely difficult to fill his place and the sense of loss on account of his early death will be very widespread. J. A. Parkhurst Yerkes Observatory REPORT ON INFANTILE PARALYSIS The conference committee of pathologists which met in New York City on the invitation of the city authorities has made the following report to Dr. Haven Emerson, commissioner of health. Having been called to New York at your suggestion, and for the purpose of consulting with you concerning the practical measures employed in dealing with the present epidemic of poliomyelitis, we offer the following state¬ ment. We have spent two days in studying the situ¬ ation and investigating prevailing conditions. On Thursday morning we went over with you the history of the origin and spread of the epidemic of this year. We made a careful study of your maps and diagrams showing the number and distribution of cases in the dif¬ ferent boroughs of the city. This was followed by a discussion of the methods that have been employed, both here and elsewhere, in attempts to control the spread of the disease. In the afternoon of the same day we visited Willard Parker Hospital and made a careful inspection of the treatment and care given by the city to the children afflicted with this dis¬ ease. Thursday evening we had a discussion con¬ cerning the methods being employed and the possibility of making these more efficient. On Friday morning we visited cases quaran¬ tined in their own homes, and in this way were able to compare the hospital care with the home care of the sick. We also made a survey of certain crowded infected districts, and, with a diagnostician, we visited certain homes in which cases have been recently reported. Friday afternoon we gave to a more formal discussion and the suggestion of definite rec¬ ommendations. We have given special attention to the meth¬ ods now employed by you and your depart¬ ment, and we approve of the measures you have taken. The weight of opinion favors the view that infantile paralysis is mainly spread through personal contact, and measures have been di¬ rected chiefly from this point of view. Cog¬ nizance, however, has been given to additional methods of transmission, among which is the bite of insects. For sanitary purposes it is proper to consider that this disease is trans¬ missible directly from the sick to susceptible persons, or indirectly from the sick through carriers. Even with our incomplete knowledge of the dissemination of the disease, it is evident that, in seeking to abate the epidemic, stress must be especially laid upon two things, as is now being done: 1. The early recognition and notification of the disease, and 2. The immediate isolation of patients and cases of suspicious illness. Furthermore, on account of incomplete knowledge concerning the disease, measures known to be effective in checking the spread of other infections should be applied and these are, particularly, personal hygiene, cleanliness of person and surroundings, and care of food, which should be thoroughly cooked. In order to secure the earliest possible recog¬ nition and notification of cases and their prompt isolation, we wish to direct particu¬ lar attention to the appeals that have been made by the department to the physicians of the city and to the public generally that they cooperate with the department in all these measures. We strongly recommend that you inaugu¬ rate a house-to-house inspection of as large a part of the city as is practicable, twice a week, for the purpose of education and of securing the early recognition, notification and isola¬ tion of the disease. We are of the opinion that satisfactory iso¬ lation is secured- only in hospitals. Moreover, not only is more thorough protection secured for the public by the hospitalization of pa¬ tients, but it is also better for the individual patient. August 18, 1916] SCIENCE 235 There is still much to be learned concerning the period of incubation, accurate methods of early diagnosis in non-paralytic cases, modes of transmission and the length of time persons continue to carry the infection, and, in view of these factors, a scientifically adequate method of control is impossible at the present time. The committee recommends the closest co¬ operation possible among the different labora¬ tories and investigators that may enter upon investigation of problems connected with epi¬ demic poliomyelitis. The committee would suggest the following problems as especially desirable for investiga¬ tion at this time. 1. Methods of culture of the virus of polio¬ myelitis, with especial reference to corrobora¬ tion of previous work, to simplification of methods, and to the distribution of the virus in the body of patients. 2. The immunologic reactions of patients, supposed carriers of the virus, and others. 3. The virulence for animals, of the crude virus, in order to determine if possible whether there are any differences in the virus causing outbreaks in different parts of the country as well as to discover, perchance, more susceptible animals for experimental purposes than are now available. 4. The microscopic study of the secretions of the nose and throat and of the intestinal contents of patients suffering from poliomye¬ litis, persons who have come in close contact with such patients, and others. 5. The transmission of the disease by insects and domestic animals and other possible modes of transmission. 6. The study of practical methods of disin¬ fection. SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS Dr. William H. Welch sailed from New York on August 6 for England to make studies in connection with the organization of the school of hygiene and public health estab¬ lished by the Rockefeller Eoundation at the Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Welch will also study, as president of the National Aca¬ demy of Sciences, the manner in which Eng¬ land has been organized in scientific lines for the war. He is accompanied by Dr. George Ellery Hale, chairman of the committee of the academy on scientific organization. The Cartwright Lectures for 1916 of the As¬ sociation of the Alumni of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia Uni¬ versity, will be given by Dr. Richard M. Pearce, professor of research medicine, Uni¬ versity of Pennsylvania, on October 24 and 25. Professor Pearce’s subject will be : “ The Spleen in its relation to blood destruction and regeneration.” Dr. J. Howard Beard, Urbana, has been ap¬ pointed health officer of the University of Illinois. Dr. Gustavus Mann, until last year pro¬ fessor of physiology in Tulane University, has been appointed consulting chemist for the Freeport Oil Company of Texas. Dr. Donald B. Armstrong has resigned as director of the department of social welfare of the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, to become assistant secretary and director of the community tuber¬ culosis experiment of the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis. Dr. Herbert J. Spinden, of the American Museum of Natural History, has been given charge of the archeological survey of Porto Rico undertaken by the New York Academy of Sciences, and has been in the field. In the early part of the season he visited Venezuela for a preliminary archeological recon¬ naissance. Professor A. L. Kroeber, of the University of California, has returned to Zuni for further investigation of their social and ceremonial organization. Dr. James J. Mills, instructor of ophthal¬ mology at the Johns Hopkins Medical School, has sailed for France, where at Biarritz he will assist in the treatment of injuries to the eyes of the soldiers. The Antarctic relief ship Discovery, which has been placed at the disposal of the British Admiralty for use in the effort to rescue the 236 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1129 marooned men of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ex¬ pedition on Elephant Island, sailed from Plymouth Sound on August 10, for Port Stanley, Falkland Islands. Sir Ernest will embark at that poi’t in another effort to reach Elephant Island. M. Henry Nocq has been commissioned to prepare a portrait plaque of the French arche¬ ologist and anthropologist, M. Joseph Deche- lette, who has been killed in the war. Sub¬ scriptions may be sent to M. le Comte O. Costa de Beauregard, Sainte-Eoy, par Longue- ville ( Seine-Inf erieure). Those sending a subscription of 10 francs are entitled to a replica of the plaque in bronze, those giving 50 francs to one in silver. Dr. John Benjamin Murphy, the distin¬ guished surgeon, professor of surgery in Northwestern University, died on August 11, aged fifty-nine years. Dr. Bushell Anningson, lecturer in mod- ical jurisprudence in the University of Cam¬ bridge since 1884, has died at the age of sev¬ enty-eight years. Edgar Albert Smith, an authority on con- chology, from 1867 to his retirement in 1913 on the scientific staff of the British Museum, died on July 22, aged sixty-nine years. The death is announced of Dr. R. C. Del¬ gado, of Havana, member of the Cuban Board of Health and secretary of the Havana Aca¬ demy of Sciences. The Swedish government has decided to postpone until July 1, 1917, the distribution of the Nobel prizes in physics, chemistry, medi¬ cine and literature. The Paris Academy of Medicine, following the precedents of 1914 and 1915, has decided not to suspend its sittings this year. It will continue to meet during the months of Au¬ gust and September for the discussion of ques¬ tions relating to public health and national defence. Mr. Richard T. Crane, in a telegram to Mayor Mitchel, of New York, announces a gift of $25,000 to the individual who may offer the best cure for infantile paralysis, or the best solution to that problem, within a year. The Senate Public Health Committee, on July 28, voted to report favorably a proposed appropriation of $2,000,000 to be spent in the care of indigent sufferers from tuberculosis. The object of the appropriation is to relieve the states of the care of invalids who leave their homes in search of health and then be¬ come charges on other communities. The United States Public Health Service has inaugurated a campaign for the relief of sufferers from hay-fever. The service will en¬ deavor to have state legislatures enact laws to provide means for fighting weeds which are known to provoke the disease. It is said that 2 per cent, of the people of the United States are sufferers from hay-fever. Nature quotes from the June number of the Bui. Imp. Acad. Sci ., Petrograd, the statement of plans to establish a biological station on Lake Baikal. The largest of the fresh-water lakes of Europe and Asia, and said to be the deepest in the world, it possesses a fauna in many respects unique. Some of its fishes are found nowhere else, and some live at a greater depth than any other fresh-water fishes. Among them are very ancient forms, and, ac¬ cording to some investigators, vestiges of the Upper Tertiary and subtropical fauna of Si¬ beria and, possibly, of central Asia. Though Lake Baikal has long since attracted the at¬ tention of Russian zoologists, much remains to be done, and it is felt that private research, valuable as its achievements have been, should be supplemented by a fully equipped biological station, which alone can cope with the prob¬ lems involved in a thorough and systematic in¬ vestigation. The subject has been mooted for some time past in Russian scientific circles and is now brought within measurable distance of realization by a donation of £1,600 received from a Siberian gentleman, Mr. A. Vtorov, and the academy has appointed a commission to take immediate steps to give concrete form to a project destined to be of great importance for biological science. August 18, 1916] SCIENCE 237 Preliminary steps have been taken by the War Department toward the formation of a Reserve Corps of Engineers for the army, as provided by the National Defense Act of June 3 last. By direction of the chief of engineers letters were sent to-day by Lieutenant Colonel E. Eveleth Winslow, of the Army Engineer Corps, to all the district engineer officers of the army throughout the country, paving the way for the creation of these new reserve corps, which will he composed of officers to be commissioned from among the engineers of the country and of an enlisted reserve corps of engineers. The plan for the formation of the new Reserve Corps is set forth in Lieuten¬ ant Colonel Winslow’s letter as follows: “The importance of engineers in time of war is now universally recognized, and during the past few months steps have been taken to arouse the interest of the engineering profession in the national defense. Congress has now pro¬ vided a means by which the civil engineers can more fully prepare themselves for that highest duty of citizens — the defense of our country. An engineer section of officers and enlisted reserve corps has been authorized, and in the opinion of the chief of engineers there is for the officers of the Corps of Engineers no more important duty than their active assist¬ ance in making a success of the new corps. All the engineers in the country should be in¬ formed of the existence of this new corps and those possessing the necessary qualifications should be enrolled as its members. A close co¬ operation between our engineer officers and the civilian engineers is therefore necessary, and fortunately the first steps in such cooperation have been already taken by the action of some of the most important of the engineering so¬ cieties in indorsing the campaign for pre¬ paredness and in urging upon Congress the passage of the Officers’ Reserve Corps law. The Senate Committee on Public Health and National Quarantine has reported favor¬ ably the bill to promote the efficiency of the United States Public Health Service. The bill has already passed the House of Repre¬ sentatives. The bill limits, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association, the appointment of the surgeon-general of the Public Health Service to commissioned officers in the service, not lower in grade than sur¬ geon, and require that the surgeon-general at the expiration of his four-year term of office be carried as an extra number in the grade of assistant surgeon-general, unless he be reap¬ pointed. As an inducement to physicians to enter the service, the bill provides for the pro¬ motion of assistant surgeons to the next higher grade after three years’ service, instead of after four years as at present. The chiefs of the bureaus of zoology, pharmacology and chemistry in the hygienic laboratory, are to be commissioned by the president, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, as pro¬ fessors of zoology, pharmacology and chemis¬ try, respectively, and are to be entitled to leaves of absence as now provided by law for commissioned medical officers. Provision is made for the appointment of five additional professors, qualified for special work in sani¬ tary engineering, epidemiology, pathology, anatomy, bacteriology, housing, or other mat¬ ters that relate to the propagation and spread of disease. Men of this class, the committee’s report says, often do not have medical degrees, and under the present system of commissioned service only doctors of medicine are provided for; and the bill will remove this defect and make places for men who are specially trained in these highly technical fields, but who are not graduates in medicine. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS Lafayette College is the residuary legatee of Albert N. Seip, of Washington, D. C., a member of the class of 1862. It is said that the college will ultimately receive not less than $250,000. Dr. Robert Bennett Bean, now professor of gross anatomy at Tulane University, has been appointed professor of anatomy at the University of Virginia, to take charge of the courses in gross anatomy and neurology formerly given by the late Dr. Richard H. Whitehead. 238 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1129 Dr. R. M. Strong has resigned the chair of anatomy at the University of Mississippi to accept the position of associate professor of anatomy in the medical school of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. The following appointments to the faculty of the University and Bellevue Hospital Medi¬ cal College have been announced: Dr. William C. Lusk, professor of surgery; Dr. Joseph B. Bissell, Dr. Thomas A. Smith, and Dr. Arthur M. Wright, clinical professors of surgery; Dr. W. Howard Barber, chief of clinic, depart¬ ment of surgery; Dr. George Francis Cahill, instructor in surgery; Dr. Theodore J. Abbott, clinical professor of medicine; Dr. Benjamin M. Levine, clinical professor of cancer re¬ search; Dr. Charles Krumwiede, Jr., assistant professor of bacteriology and hygiene; Miss Mary Smeeton, instructor in bacteriology. Promotions in the philosophical and engi¬ neering faculties of the Johns Hopkins Uni¬ versity has been made as follows : Knight Dunlap, professor of experimental psychology; Joseph C. W. Frazer, professor of analytical chemistry; E. Emmet Reid, professor of or¬ ganic chemistry; Grandville R. Jones, as¬ sociate professor of civil engineering; Paul B. Davis, associate in chemistry; William B. Kouwenhoven, associate in electrical engi¬ neering. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE CULTURE MEDIA FOR PARAMECIA AND EUGLENA A communication to this journal by J. B. Parker, entitled “ A Method of Maintaining a Supply of Protozoa for Laboratory Use,”1 brought to my mind a culture medium which I used at the University of Chicago for a few years and found thoroughly reliable. The method was given to me by one of my assist¬ ants at the time, Mr. John G. Sinclair, who according to my recollection had obtained it from Dr. A. W. Peters, of the University of Illinois. Enough wheat to make about one half gram per liter of the culture solution is boiled in a i Science, November 19, 1915, p. 727. small quantity of water for a few minutes. (The original method as given to me called for cracked wheat, but I obtained good results with whole wheat.) The boiled wheat is then placed in tap water in the ratio indicated above, and the solution is inoculated either from some culture of paramecia already on hand or with pond water. In most cases, I used water taken from the immediate vicinity of submerged pond vegetation. It was my custom to use large battery jars for the culture media, which were placed with glass covers on a table in the room where the paramecia were to be used. In the course of a week or so, depending upon the room temperature, I was always able to obtain an abundance of large paramecia. A method for Euglena was also given to me, but I never used it, having no occasion to need this protozoan. I presume the method is equally good. One half gram of rice per liter of culture solution is washed thoroughly and drained. The washed rice is then boiled for about five minutes and put into tap water. After inoculation, the solution is placed where it may obtain direct sunlight. The directions also state that it is advisable to add about one fourth gram of boiled grain (rice or wheat according to the culture) per liter of the medium, every three weeks and also just before use by a class begins. Fur¬ thermore, it is desirable to stir the solution every few days for an oxygen supply. R. M. Strong SEVERE RESTRICTIONS TO NORMAL GEO¬ GRAPHIC CYCLE The formulation of the conception that there is a distinct cycle of corrasive develop¬ ment through which all land-forms must pass is now generally recognized to be one of the first half-dozen brilliant achievements in geo¬ logic science of the century just closed. Like many broad generalizations, this one is, upon critical submission to quantitative measure¬ ment, found to .be too sweeping in its char¬ acter. Close inspection soon discovers that there are grave complications in the normal scheme. Already the latter has to be espe¬ cially adapted to -fit, on the one hand, condi- August 18, 1916] SCIENCE 239 tions of glacial climate, and, on the other hand, conditions of arid climate. Limitations to the normal geographic cycle are even more severe than these bare state¬ ments intimate. If the United States, for in¬ stance, be divided into three north and south belts of subequal size one of the divisional lines coincides with the course of the Missis¬ sippi Eiver ; and the other with the line of the Rocky Mountain front. The belts are each approximately one thousand miles in width. In the easternmost of these belts the forces of normal landscape sculpturing are most active. The rivers at the present time are wearing down the mountains and hills towards base-level about as rapidly as is done any¬ where else on the face of the globe, and about as fast as it is ever done. In the central belt, the tract lying between the Great River and the Rocky cordillera, the streams traversing the region are far from doing normal corrasive work or of producing net results. Between the Canadian and Mexi¬ can boundaries, a distance of more than 2,000 miles, only five streams leave the Rocky Moun¬ tain front, and four of these are quite incon¬ siderable. They can have relatively little influ¬ ence in the effort to base-level so vast a region as the Great Plains. Dust and sands from western deserts are constantly exported to this region. In fact, lying on the leeward side of the arid lands the Great Plains country is a chief area of wind-laid depositions. The con¬ tinental deposits over much of the region are more than 1,000 feet thick, a fact amply attest¬ ing the prodigious extent and the unusual rapidity of their formation. This circum¬ stance alone explains the excessively slow rate of continental denudation which the recent government stream-measurements of the Mis¬ sissippi River give. The normal geographic cycle does not obtain in this region. In the westernmost belt the general lower¬ ing and leveling effects of rivers are inappre¬ ciable. Water-work is reduced to its lowest terms. Wind is the mastering erosive agency. The geographic cycle has for its dominant ele¬ ment wind-scour instead of stream-corrasion. The idea has a still broader bearing. It has world-wide application. According to the late Sir John Murray more than one fifth of the entire land surface of the globe is desert. An¬ other one fifth and more is little affected by normal river corrasion. Still another one fifth of the land surface is, or at least was until very recent geologic times, as truly desert as is the Sahara to-day. Of all the world’s land area, therefore, fully two thirds are not subject to normal stream-work ; and the normal geo¬ graphic cycle is without verity. Charles Keyes UGO SCHIFF In Science, June 30, 1916, page 922, Pro¬ fessor Wm. McPherson, in his obituary notice of Ugo Schiff, says : This recalls the fact also that Professor Baey- er’s laboratory at Munich did not include any lab¬ oratory devoted to physical chemistry until 1913, when a small room was fitted up for this work. Professor McPherson is mistaken. During a number of years before and after * 1887, Kriiss gave, in Baeyer’s laboratory, courses of lectures and laboratory work in physical chem¬ istry. The complete courses ran through sev¬ eral semesters and the experimental exercises were given in a room specially fitted. They included density determinations of solids, liquids and gases, by various methods, cryo- scopic molecular weights, spectroscopic work (emission and absorption), optical rotation, etc. Probably no better courses were given anywhere, at that time, outside Ostwald’s laboratory. It may well be that Kriiss’s pre¬ mature death caused the courses to be dis¬ continued. J. Bishop Tingle McMaster University, Toronto, Canada. SCIENTIFIC BOOKS The Origin of the Earth. By Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin, head of the Depart¬ ment of Geology, The University of Chicago. The University of Chicago Press, 1916. Pp. x + 271. (The University of Chicago Science Series.) This book, by the distinguished author of the planetesimal hypothesis, is one which has 240 SCIENCE [N. S. VOL. XLIY. No. 1129 long been desired by geologists as well as other scientists. The method of treatment conforms to that followed by the University of Chicago Science Series. This requires that the sub¬ ject shall be presented “ in as summary a man¬ ner and with as little technical detail as is consistent with sound method. These volumes will be written not only for the specialist, but for the educated layman.” The previous publications on the planetesi- mal hypothesis and its relations to the origin of the earth are found in articles chiefly by Chamberlin in the Journal of Geology, chiefly by Moulton in the Astro-Physical Journal and by various collaborators, mostly in publi¬ cations of the Carnegie Institution; but only the specialist has pursued all of this more or less technical literature to its lairs. In addi¬ tion, Moulton has given some account of the astronomic aspects of the hypothesis in his text-book of astronomy and Chamberlin and Salisbury in 1906 have given considerable space to the subject in their “ Geology,” espe¬ cially the first eighty pages of Volume II. These are works which are not readily access¬ ible to the educated layman. Furthermore, the present volume by going straight to its end and omitting technicalities brings the essen¬ tial framework of the hypothesis into better relief and perspective than is the case in Chamberlin and Salisbury’s “ Geology.” Pub¬ lished ten years after the latter, it furthermore takes advantage of the research of a later decade. There is added also an essentially new chapter on “ The Juvenile Shaping of the Earth.” The form of presentation is very readable and attractive. It follows largely the intellec¬ tual trail which led the author, as he says, a specialist in glacial geology, “ across the pass that leads from the land of rocks into the realm of cosmogonic bogs and fens. Its mists were already gathering over the path ahead. Strangely enough, the cold trail of the ice invasion had led by this long and devious path into the nebulous field of genesis.” All older views of the origin of the earth had grown up around the idea that the matter which constitutes the planets was a residuum left from the primal gathering in of the solar nebula. This process had been given concrete form in the nebular hypothesis of Laplace. But an examination of the stubborn facts ex¬ pressed in the structure and motions of the solar system brought out dynamical inconsis¬ tencies with the terms of the nebular hypoth¬ esis. Modified forms of that hypothesis could not overcome the objections. Therefore Cham¬ berlin was led to build up an hypothesis of earth origin from a totally different beginning. He postulated an ancestral sun already condensed and sought to derive the planetary matter and planetary energies of motion from the expul¬ sive forces set up by the close approach and passage of another star. The result was the development of a great swarm of larger and smaller particles revolving independently but nearly in one plane in elliptic orbits about the sun. This is the basal foundation of the planetesimal hypothesis. In these respects it is in direct opposition to the Laplacian hypoth¬ esis and in considerable opposition to the meteoritic modifications from that hypothesis. The subject is vast and the evidence on many aspects is somewhat vague. A variety of subhypotheses could be raised for compari¬ son with those which are linked together by the author to make a consistent whole. This would lead so far afield, however, that this re¬ view will be held rather closely to a presenta¬ tion of the vital points in each chapter, thus placing stress on a summary of the arguments of the ten chapters rather than on an analysis of their bases upon which they rest. The first chapter is on the Gaseous Theory of Earth-Genesis in the Light of the Kinetic Theory of Gases. The spheroids of gravita¬ tional control of the planets are considered, the minimum radius of the earth’s being about 1,000,000 kilometers. The relation of the mass of the planet to its power to retain an atmos¬ phere is the next thesis. Beyond that zone of atmosphere which is dense enough to obey the kinetic law of gases, but within the outer limits of the spheroid of control, must lie an ultra¬ atmosphere divided into two zones. The lower of these is characterized by fairly free mole¬ cules driven upward from below by the impacts August 18, 1916] SCIENCE 241 of other molecules and curving back again under the pull of the earth’s gravitation into the denser atmosphere. The action is like that of particles of water splashing back in a foun¬ tain or like the spray from an effervescing liquid. This attenuated zone in which the molecules describe appreciably curved paths between molecular collisions is named the Krenal atmosphere. Beyond it, but still within the spheroid of control, must lie a zone which has come to be inhabited by molecules moving in elliptic orbits in every direction about the earth and moving with considerable freedom from impact. This Chamberlin names the orbital atmosphere. He shows how the several atmospheres are related, giving and taking molecules, and how the orbital atmosphere of the earth merges into the orbital atmosphere of the sun. Following this constructive argu¬ ment is a destructive argument, showing how the Laplacian hypothesis fails to meet the re¬ quirements of the nature of gases. This is an illuminating chapter. It shows how, in sweeping up the planetesimal matter, immediate and direct impact with the body of the earth was not necessary. It will be found suggestive also in relation to the later history of the atmosphere. The moon lies far within the zone of the orbital atmosphere and gases given off by the moon during its history would thus be added to the earth rather than diffused into the outer space of the solar orbital atmos¬ phere. As an agent for supplying CO, to the earth’s atmosphere during times of quiescence of terrestrial igneous activity this may pos¬ sibly be a factor not to be wholly ignored, though always small. Chapter II. is on Vestiges of Cosmogonic States and Their Significance. In the struc¬ ture of the solar system and in the nature of the earth is an autobiography of genesis. These are the material records, but equally if not more important, Chamberlin points out, are the dynamic records. In rotations, revolu¬ tions, and other relations are found automatic vestiges of creation; difficult to interpret, per¬ haps, but rigorously definite if we but under¬ stood their evidence. The dynamic vestiges in the sun are found first, in the inclination of its plane of rotation to the mean plane of the planetary orbits; second, in the enormous pre¬ ponderance of mass in the sun, the enormous preponderance of moment of momentum in the planets. Chapter III. is entitled The Decisive Testi¬ mony of Certain Vestiges of the Solar System. By these vestiges the Laplacian hypothesis is tested and found wanting. The less specific hypotheses, including that of Kant, hardly lend themselves to rigorous testing and there¬ fore can not be regarded as working hypotheses. The following chapter is given the name of Futile Efforts. It records the results of in¬ quiries by the author along other lines than those of the Laplacian hypothesis. These other lines were found also to lead to unsatisfactory results, but they pointed the way to the general direction in which a successful hypothesis must probably lie. Especially they pointed to spiral nebulae as dynamically more promising forms. Chapter V. is entitled The Forbidden Field. The direct rotation of the planets about their axes had been thought to forbid any hypoth¬ esis which sought to integrate the planets from particles scattered in a zone and in free orbital motion about the sun. This is shown to be true however, as demonstrated by Moulton, for a system of circular orbits only. For elliptical orbits the distribution of matter in the region of growth may readily be such that the con¬ centration into a nucleus would engender a direct rotation. This field of hypothesis is therefore no longer forbidden. But how shall be produced such a primal state as that postulated in a slowly revolving central sun with but little moment of momen¬ tum surrounded by a small amount of orbital matter revolving nearly in a plane, dispersed over wide limits, and possessing a relatively enormous moment of momentum? This prob¬ lem is taken up in Chapter VT., entitled Dy¬ namic Encounter by Close Approach. The volume of a star represents a balance between expansional and condensational forces acting on a vast body of gaseous nature. On the approach of two stars their mutual gravitation would produce tidal forces diminishing their 242 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1129 self gravitative power along the line between the centers and give the expansive forces op¬ portunity to rise to explosive violence along that line. This tidal force is actually greatest at the centers and would lead to a very deep- seated disruption. The gas bolts shot out would, owing to viscous resistances, be pulsa¬ tory, and separated nuclei would therefore be expelled. These nuclei and the associated dis¬ persed matter would, on the nearer side, be dragged sideways after the passing star. On the reverse side the symmetrical tidal protru¬ sions would be left behind, the sun being dragged more than they. The result would be a spiral nebula, a form which would meet the dynamic demands of the existing solar system. In comment upon this chapter, it should be noted, however, that the innumerable spiral nebulae of the heavens, although good illustra¬ tions of the initial form of the solar system, do not appear to be stages in a similar evolu¬ tion. They are of a much greater order of magnitude, they avoid the region where the stars are clustered, are at remote stellar dis¬ tances, and by their very number show a notable duration of their form. On the other hand, the postulated originally spiral form of the solar nebula would have been evanescent. Within a century from the time of origin all except the outer nuclei would have completed many revolutions about the sun. But the different periodic times of the nuclei would in a few revolutions have caused to disappear the initial spiral form. It would become wound up and further blended together owing to the high ellipticities of the constituent orbits. Having attained this initial state, Chapter -VII. deals with the Evolution of the Solar System into the Planetary System. The build¬ ing up of the planets is believed to have fol¬ lowed three stages: first, the direct condensa¬ tion of the nuclear knots of the spirals into liquid or solid cores; second, the less direct collection of the outer, or orbital and satelli- tesimal matter; third, the still slower gather¬ ing up of the planetesimal material scattered over the zone between adjacent planets. This third factor in Chamberlin’s view is regarded as very important and he believes this diffused matter contributed much of the earth sub¬ stance, very slowly and in a dust-like form. This is one of the critical points in the details of the theory, unessential to the larger frame¬ work, but upon which turns much of the development of the following argument. In earth-growth the denser planetesimal dust, Chamberlin argues, tended to be somewhat segregated into the primitive ocean basins and served to maintain in them, as the earth was built outward, a greater density than in the elevated zones between. It seems a debatable question to the reviewer if such a large pro¬ portion of the added material was necessarily dust -like and capable of being distributed by the primitive atmosphere and ocean. Upon the mean size of the incorporated units vari¬ ous subhypotheses of consequences may be built up. In the absence of knowledge Cham¬ berlin’s view may be accepted as the most prob¬ able, but the problem illustrates the fertile branching which is possible upon the trunk of the planetesimal hypothesis. Chapter VTII., entitled The Juvenile Shap¬ ing of the Earth, occupies sixty-eight pages, more than twice the average length of the chapters. The earth is conceived as beginning to hold an ocean by the time it contained 30 or 40 per cent, of its present mass. From that time atmosphere and hydrosphere transported, sorted and deposited the planetesimal dust, building up the lighter material into protu¬ berant areas, which became the continental platforms. Great importance is attached under the shaping agencies to periodical changes in the rate of rotation. Accompanying a stage of internal condensation, a corresponding speeding up of the rotation would occur and a relative subsidence of the polar areas. Sur¬ face compression in high latitudes, surface tension in the torrid zone, would accompany such an increased oblateness of form. The slow accumulation of planetesimals between stages of condensation would, on the other hand, it is thought, produce a checking of rotational veloc¬ ity and the converse effects in earth-form and in earth-strains. With growth there was thus a rhythmic oscillation in strain. At times when the polar areas were in tension it is August 18, 1916] SCIENCE 243 argued that a cracking would occur, giving three yield zones which tended to be at angles of 120 degrees to each other. These radiated from the poles after the analogy of the hexa¬ gonal columnar jointing of basaltic columns due to shrinkage in cooling. These yield zones in vertical meridional planes, it is argued, would, again after the analogy of the basaltic columns, be the elevated zones and determine the larger outlines of the initial continents. There would result six great oceanic basins, counting the Mediterranean as one. These oceanic basins are conceived to be the some¬ what circular bases of cones of slightly heavier material built up during earth-growth and having their apices deep in the centrosphere. By periodic settling of these heavier master segments the continental yield tracts between are squeezed up and made more protuberant. This hypothesis of juvenile shaping is of course, like the other steps in the development of the planetesimal hypothesis, dependent upon the basal postulates. It is not clear that earth- strains due to the causes invoked could initiate such a primary segmentation, in fact calcula¬ tions on the stresses which the reviewer has made to test this sub-hypothesis pointed to quite a different method of yielding. The dis¬ tribution of continents and oceans does not accord very closely with it, and the evidence of isostasy does not indicate that the density differences between continents and ocean basins reach below the outer fiftieth of the earth’s radius. This hypothesis of juvenile shaping should therefore be accepted with much re¬ serve and does not appear to be as well sup¬ ported as are the conclusions of the previous chapters. Chapter IX. is on The Inner Reorganization of the Juvenile Earth. The particles of radio¬ active matter would tend toward local heating and fusion. Thus they would be progressively concentrated into the outer shell of the earth by the rising of igneous matter. Pulsatory stresses from body tides and from shrinkage are regarded as the chief agents leading fused matter outward and serving to maintain the earth’s body in solid form. Chapter X. is on Higher Organization in the Great Contact Horizons. This is a dis¬ cussion of the conditions which it is thought favored the rise of life on the surface of the globe. The most favorable environment for this great step in protoplasmic synthesis is regarded as being in the soil layer of the land, the contact horizon of earth, water, air and sunlight. The conditions of planetesimal in¬ fall and of the lack of devouring cells would have especially favored the process during the later growth stages of the earth. Having given this summary of the volume, some statements may be made in regard to it as a whole. It must impress every reader as a notable constructive addition to thought upon this fundamental subject. Chamberlin follows his postulates to their logical conclusion, even though this must involve the building of hy¬ pothesis upon hypothesis. He wisely con¬ siders this preferable to no attempt in the direction of complete solution. But the limits of the book and the nature of the Science Series to which it conforms preclude him from following that method of multiple working hy¬ potheses which he had elsewhere used and the necessity for which he has urged in an article which every scientist should read.1 This method is especially desirable where there are alternative postulates which have not been disproved. Ho one realizes more strongly than Chamberlin, however, the preliminary and tentative nature of many of his conclusions, owing to the nature of his postulates.2 Because of the submergence of the method of multiple working hypotheses, however, the lay reader and even those geologists who do not go into the literature behind the volume will be apt to obtain too narrow and rigid a conception of the limits of the planetesimal hypothesis. Each section seems so convincing upon a first reading that it 'may appear as if future work must be built as added stories or as finishings to the present structure; whereas the lower stories appear in fact so broad and 1 ‘ ‘ Studies for Students. The Method of Mul¬ tiple Working Hypothesis. ’ ’ Jour. Geol., V., 837- 848 (1897). 2 See especially pp. 171 and 223 for his com¬ ments. 244 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1129 well founded that there is room for alternative superstructures beside that which Chamberlin here presents. The previous paragraph has dealt with alter¬ native possibilities; on page 178, however, an erroneous diagram of stress-differences due to the weight of second harmonic inequalities is taken from G. H. Darwin. The original paper was published in 1882. About a year later Charles Chree pointed out an error in Darwin’s procedure which led Darwin to publish a cor¬ rection in 1885. The correct solution is given in Darwin’s Scientific Papers, Yol. II., pp. 459-481, 1908. The erroneous diagram indi¬ cates a tidal force eight times greater at the center than at the surface. A corrected dia¬ gram would show the tidal stress at the poles, on the equator, and at the center in the ratio of one to three and eight. On the equatorial surface the stress due to either tides or to lack of adjustment between oblateness and rotation period is therefore not one eighth but is in reality three eighths of the amount at the center. The maximum stress-difference at the equator is, however, not in a vertical but is in the horizontal plane. There is doubt if tidal stresses could ever have been an effective agent in kneading liquid matter out of the earth’s body, since the forces are relatively small and the pressure gradient due to that cause is very much smaller still. On the other hand, if the moon were much nearer the earth in primor¬ dial times the tidal stresses may have risen to an important magnitude. But in closing we must not look at this or that detail, nor at this or that chapter. To gain a proper appreciation of the value of the investigations which are condensed in this volume we must compare the present state of thought upon the general subject with that of twenty years ago, before Chamberlin had begun to publish upon the hypotheses of earth genesis. Measured by that perspective this volume is seen to represent an advance in thought on this subject so great that the names of Chamberlin and Moulton must rank high among those scientists who have dealt con¬ structively with that vast, vague and remote problem — the Origin of the Earth. The sub¬ ject of earth genesis is now fairly on the road to scientific investigation in place of philo¬ sophic speculation. Joseph Barrell PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES The seventh number of volume 2 of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sci¬ ences contains the following articles: 1. On the Mobilities of Gas Ions in High Electric Fields: Leonard B. Loeb, Ryerson Physical Laboratory, University of Chicago. The results, though at variance with those of most observers at low pressures for negative ions, are in good agreement with recent re¬ sults of Wellisch, and likewise lead to the conclusion that the “ cluster ” theory is no longer tenable. 2. The Relation of Myelin to the Loss of Water in the Mammalian Nervous System with Advancing Age: Henry H. Donaldson, Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, Philadelphia. There is no evidence that the cell bodies and their unsheathed axons suffer any signifi¬ cant loss of water; the progressive diminution in the water content of the brain and spinal cord is mainly due to the accumulation of myelin, the formation of which is a function of age, the most active production occurring during the first twentieth of the life span. 3. Differential Mitoses in the Germ-Cell Cycle of Dineutes nigrior: R. W. Hegner and C. P. Russell, Zoological Laboratory, Univer¬ sity of Michigan. The most conspicuous difference that we have discovered between the origin of the oocyte in Dineutes nigrior and in Dytiscus is in the number of differential mitoses ; in Dineutes nigrior there are only three whereas in Dytis¬ cus there are four. 4. Some Minerals from the Fluorite-Barite Vein near Wagon Wheel Gap, Colorado: Esper S. Larson and Roger C. Wells, U. S. Geological Survey, Washington, D. C. A description of specimens of the unusual mineral gearksutite of a peculiar kaolinite and of a new fluoride-sulphate, creedite. August 18, 1916] SCIENCE 245 5. The Processes taking Place in the Body by which the Number of Erythrocytes per Unit Volume of Blood is increased in acute Experimental Polycythcemia : Paul D. Lam- son, Pharmacological Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University. It is concluded that the liver acts as a reservoir for erythrocytes. The process by which the liver increases the number of the erythrocytes is thought to be a loss of plasma from the liver capillaries together with a con¬ striction of these vessels driving the erythro¬ cytes on into the blood stream. 6. The Influence of Morphin upon the Elim¬ ination of Intravenously Injected Dextrose in Dogs: I. S. Kleiner and S. J. Meltzer, Department of Physiology and Pharmacol¬ ogy, Rockefeller Institute for Medical Re¬ search. Morphin increases the elimination through the kidneys of intravenously injected dextrose and retards the return of the sugar content of the blood to its previous level. 7. The Work of the American Meteor Society in 191J/. and 1915 : Charles P. Olivier, Lean- der McCormick Observatory, University of Virginia. From the 5,543 observation of meters, 139 radiants have been deduced with sufficient ac¬ curacy to calculate parabolic orbits for the meteor streams they represent. 8. The Light Excitation by Slow Positive and Neutral Particles: A. J. Dempster, Ryer- son Physical Laboratory, University of Chi¬ cago. Very slow positive rates are still able to ex¬ cite light with a speed corresponding to less than 5 volts. The neutral rays can also ex¬ cite light at yery slow speeds; the excitation may occur directly because of the collision of a neutral particle with a neutral molecule of the gas. 9. An Apparent Dependence of the Apex and Velocity of Solar Motion , as determined from Radial Velocities, upon Proper Mo¬ tion: C. D. Perrine, Observatorio Nacional, Argentino, Cordoba. The position of the solar apex and the solar velocity appear to vary with the proper motion of the stars used in the determination. Such variations point ultimately to some form of rotary or spiral motion among the stars. 10. Channeled Crating Spectra, obtained in Successive Diffractions: C. Barus, Depart¬ ment of Physics, Brown University. A brief abstract of work presented by the author to the Carnegie Institution of Wash¬ ington. 11. The Effect of Parental Alcoholism ( and Certain other Drug Intoxications ) upon the Progeny in the Domestic Fowl: Raymond Pearl, Biological Laboratory, Maine Agri¬ cultural Experiment Station. Out of 12 different characters for which we have exact quantitative data, the offspring of treated parents taken as a group are superior to offspring of untreated parents in 8 charac¬ ters. The results with poultry are in apparent contradiction to the results of Stockard and others with mammals, but the contradiction is probably only apparent. 12. The Effectors of Sea-Anemones : G. H. Parker, Zoological Laboratory of the Mu¬ seum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College. It seems clear that among the muscles in sea-anemones there are not only independent effectors, and tonus muscles associated with nerve-nets, but neuromuscular combinations that exhibit true reflex action. 13. Preliminary Evidence of Internal Motion in the Spiral Nebula Messier 101: A. van Maanen, Mount Wilson Solar Observatory, Carnegie Institution of Washington. The mean rotational motion is 0.022" left- handed; the mean radial motion is 0.007" out¬ ward. There is perhaps a small decrease of the rotational motion with increasing distance from the center. The annual rotational com¬ ponent of 0.022" at the mean distance from the center of 5' corresponds to a rotational period of 85,000 years. 14. Symposium on the Exploration of the Pacific — • (a) The Exploration of the Pacific: W. M. Davis, Department of Geology and Geogra¬ phy, Harvard University. 246 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1129 (b) The Importance of Gravity Observations at Sea on the Pacific: John E. IIayford, College of Engineering, Northwestern Uni¬ versity. (c) A New Method of Measuring the Accelera¬ tion of Gravity at Sea: Lyman J. Briggs, Bureau of Plant Industry, Washington, D. C. ( d ) The Problem of Continental Fracturing and Diastrophism in Oceanica: Charles Schuchert, Department of Geology, Tale University. (e) The Petrology of Some South Pacific Islands and its Significance: Joseph P. Iddings, Brinklow, Maryland. (f) In Relation to the Extent of Knowledge Concerning the Oceanography of the Pa¬ cific: G. W. Littlehales, U. S. Hydro- graphic Office, Washington, D. C. ( g ) Marine Meteorology and the General Cir¬ culation of the Atmosphere: Charles E. Marvin, U. S. Weather Bureau, Washing¬ ton, D. C. ( h ) On the Distribution of Pacific Inverte¬ brates: Wm. H. Dall, Smithsonian Institu¬ tion, Washington, D. C. ( i ) The Marine Algae of the Pacific: W. G. Earlow, Department of Botany, Harvard University. 0‘) The Pacific as a Field for Ethnological and Archaeological Investigation: J. Wal¬ ter Fewkes, Bureau of American Ethnol¬ ogy? Washington, D. C. (k) Mid-Pacific Land Snail Faunas: H. A. Pilsbry, Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. (Z) Some Problems of the Pacific Floras: Douglas H. Campbell, Department of Bot¬ any, Leland Stanford University. The symposium contains a summary of some of the results obtained in past exploration of the Pacific and an outline of the importance to many sciences of further systematic and continuous exploration of the Pacific. 15. Nervous Transmission in Sea-Anemones : G. H. Parker, Zoological Laboratory of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College. There is evidence not only for the assump¬ tion of independent receptors, but of rela¬ tively independent transmission tracts. A first step in the kind of differentiation so characteristic of the nervous organization in the higher animals. 16. The Responses of the Tentacles of Sea- Anemones: G. H. Parker, Zoological Labo¬ ratory of the Museum of Comparative Zool¬ ogy at Harvard College. The tentacles, in contradistinction to such appendages as those of the arthropods and vertebrates, contain within themselves a com¬ plete neuromuscular mechanism by which their responses can be carried out independently of the rest of the animal. Edwin Bid well Wilson Mass. Institute of Technology SPECIAL ARTICLES SOIL BACTERIA AND PHOSPHATES Raw rock phosphate is by far the cheapest source of phosphorus to apply to soils. It con¬ sists chiefly of tricalcium phosphate, Ca3(P04)2, which is the most common form of phosphorus in the great natural deposits. This phosphorus compound is relatively insoluble in water, and, for this reason, it has been argued by some that it does not become available to plants ; but long-continued field experiments, pot-culture experiments, and farm practise have fully demonstrated that this kind of phosphate does become available for plant growth.1 The increased beneficial results obtained by following the practise commonly recommended of intimately mixing decaying organic matter with the phosphate lead to the suggestion that the action of the soil bacteria that decompose organic matter might be an important factor in the solution of the phosphate. It has been the common teaching that nitri¬ fying bacteria require the presence of a free base, such as lime or an alkaline carbonate, but we have found that the bacterial action produces acid phosphate and proceeds in the presence of this .acid salt. The importance of the action of decomposi¬ tion products of the active organic matter of i See Circulars 181 and 186, Illinois Agricul¬ tural Experiment Station. August 18, 1916] SCIENCE 247 the soil on the solubility of phosphates is bet¬ ter understood by a brief consideration of three important and definitely recognized processes that have long been known to bring about the change of the nitrogen from the unavailable form, as it occurs in the protein of clover, manure, etc., to the readily available form of the nitrate. (1) Ammonia Production. — The first process results in the change of the organic nitrogen to ammonia nitrogen. The ammonia is ab¬ sorbed by the soil moisture and forms ammo¬ nium hydroxid. Much carbon dioxid is pro¬ duced at the same time and some of it, also, is absorbed by the soil moisture and then unites with the ammonia to form ammonium car¬ bonate, which is alkaline. (2) Nitrite Production. — The second and most important of the three stages consists of the oxidation of the ammonia to nitrite by the nitrite bacteria ( Nitrosomonas ). The oxida¬ tion of ammonia to nitrous acid by the nitrite bacteria is represented by the following equa¬ tion : (NH4)2CO,'+ 60 = 2HN02 + H2C03 + 2H20. The ammonium portion of the ammonium carbonate has been converted into nitrous acid and carbonic acid has been set free. Both these acids will combine with some base. It is important to note that nitrogen of the alkaline substance, ammonia, has been converted, or transformed, by the biochemical removal of hydrogen and addition of oxygen into a strongly acid substance, nitrous acid. The primary purpose of this investigation is expressed in the question, Will the calcium of pure rock phosphate, Ca3(P04)2, suffice as a base; and, if so, will the phosphorus be made soluble? This will be answered by the experi¬ mental data reported in another part of this publication. If nitrite production takes place with tri¬ calcium phosphate as a source of the base calcium, then the reaction must be represented by one of the following equations: Ca,(PO*)j + 2HN02== Ca2H2(P04)2 + Ca(N02)2 or Ca3(P04)2 + 4HN02 = CaH4(P04)2 + 2Ca(NO,)2. (3) Nitrate Production. — The third and last stage is a simple oxidation of the nitrite to nitrate by the action of nitrate bacteria ( Nitro - bacter). It consists in the addition, by bio¬ chemical action, of oxygen to the nitrite: Ca(N02)2 + 20 = Ca(N03)2. This reaction increases neither acidity nor akalinity, and no liberation of insoluble com¬ pounds would be expected in this process, as no additional base is necessary, as seen by refer¬ ence to the equation.2 INFLUENCE OF AMMONIA PRODUCTION ON SOLU¬ BILITY OF PHOSPHATES The most important product formed in the first process, or stage, of the decomposition of organic matter is ammonium carbonate. The ammonium carbonate is alkaline, and conse¬ quently could not be expected to exert any action on the solubility of raw rock phosphate. In 1904 Stalstrom, of Finland, conducted laboratory experiments on the solubility of pure rock phosphates with bacteria which pro¬ duced ammonium carbonate from peat and from manure containing peat litter. He con¬ cluded that there was no appreciable increase in solubility of phosphorus where the bacteria had produced ammonium carbonate over the sterile treatments in which no ammonium car¬ bonate was produced. His experiments lasted forty-two days and were under conditions which would permit of determining soluble phosphorus, were it present. His work is ex¬ tremely interesting as it demonstrates that in the first stage of decomposition it has been impossible to measure any soluble phosphorus without the growing plant as an indicator. Similar results have been obtained by the Rhode Island and Wisconsin Experiment Sta¬ tions in attempts to detect soluble phosphorus in fermenting mixtures of manure and raw 2 The results of an experiment to test the effect of the nitrate bacteria on pure tricalcium phos¬ phate support the theory that no solution of phos¬ phorus is to be expected by the action of nitrate bacteria. 248 SCIENCE [N. S. Yol. XLIV. No. 1129 rock phosphate and in mixtures of soil and raw rock phosphate. SOLUTION OF PHOSPHATES BY ACTION OF NITRITE BACTERIA To determine the part played by the nitrite bacteria in dissolving mineral compounds, and particularly raw rock phosphate, was our prin¬ cipal object in these experiments. One of the authors made the following sug¬ gestion several years ago :3 In the conversion of sufficient organic nitrogen into nitrate nitrogen for a hundred-bushel crop of corn, the nitric acid, if formed, would be alone sufficient to convert seven times as much insoluble tricalcium phosphate into soluble monoealcium phosphate as would be required to supply the phosphorus for the same crop. The plan of the experiment, briefly stated, was as follows: A thin layer (about J inch thick) of a nutrient salt solution was placed in a cone-shaped glass flask of about one liter capacity and about 5 inches in diameter at the bottom. In this solution was placed a defi¬ nite amount of ammonium salt. The flasks and materials were carefully sterilized. Nitrite bacteria were introduced from pure cultures and sometimes directly from soil. The flasks were plugged with cotton kept at a tempera¬ ture of 28° C. Many such flasks were pre¬ pared, and later, usually at intervals of one week, the contents of two or more flasks were analyzed for nitrogen changed or oxidized and for water-soluble phosphorus and calcium. In Table I. are shown the relative amounts, by weight, of nitrogen from ammonia sulfate oxidized to nitrite by nitrite bacteria and the amounts of phosphorus and calcium made soluble. Each figure represents the average of duplicate determinations. EXPLANATION OF RESULTS The results reported in Table I. demonstrate conclusively that phosphorus and calcium are made soluble while the nitrite bacteria oxidize ammonia nitrogen to nitrite nitrogen. It is also evident that the solubility increases with increasing time of action of the bacteria. 3 Hopkins, ‘ ‘ Soil Fertility and Permanent Agri¬ culture,’ ’ 197. TABLE EC Phosphorus, Calcium, and Nitrogen Required by Crops, Compared with that Possible of So¬ lution when Nitrite Bacteria Act upon Tricalcium Phosphate (Expressed in Pounds) Nitrogen Required Phos¬ phorus Calcium Crop -d 1 o V ~ a Pos¬ sible Re¬ quired Pos¬ sible Corn: Grain, 100 bu.; Stover, 3 tons; cobs, }/2 ton . 150 23 166 22 321 Wheat : Grain, 50 bu.; straw, tons. . 96 16 107 11 206 Oats: Grain, 100 bu.; straw, 2J4 tons. 97 16 108 17 208 Timothy, 3 tons . 76 9 84 20 163 An inspection of the figures shows that there is, by weight, approximately twice as much phosphorus arid four times as much cal¬ cium made soluble as there is nitrogen oxidized by the bacteria. As an average of the results from thirteen flasks (Nos. 4 to 16), we find that from the oxidation of 56 pounds of nitro¬ gen 115 pounds of phosphorus and 211 pounds of calcium are made soluble. (The results from Elasks 1, 2 and 3 are not included in the ratio calculated.) According to theory, when 56 pounds of nitrogen are changed from the ammonia form to the nitrite form, with both the nitrous acid (HNO,) and the associated sulfuric acid (H.,SO„) acting on the pure rock phosphate, 124 pounds of phosphorus and 240 pounds of calcium are made soluble. Ten cubic centimeters of Flask 16 required 3.35 cc. of N/12.5 NaOH with phenolphthalein as the indicator for the second hydrogen atom. The normality of the solution was found to be N/37.2. IMPORTANCE AND EXTENT OF THE ACTION OF NITRITE BACTERIA It has already been shown that the nitrite bacteria make phosphorus and calcium soluble from pure rock phosphate and that the action conforms to a definite chemical ratio.4 4 It was found that the action of the nitrite bacteria was the same on the natural raw rock August 18, 1916] SCIENCE 249 The nitrous acid produced may act upon compounds of iron, aluminum, potassium, sodium, or magnesium which occur in soils, or it may act upon tricalcium phosphate, calcium silicate, or calcium carbonate, if present. For this reason, it has been recommended that the ideal practise to obtain the greatest solubility of the raw rock phosphate is to turn it under in intimate contact with organic matter, and, if needed, to apply ground limestone after plow¬ ing or at some other point in the crop rota¬ tion. In Table II. are presented the actual amounts of phosphorus, calcium and nitrogen required by standard crops, and the amounts 6f phosphorus and calcium which would be made soluble if all the nitrogen required for the crop should be oxidized to nitrate and should act upon pure rock phosphate. £ TABLE »- Nitrogen Oxidized, and Phosphorus and Calcium Made Soluble by Nitrite Bacteria (Expressed in Milligrams) Flask Duration In Days Nitrogen Oxidized Phosphorus Made Soluble Calcium Made Soluble 1 28 2.54 4.08 3.87 2 41 4.81 5.08 5.60 3 41 .... 5.99 8.40 4 48 5.52 9.56 14.80 5 48 4.88 10.20 18.40 6 55 6.40 12.85 22.00 7 55 6.40 10.24 23.52 8 62 6.88 16.00 31.04 9 48 3.61 7.52 13.60 10 62 3.87 8.76 16.48 11 62 5.84 9.82 16.00 12 62 5.68 11.28 20.80 13 69 6.03 11.14 22.40 14 48 5.76 13.04 24.80 15 69 4.60 11.60 19.20 16 139 18.84 41.56 75.26 The figures show that there is possible of solution from this biochemical process about 7 times as much phosphorus as corn, wheat or oats require, and 9 times as much as timothy requires. Greater differences occur in the cal¬ cium figures, there being possible of solution phosphate as on the pure rock phosphate, but more extensive experiments with the natural rocks will be reported later. 14 times that required for corn, 18 times that required for wheat, 12 times that required for oats, and 8 times that required for timothy. SUMMARY 1. Nitrite bacteria make phosphorus and calcium soluble from insoluble phosphates when they oxidize or convert ammonia into nitrite. 2. The actual ratio found shows that about one pound of phosphorus and about two pounds of calcium are made soluble for each pound of nitrogen oxidized, aside from the action of the acid radicles associated with the ammonia. 3. The ratio of solubility found on the basis of nitrogen to phosphorus and calcium con¬ forms to the following reaction : 4HN02 + Ca3(P04)2 = CaH4(P04)2 + 2Ca(N02)2. According to this equation, 56 pounds of nitro¬ gen liberate in soluble form 62 pounds of phos¬ phorus and 120 pounds of calcium. 4. Neither ammonia-producing bacteria nor nitrate bacteria liberate appreciable amounts of soluble phosphorus from insoluble phos¬ phates. More complete details of these experiments will be published in Bulletin No. 190 of the University of Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station. Cyril G. Hopkins, Albert L. Whiting University of Illinois THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY II The following papers were read and discussed. The So-called Caseinates: W. D. Bancroft. Action of Rennin on Caseine: W. D. Bancroft. The Aeration Method for Total Nitrogen Determi¬ nations: R. S. Potter and'R. S. Snyder. Titrimetric Determination of Nitrite N: B. S. Davisson. Determination of Ammonia by Aeration: B. S. Davisson. A Study of Carbohydrates as Milk Modifiers: Ruth Wheeler. The Relation of a Diet Sigh in Calcium to the Calcium Content of Tissues: Amy L. Daniels. 250 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1129 Report of a Survey of the Food Conditions at Sing Sing Prison: Emily B. Seaman. The Relation of Biological Chemistry to Problems of the Community : Emily B. Seaman. Washing and Cleaning: W. D. Bancroft. Whipped Cream , Etc.: W. D. Bancroft. Mayonnaise : W. D. Bancroft. On Soap Jelly Formation : G. H. A. Clowes. NaCl or other Na salts added to slightly alka¬ line soap solutions cause jelly formation between .2N and .41V, and precipitate at higher concentra¬ tions. Same salts added to neutral or slightly acid soap cause opalescence at .21V, gradually increasing until complete precipitation occurs above .41V. Degree of dispersion of negative soap particles depends on adsorbed anions derived from added alkali. Subsequently adsorbed cations cause ag¬ gregation. Larger particles with smaller charge precipitate earlier, smaller particles with larger charge coalesce later forming jelly. If at critical cation concentration particles still exhibit active Brownian movement, jelly is subsequently formed enclosing water in interspaces, otherwise precipi¬ tation occurs. On Filtration of Blood Plasma: G. H. A. Clowes and E. West. In 1913, writers confirmed Cramer’s observation that citrated plasmas may be obtained by filtra¬ tion through Berkefield bougies which coagulate with thrombin but not with calcium alone. Bougie removes lipoids. Addition of sterilized brain lipoid one part in 50,000 causes coagulation with calcium. Added lipoid may be entirely removed by second filtration prior to addition of calcium. Resulting filtrate does not clot with calcium. Cleaned and sterilized bougies often contain sufficient calcium to cause local coagulation of plasma with consequent production of thrombin which passes into the filtrate, complicating subse¬ quent experiments. This may afford explanation of Goddard’s results. Mechanism of Blood Coagulation: G. H. A. Clowes. Dispersion of negatively charged fibrinogen and lipoid particles is normally maintained by ad¬ sorbed anions. Analogous, antagonistic, electro¬ lyte effects in emulsions, jellies and blood coagu¬ lation suggest probability that Ca by adsorption first lowers charge and promotes deposition of lipoid film on fibrinogen particles, and subse¬ quently Ca soaps, being freely dispersed in lipoids involved, cause surface tension changes and trans¬ position of phase relations analogous to those ob¬ served in emulsions, the previously dispersed fibrin¬ ogen becoming the continuous fibrin clot in which water is more or less dispersed. Presumably thrombin, by local adsorption, promotes hydrol¬ ysis, liberates acid groups, lowers negative charge, raises surface tension, and so promotes aggrega¬ tion. Investigation of the Kjeldahl Method for Deter¬ mining Nitrogen. A New Aeration Apparatus : I. K. Phelps and H. W. Daudt. Eolin’s method for determining ammonia is adapted to the Kjeldahl method. All of the opera¬ tions, including the measurement and addition of the sodium hydroxide solution, the passing of air through the resulting alkaline solution and the ab¬ sorption of the ammonia in standard acid are car¬ ried on by means of air pressure or suction. The advantages over the more commonly used distilla¬ tion method are discussed. Remarhs on the Physical and Biological Chemistry of Fat: Martin H. Eischer. The general principles governing the production and the destruction of water-in-oil and oil-in-water emulsions and their general properties are dis¬ cussed. Protoplasm represents ordinarily a fine oil-in-water emulsion. The characteristic feature of ' ‘ ‘ fatty degeneration ” is a coalescence of these fine droplets into coarser ones, the conditions pro¬ ducing such being identical with those producing the coarsening of an oil-in-water emulsion. Adi¬ pose tissue, butter formation and the formation of fatty secretions consists in the conversion of the oil-in-water type of emulsion into the water-in-oil type. The experimental facts underlying these conclusions are illustrated. Studies Upon the Effects of Acids: Arthur D. Hirschfelder. Repetition of the experiments of Hofmeister and Martin Eischer on the swelling of fibrin in mixtures of acids and neutral salts, show that the solutions in which swelling seems to be inhibited (except the sulphates) are much poorer in hydro¬ gen ions than the corresponding ones in which this is only slightly the case; and that when these are all brought to the same hydrogen ion concentration the amount of swelling is the same in all the so¬ lutions except those containing sulphates which markedly inhibit. Varying either the chlorine ions or the other ions to bring about the acidification gives the same results. Adding a little dilute ILS04 or Na2SO.i to mixtures already swollen under the influence of other acids causes marked shrinking. However, injection of phenolsulphonphthalein, August 18, 1916] SCIENCE 251 phenolphtlialein, rosolie acid and para nitrophenol into conjunctive of rabbits rendered markedly edematous with mustard oil, shows the reaction of the edematous tissue to be slightly on the alkaline side of neutral, very close to the reaction of the animal’s blood. Excised bits of lid and conjunc¬ tivae give no such edema in Ringer’s solution acidi¬ fied to various degrees. These facts are not in harmony with the acid theory of edema. Brain Lipoid as a Hemostatic: Arthur D. HlRSCHFELDER. Kephalin has been shown to be identical with thromboplastin. An active preparation can be made from an ether extract of ox brain. The residue of such an extract or a weak emulsion of it in salt solution, when placed on an oozing sur¬ face of tissue stops bleeding very quickly and gives a very clean field for operation. Hemorrhage from bone, kidney, muscle and con¬ nective tissue, prostate and other glands, are easily controlled by this means. Hemorrhage from cut artery can not be controlled instantly because the force of the blood pressure pushes away the clot as fast as it can be formed. In a pitted wound, however, such as occurs in warfare or when the femoral artery is cut through in Scarpa’s triangle, and the pitted wound fills with blood, application of the lipoid causes it to stop spontaneously because a thick enough layer of fibrin can be formed. The solution of lipoid residue keeps several months. It is rendered sterile by its preparation, and is very useful for practical surgery as well as for laboratory operations. The Bole of Cystine in the Maintenance of Nitro¬ genous Equilibrium in Dogs on a Low Protein Diet: Howard B. Lewis. The Excretion of Erie Acid After Ingestion of Sodium Benzoate in Man: Howard B. Lewis and Walter G. Karr. During the first four hours following ingestion of large doses (7-8 gm.) of sodium benzoate by healthy men, the periods during which maximal elimination of hippuric acid was taking place, the uric acid elimination was decreased from 50 to 70 per cent, as compared with the elimination in cor¬ responding periods of control days. No compensa¬ tory increase in uric acid excretion occurred in later periods. Creatinine elimination was not af¬ fected. The ingestion of amounts of sodium hip- purate equivalent to the benzoate fed in the previ¬ ous experiments had no influence on uric acid ex¬ cretion. A Comparative Study of the TJrea Content of the Blood and Tissues of Some Vertebrates: Walter G. Karr and Howard B. Lewis. The urea concentration of the tissues of normal guinea-pigs is the same as that of the blood (20- 30 mg. per 100 c.c.) with the exception of the kidneys, in which the presence of urine results in high figures. The urea content of the blood of fasting guinea-pigs or of pigs on an insufficient diet may rise to 6-7 times the normal figure with a less marked rise in the concentration of urea of the tissues in most cases. The urea concentration of the blood and tissues of hens is low (5-10 mg. per 100 c.c.), the kidneys having no higher con¬ centration of urea than any other tissue. In¬ jection of alanine into hens causes no rise in the urea content of blood or tissues. On the Esterification of Amino Acids: H. A. Shonle and H. H. Mitchell. The following method of determining the rate and extent of esterification of the amino acids of proteins is reported. The protein is hydrolyzed and the hydrolysate prepared for esterification (Phelps-Tillotson) as usual, except that deeoloriza- tion is effected by making alkaline with Ba(OH), before removal of the water, filtration, and subse¬ quent removal of the barium. During the esterifi¬ cation small samples are removed and diluted with 95 per cent, alcohol to a definite volume. In one aliquot the total acidity is determined by a Soren¬ sen formol titration; in another, the mineral acid¬ ity by a Cl determination (Yolhard). The re¬ mainder is completely saponified by boiling with HC1, made up to volume, and the above determina¬ tions repeated. From these data the per cent, of unesterified amino acidity may be calculated. The Preparation of a Synthetic Millc for Use in Studying Infant Metabolism: A. W. Bosworth. The method in brief consists of four steps as follows : 1. The preparation of isolated food materials for use in making the synthetic milk. 2. The recombining of these materials to give a mixture of the desired percentage composition. 3. The emulsification or homogenization of the fat and any of the solid or insoluble constituents entering into the composition of the food. 4. The pasteurization or sterilization of the food after it has been made. Concerning the Utilization of Inosite in the Ani¬ mal Organism. The Effect of Inosite upon the Metabolism of Man: R. J. Anderson and A. W. Bosworth. 252 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1129 A study of the channels of elimination and the influence of inosite upon the metabolism of man. It is shown that in man inosite is eliminated only through the kidneys. About 91 per cent, of the ingested inosite disappears and only some 9 per cent, is excreted in the urine. When inosite is given at the rate of 0.5 grams per kilo of body weight it causes some diarrhea, but aside from this no other disturbance was observed; and with the exception of an increased excretion of creatinine it had no marked influence upon the metabolism of man. Concerning the Utilization of Inosite in the Animal Organism in the Bog: R. J. Anderson. These experiments were made with the object in view of throwing some light upon the fate of inosite in the animal organism and to determine whether inosite is utilized in such a way as to cause a rise in the respiratory quotient of a fast¬ ing dog. The results show, first, that there was no rise in the respiratory quotient; second, that as much as 77 per cent, of the ingested inosite was recov¬ ered in the excreta, and third, that inosite is ab¬ sorbed very slowly from the intestine of a dog and hence the greater portion is eliminated with the feces. Studies on the Distribution of Nitrogen in Egg Lecithin: Mart Louise Foster. The fact that the Herzig and Meyer method for determination of methyl groups gave inconclusive evidence of the pressure of choline in lecithin has led the author to study the distribution of the nitrogen in lecithin. Merck’s preparation of egg lecithin was purified and used for analysis. The methods employed were Kjeldahl with Arnold- Gunning modification for total nitrogen. Haus- mann’s method as modified by Osborne for the anrich, and diamino nitrogen and the Styli’s method for total amino nitrogen. The results seem to indicate that the amide nitrogen repre¬ sents less than 2 per cent, of the total, monoamino nitrogen about 40 per cent, and the diamino nitro¬ gen about 50 per cent. Further work is in progress. Presence of Creatinine in Urine of Children: Louise Stanley and Emma B. Wagner. We have planned a series of observations on the urine of children of various ages. In each case we obtained at least three samples for determina¬ tion of creatine and creatinine in 100 c.c. of urine. We have tried in each to check this up by a twenty-four hour sample. The diets we were not able to control in all cases. We were, however, able to get very accurate information in regard to them. We find that there is a very great irregu¬ larity of the proportion of creatine to creatinine. This variation is less in the case of babies on reg¬ ular diet. It is quite as irregular on a creatine- free as on a creatine diet. In boys, it was present in the urine of a boy at ten while absent in his brother, aged twelve. Both were normal and ac¬ tive and on an ordinary mixed diet. In girls, it seems it may continue to puberty, where it ap¬ pears intermittently in connection with the men¬ strual cycle. In some girls it disappears entirely before puberty. This phase we are at present in¬ vestigating further. We hope to continue the in¬ vestigation for several years and check further by determining the age at which it disappears from the urine of some of the children under observa¬ tion. Our figures show that the diet plays an im¬ portant function in the amount of creatine in the urine. It has been shown by other investigators that in starvation the feeding of carbohydrate de¬ creases the amount of creatine in the urine. Me- Crudden has shown that increasing the carbohy¬ drate in the diets of children causes not a decrease but if any change an increase in the creatine of urine. We have some evidence which tends to support this observation. This seems to us, how¬ ever, to support the idea of a relationship between carbohydrates and creatine metabolism rather than the opposite which McCrudden is trying to prove. It seems quite possible that if the excretion of creatine is connected, as Rose suggests, with car¬ bohydrate metabolism, you would expect a de¬ crease on feeding carbohydrate in starvation. On the other hand, where there is a metabolic condi¬ tion which results in a creatine excretion on a regular diet, this condition, if caused by carbohy¬ drates, would be aggravated by the addition of more carbohydrate. We have results which tend to support this theory and this will be the hypothesis upon which our future experiments will be planned. A Bacteriological Study of Hamburger Steak: Edwin LeFevre. In a study of hamburger steak, as sold in the public markets, the author, following the sugges¬ tions of Weingirl and Newton, worked out a tech¬ nique which seems to afford the most satisfactory method for the bacteriological examination of chopped meat. The essential feature of the method is the careful selection of ten grams of lean meat from a pound of the product, this being ground up in a mortar with the aid of white sand and a 0.5 per cent, solution being added with con¬ tinued grinding to secure the proper dilution for August 18, 1916] SCIENCE 253 plating. Beef infusion agar at + 1.5 to be used in making counts. Two series of samples from ten dealers were examined. In the first series collected in mild weather, six samples gave total counts of over ten million per gram. In the second series collected during colder weather jive samples gave counts of over ten million. Meat from three dealers showed exceedingly high counts in both series, indicating that bad methods were followed. The chief cause for high counts is to be found in the practise of utilizing scrap meat or meat of inferior quality which is often collected and held for some time before being ground up for sale. Attention is called to the value of bacteriolog¬ ical analyses as a means of determining the meth¬ ods used by dealers and to the importance of this test being more generally resorted to in connection with chopped meats for the purpose of establish¬ ing proper standards and securing an efficient sanitary control. Cleaning Silver by Contact with Aluminium in Al¬ kaline Solution: H. L. Lang and C. F. Walton, Jr. This paper is a preliminary report of results ob¬ tained in cleaning silver under household condi¬ tions by the electrolytic method. Sodium car¬ bonate was found to be slightly more efficient than the bicarbonate as the electrolyte of the method, one teaspoonful of each washing soda and table salt to the quart of water proving the most eco¬ nomical concentration. The best results were ob¬ tained when the cleaning solution was kept at the boiling temperature during the cleaning, and aluminium proved more efficient than zinc as the active metal in contact with the silver. The principal advantage of the electrolytic method, as compared with cleaning by an abrasive polish, is that it saves labor. In addition it is convenient and clean, and removes the tarnish from both sterling and plated silverware without appreciable loss of the metal. Iron Bust Stains and Their Bemoval: New Meth¬ ods: Harold L. Lang and Anna H. Whittel- set. In an experimental study of the removal of stains from textiles several new or little-known reagents were found successful for the treatment of iron rust spots. A 15 per cent, solution of titanium trichloride, TiCl3, applied cold to the stain was found to be very efficient, although an expensive reagent. Iron rust stains could also be removed by boiling for several minutes in solu¬ tions of potassium acid tartrate (cream of tartar), tartaric acid or citric acid, or in an infusion of the stalks, leaves or fruit of certain plants which contain oxalic or other acids. Among these plants are rhubarb, the begonia (a rather common house plant), the pineapple, and the grapefruit. These reagents have the advantage that they may be readily obtained and are less liable to injure the fabric or its color than are hydrochloric and oxalic acids, whose efficiency are well known. Solutions of Lead and Antimony from Enameled Cooking Utensils: Elizabeth W. Miller. Fifteen different makes of enameled dishes were boiled with 4 per cent, acetic acid and *the solution tested for lead and antimony. Slightly less than 2 mg. of lead per liter were dissolved from the saucepan of standard make. Three others of the same kind gave mere traces. Antimony was extracted by acetic acid in con¬ siderable amount from one cheap gray dish. Grape juice, cider and cranberry pulp, milk and spinach were cooked in dishes of this same make. All these foods contained antimony in amounts ranging from 2.3 mg. in 200 c.c. of milk to 14 mg. in 200 c.c. of cranberry pulp. History and Present Methods of Fluorspar Pro¬ duction in Illinois: Carl C. Luedeking. The author after giving a short history of the mining and milling methods of fluorspar in Pope and Hardin counties, Illinois, enters into the de¬ tails of present-day status in this industry. It ap¬ pears that four fifths of the fluorspar of the United States comes from the Fairview and Rosi Clare mines of Hardin County, Illinois. In 1914 these mines have produced 70,000 of the 78,000 tons of fluorspar used in this country. In 1915 the production increased to 115,000 tons. The fluorspar is used chiefly in the basic open hearth steel furnaces and for enameling. The Chemistry and Technology of Glass: Alex¬ ander Silverman. After a brief introduction on the history of glass making, followed by a statement concerning raw materials, their functions and uses, the tech¬ nology of glass making was illustrated by about sixty lantern slides. A discussion of coloring and decolorizing agents followed and parallels were shown between aqueous and vitreous solutions of gold, compounds of uranium, copper, cobalt, alu¬ minium, chromium, etc. Specimens of glass and related aqueous solutions were exhibited to illus¬ trate the points discussed. Data on the treatment of glass included recent developments in etching, polishing and silvering processes. The importance of careful and comprehensive research in this 254 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1129 branch of industrial chemistry, and the necessity for endowment of such research, were emphasized. New Volumetric Determination of Nickel and Co¬ balt: W. D. Engle and E. G. Gustavson. Preliminary Beport — Deposition of Copper in Electrotyping Baths: W. Blum, H. D. Holler, H. Bawdon and E. L. Lasier. From a study of the microstructure and physical properties of copper, deposited upon graphited wax molds in the copper sulphate-sulphuric acid bath, the effects of the composition and tempera¬ ture of the electrolyte and of the current density, upon the character of the deposits, have been de¬ termined. The conditions for the production of satisfactory electrotype shells have been defined. The relations between microstructure and physical properties, and the effect of annealing, are being investigated. Let’s Abolish Our Unnecessary Waste of Potas¬ sium Compounds: James K. Withrow. Attention is called to the fact that in case of sudden cessation of imports great hardship is done not only to chemical users of potassium com¬ pounds but many manufacturers of miscellaneous materials who are not in the category of chemical manufacturing and who do not have chemical ad¬ vice to assist them in meeting the emergency on which they are thrown. A strong appeal is made for publicity in eliminating all unnecessary use of potash so that hardship will be avoided in such cases, and to give manufacturers of sodium com¬ pounds ample opportunity to build up their sup¬ ply under non-emergency conditions. All of this, so that in case of great national emergency, we may direct our attention as much as possible to other situations which can not be avoided by any previous arrangement. Attention is called to the fact that in our schools and colleges our chemical texts persistently require the use of potassium compounds where experience has shown that sodium compounds would do just as well. If wre can eliminate this and similar unnecessary waste the percentage saving may not be so great but the educational value can not be estimated for it is quite common for enormous amounts of potash to be wasted in ordinary manufacturing and every¬ day life as wrell as in chemical operations. Experiments on the Corrosion of Iron and Steel.: W. D. Eichardson. Ethyl Alcohol from Wood Waste. IV. Yields from Various Species of Wood: F. K. Kress- MANN. A Note on “Tars” from Some Mid-western Can- nel Coals: John C. Ingram. Cannel coals from Missouri and Illinois were distilled at 800° C. in iron retorts and the “oil” or “tar” collected. Yields of water-free tar varied from 30 to 50 gallons per ton. A typical sample (gravity 0.906) gave on distillation the following fractions : To 150° C . 12 per cent . Gravity 0.752 150°-200° . 6 per cent . “ 0.788 200°-240° . 9 per cent . “ 0.820 240°-270° . 8 per cent . “ 0.880 270°-300° . 16 per cent . “ 0.912 300° to coke . 35 per cent . “ 0.945 The tars are largely made up of paraffin hydro¬ carbons, but seem to contain about 7 to 8 per cent, of tar acids. On standing these tars sepa¬ rate into two layers, the lower layer is semi-solid and shows a partial segregation of heavy paraf¬ fines. On centrifuging, four distinct products are obtained. Gravity (1) In bottom ..tar (mainly aromatics) 1.02-1.06 (2) 1st liquid . water (3) 2d liquid . heavy, viscous liquid .96- .98 (4) 3d liquid . light oil .79- .85 Comments on the Krebitz Process of Soapmaking and Glycerol Eecovery : G. A. Wrisley. After double decomposition of the lime soap with soda ash, the soap is salted out and the lime CaC03 allowed to settle. It was impossible to pre¬ vent occlusion of 10 to 20 per cent, of soap. At¬ tempts to wash out the soap by a series of wash¬ ings and filtration were unsuccessful, because of slow filtering and loss of 5 to 10 per cent, of soap in the lime cake. It was found that on adding water to this mixture with thorough agitation a point was reached where the lime sludge settled out occluding only 3 to 5 per cent, of soap. This mixture was filtered easily and less than 1 per cent, of soap was lost in the lime cake. An Unusual Explosion in Connection with Potas¬ sium Chlorate: F. E. Bowland. Laboratory Control in the Manufacture of Corn Syrup: A. P. Bryant. Effect of Aging upon the Constants of Chinese Wood Oil: D. F. McFarland and H. E. Lee. Effect of Fillers in Synthetic Molding Compounds : L. V. Bedman, A. J. Weith and F. P. Brock. Printing Plates from Phenol Besins: L. Y. Bed- man, A. J. Weith and F. P. Brock. The Effects of Moisture Introduced into the Di¬ gester in the Cooking of Soda Pulp: Sidney D. Wells. (To be continued) Charles L. Parsons * Secretary SCIENCE Friday, August 25, 1916 CONTENTS Address at the Dedication of the Mitchell Me¬ morial Building of the Philadelphia Ortho¬ pedic Hospital and Infirmary for Nervous Diseases: Dr. W. W. Keen . 255 A Note on the Serum Treatment of Polio¬ myelitis: Dr. Simon Flexner . 259 The Culture Value of Science: Professor Wm. E. Ritter . 261 The National Research Council: Dr. George E. Hale . 264 A British Board of Science and Industry .... 266 The New York Meeting of the American Chem¬ ical Society . 268 Scientific Notes and News . 269 University and Educational News . 272 Discussion and Correspondence : — North American Faunal Areas: Dr. Frank Collins Baker. ‘ ‘ Same ’ ’ — Educational Experiment Stations: Wm. Kent. Science and War: Dr. F. Lyman Wells . 273 Quotations : — Scientific Appointments under the Govern¬ ment. President Wilson’s Scientific Ap¬ pointments . 276 Scientific Books: — Dadourian on Analytical Mechanics: Pro¬ fessor E. W. Rettger . 278 Special Articles: — Experimental Ablation of the Hypophysis in the Frog Embryo: Dr. P. E. Smith. The Effect of Grinding Soil on the Number of Microorganisms : Dr. E. B. Fred. The Pulse Theory of Radiation: P. W. Cobb. A Primary Circuit Key for Quantitative In¬ duction Work: Dr. R. E. Lee Gunning ... 280 The American Chemical Society: Dr. Charles L. Parsons . 285 MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended for review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison- On-Hudson, N. Y. ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE MITCHELL MEMORIAL BUILDING OF THE PHILADELPHIA ORTHOPAEDIC HOSPITAL AND INFIRMARY FOR NERVOUS DISEASES1 Observe the title of the building we are assembled to dedicate — the Mitchell Me¬ morial Building of the Philadelphia Or¬ thopaedic Hospital and Infirmary for Nerv¬ ous Diseases. It is not the 8. Weir Mitchell or the Weir Mitchell Memorial, but simply the “ Mitchell Memorial” Build¬ ing.2 As there are many Franklins but only one Franklin, so there are many Mitchells but only one Mitchell. I first saw Weir Mitchell on the third of September, 1860, just as I was beginning the arduous study which has filled a long life time. The last time I saw him was at Christmas time in 1913, just before the shadow of death fell upon him. The inter¬ val covered fifty-three years and four months — a long time for an intimate friendship which never knew a cloud even as big as a man’s hand. He was my senior by only eight years, but, having graduated ten years before I began even to study medicine and having already an established reputation, I always looked up to him as my father in the pro¬ fession rather than as an elder brother. I first aided him in his experiments on the poison of snakes — a study which for almost half a century fascinated him and to which he, first alone, and later with 1 By Dr. W. W. Keen, consulting surgeon to the hospital. •2 This was the name then on the new building. Later it was replaced by the “Silas Weir Mitchell Memorial.” 256 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1130 Reichert and Noguchi, made most valuable contributions. During these experiments one incident was an excellent illustration of the mental alertness which was so striking an element in Mitchell’s character. One hot July just after we had collected one or perhaps two teaspoonfuls of the liquid snake-poison in a small cup Mitchell was called out of town for three or four days. Usually we im¬ mediately spread out this liquid in a thin layer so that it would dry quickly before decomposition set in, but by an oversight on this occasion it was left in the cup in bulk and naturally in such weather under¬ went quick decomposition. On his return we went to the laboratory and on opening the door were almost knocked down by the horrible stench. Who of us here would not have sought the source of the smell and in all haste have thrown it away. Not so Mitchell. Instantly he turned to me and said, “I wonder if decomposition has de¬ stroyed its poisonous character. Let’s try it.” That was always his desire — to put everything to the test of experiment. A single experiment showed that for a pigeon it was as virulent as ever. How subtle and potent was the poison that even decomposi¬ tion left intact ! But not to every form of life was it even then a poison, for disport¬ ing themselves in the cup were a host of nimble little animalcule having apparently the time of their lives. Within a half year of our first meeting came on the sterner studies of the Civil War — studies which he again illuminated by his brilliant investigations and in which I again had the great good fortune to be his assistant, especially in the Turner’s Lane Army Hospital for Diseases and Injuries of the Nervous System in this city. This was only one of several special army hos¬ pitals for which science and the American soldiers were indebted to Mitchell, for it was he who suggested the idea to Surgeon- General Hammond. In fact I have always felt that my inti mate acquaintance with Weir Mitchell was the first of three epochal events in my life. The stimulus and direction of my profes¬ sional life began in those days with him as the dominant factor. I have always gladly acknowledged this great debt. I have met and known many of the best in medicine and surgery in America and in Europe and I say unhesitatingly that Weir Mitchell was the most original, fertile, stimulating med¬ ical man I have ever met either here or abroad. Early in his professional life a vacancy occurred in the chair of physiology at his alma mater, the Jefferson Medical College, a position for which his studies in anatomy, physiology and toxicology had preemi¬ nently fitted him. But the trustees had not the vision, the imagination to discern the genius they might have obtained. A very few years later the University of Pennsyl¬ vania trustees also were equally blind and so he never became a “professor.” But years afterward he had the privilege as a trustee of the University of Pennsyl¬ vania to elect professors. The fight over his election to the board was one between the conservatives and the progressives and under the leadership of William Pepper, H. C. Wood, Tyson, Harrison Allen, and their valiant friends, Mitchell was elected, and a new University of Pennsylvania Medical School arose. Calling on him after the election, Allen, by a happy quotation, well described Mitchell’s status Thou shall not be King but thou shalt beget Kings. What discoveries he would have made, what a school of young experimental physi¬ ologists he would have created, had either of those two great schools but appreciated the genius they might have had we can only guess. But these two,- for him, fortunate de¬ feats, and his experiences in the Civil War August 25, 1916] SCIENCE 257 decided his career. Thenceforward all his powers, all his energies, were devoted to neurology — then almost a new department of medicine with which we are now so fa¬ miliar. His very touch was vibrant with the rest¬ less mental forces within him. Every in¬ stitution with which he was connected, every committee he was on, took on a new and vigorous life. The University of Penn¬ sylvania, the College of Physicians, the Di¬ rectory for Nurses, the Philadelphia Li¬ brary, and in later life the Carnegie Institution and this hospital, all felt the throb of his genius. Another evidence of Dr. Mitchell’s wide influence and at the same time a beautiful tribute to his memory, so modestly done that I have only just heard of it, is the fully equipped Convalescent Home for Children established by Miss Anne Thom¬ son near Devon. While other hospitals share in this bounty, Miss Thomson’s first thought was for this hospital so dear to Dr. Mitchell’s heart and therefore to her own. The same potent influence won for you the services of your invaluable president. In 1871 his connection with the Ortho¬ paedic Hospital began. He had thirsted for several years for the wider circle of clinical opportunities which a hospital would give for the observation of neurological dis¬ eases. There was no hospital in Philadel¬ phia which had even so much as a ward for these sorely suffering patients, often indeed derelicts on the sea of humanity. Indeed, there were then but six such hospitals in all Europe and only two others in the United States. Mitchell, with quick vision, recog¬ nized his opportunity. Many of the results of nervous diseases, especially of their pal¬ sies, resulted in deformities and disabilities which could only be remedied or alleviated by orthopaedic surgery. In 1867 on Ninth Street, between Market and Chestnut Streets, Thomas G. Morton, H. Earnest Goodman, Agnew and the two Grosses had founded a small “Orthopaedic Hospital.” Mitchell joined forces with them and from this little mustard seed has grown this great tree, whose branches have indeed been for the healing of the nations, for its patients drawn especially by Mitchell’s great reputation came not only from all over the United States, but from foreign countries as well. The name was lengthened in 1893 to “The Orthopaedic Hospital and Infirmary for Nervous Diseases.” If I may be al¬ lowed a linguistic license the tail began by being longer than the dog and it ended by its wagging the dog. As I was formerly on the active and am now on the consulting surgical staff this homely simile is perhaps permissible. By 1873 their narrow quarters became too strait for the rapidly growing hospital and they removed to Seventeenth and Summer Streets, where an old residence was fitted up. Then the community recog¬ nized it. Funds began to be given and be¬ queathed and patients multiplied. A few years later (1887) a new hospital building on the site of the old residence was opened, Mr. Kuhn being the chairman of the build¬ ing committee. This in turn was outgrown and successively adjoining lots were pur¬ chased until now the hospital owns seven lots with a front of 224 feet on Summer Street and 116 feet on Seventeenth Street, though the last lot (no. 1713), presented to the hospital as a memorial to his father by the liberal and energetic president, C. Hartman Kuhn, Esq., is as yet not physi¬ cally incorporated into the hospital. A live growing hospital, like a live grow¬ ing baby, is always greedy for nourish¬ ment, but unlike the baby never suffers from indigestion. There is a hospital physiology which differs from that of ani¬ mals and humans. Even a gorging Thanksgiving dinner followed by a dessert 258 SCIENCE [N. S. Yol. XLIV. No. 1130 up to the bursting point — in the case of the hospital a dessert of thousand-dollar checks — never “upsets” but actually “sets up” both its appetite and its digestion. The above I give you notice is the most important paragraph in my whole address. For eight years, from 1890 to 1898 I was so fortunate as to be Mitchell’s colleague as one of the three orthopaedic surgeons and I can testify, therefore, from my experi¬ ence, both in the Civil War and in this hos¬ pital, to the wonderful stimulating influ¬ ence which Dr. Mitchell exerted. This was manifested not only in the conduct of the hospital, but in his influence on the medical and surgical staff and especially on his own assistants, on the resident physicians, and on the many doctors who flocked to his weekly clinics and bore away with them an inspiration for good work all over the land. These bright men of mature years sat at the feet of the master to be taught much that the best of them did not know, to catch glimpses of the guesses of genius which later grew into the certainties of science, to hear and repeat his many pic¬ turesque and impressive descriptions or happy or pungent phrases, struck like sparks off the anvil. But while visiting strangers were wel¬ comed and departed with many a sheaf, it was his regular assistants and the residents in the hospital who were indeed twice blessed. To begin with a new patient; to observe Mitchell’s careful cross examina¬ tion as to the earliest symptoms ; his minute following up of even a stray hint which to an ordinary man would have meant little or nothing, but which to Mitchell was a veritable guide post to the right road; to hear him compare or contrast this case with other similar or opposite cases garnered by an accurate memory from the myriad cases seen one year, five years, ten or even twenty years before; to see how he inevi¬ tably put his finger on the exact central fundamental lesion which to others was ob¬ scured by the many surrounding minor symptoms ; a diagnosis made often seem¬ ingly by intuition ; to follow his treatment until betterment or cure or in rare cases death closed the scene; this was a liberal education in itself. At my request a list of the men who have been his colleagues or assistants has been furnished to me. I find that they were nearly 160 in number. To call this notable roll in your hearing is of course impossible. But I can not refrain from mentioning a few of the more conspicuous — names known to most of you as leaders not only in this community but throughout this country and not a few of world- wide fame: Wharton Sinkler, Morris J. Lewis, William J. Taylor, J. Madison Taylor, John K. Mitchell, Charles W. Burr, G. G. Davis, F. X. Der- cum, George E. deSchweinitz, Charles K. Mills, Barton C. Hirst, John H. W. Rhein, A. P. C. Ashhurst, D. J. McCarthy, Guy Hinsdale, of Hot Springs, Va., Edward B. Angell, of Rochester, N. Y. I have only named one tenth of this ever- faithful cohort. We, the other 90 per cent., may well rest content, however, in the con¬ sciousness of daily duty well done. In the forum of one’s own mind and conscience the ultimate and most cherished judgment seat is established. One noteworthy fact demonstrates how stimulating was his influence. Twenty-five of the men who served this hospital in the eighteen years from 1889 to 1907 contrib¬ uted 522 papers to medical and surgical literature. Not all, not even a majority of these were papers on neurology or ortho- pfedics, but the incentive, the stimulus to writing, was largely the result of Mitchell ’s precept and example. While I was on the active staff the daily out-patient service was constantly growing larger and larger. The noise and confu- August 25, 1916] SCIENCE 259 sion, the dirt, especially on rainy and muddy days, were increasing and the desire for separate quarters for this daily throng was constantly growing more insistent. Up to the end of 1908 while the house patients totaled 10,936 there had been 180,555 patients cared for in the out-pa¬ tient clinics. This is a large number, but it covers many years. For the last year, 1915, the number cared for in this clinic was only 150 less than 26,000, largely over 2,000 patients every month ! For the seven years from 1909 to 1915 the total number was 156,385. This year, 1916, will bring up the number for the past eight years to more than had been treated in the 42 years after the little hospital was started on Ninth Street in 1867. When Dr. Mitchell passed away early in 1914 the opportunity came for relieving the hospital itself from this burden and at the same time for founding a worthy and spontaneous memorial in the hospital to which he had given of his best for so many years of his busy life. A large committee, numbering fifty to sixty, consisting of the members of the board, the members of the medical and surgical staff and assistants and many women was formed with Dr. Charles W. Burr as chairman, Mr. Charles Sinkler as secretary, and Mr. John W. Brock as treasurer. Through their abound¬ ing efforts even in the depressing financial conditions preceding the Great War the money to erect the memorial was obtained. Right opposite to the hospital, across Seventeenth Street, stood the parish house of the chapel of the Epiphany Episcopal Church, unused and for sale. The lot meas¬ ures 80 feet, 9 inches on Seventeenth Street and is 107 feet deep. It was pur¬ chased for $40,000. The alterations, fur¬ nishings and equipment have cost about $20,000 additional, a total, therefore, of $60,000. It is away from and not physically a part of the hospital, yet is within a few steps ; convenient of access yet keeping all noise, dirt and possibility of contagion away from the house patients, whose quiet comfort and speedy recovery are thereby greatly promoted. Had Dr. Mitchell himself been consulted, no memorial more pleasing to him could have been devised. No stately mausoleum, useless alike to the living and the dead, would have appealed to him. A busy clinic where thousands upon thousands will be helped back to joyous life because it is a useful life — this I am sure he would have thought the most grateful homage from his many friends. W. W. Keen A NOTE ON THE SERUM TREATMENT OF POLIOMYELITIS (INFANTILE PARALYSIS)1 The epidemic of poliomyelitis that is pre¬ vailing at the present time so extensively in New York and in some degree widely through¬ out the United States has led to many in¬ quiries being made regarding the serum treat¬ ment of the disease, and particularly of the stage to which the treatment has advanced. This brief paper is intended not only to an¬ swer such inquiries, but also to provide a basis for the wider employment of the treatment where the difficult conditions surrounding the obtaining of the immune human serum can be surmounted. It was demonstrated by Elexner and Lewis,2 and afterwards confirmed by several investi¬ gators, that monkeys which had recovered from an attack of poliomyelitis induced ex¬ perimentally were not subject to successful reinoculation with the virus of the disease. This was followed by the detection by Romer and Joseph3 and later by others in the blood of 1 From The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, New York. 2 Flexuer, S., and Lewis, P. A., “ Epidemic Poliomyelitis in Monkeys, ” fourth note, J. A. M. A., 1910, LIY., 45. 3 Romer, P. H., and Joseph, K., Munch, med. Woch., 1910, LVII., 568. Levaditi and Land- steiner, Comp. rend. Soc. de biol., 1910, LXVIII., 311. Flexner, S., and Lewis, P. A., “Experimental 260 SCIENCE [N. S. VOL. XLIV. No. 1130 such resistant or protected monkeys, and then by Levaditi and Netter,4 and by Flexner and Lewis in the blood of human beings who had recovered from acute poliomyelitis, of immu¬ nity substances which possessed the power of neutralizing the virus of poliomyelitis when the serum and the virus were brought together in the test tube. Flexner and Lewis ascer¬ tained, also, that the serum of monkeys actively immunized5 with the virus under conditions in which all symptoms of the disease were avoided, contained similar immunity bodies. EXPERIMENTAL SERUM THERAPY The next step taken was the determination d>y Flexner and Lewis that both the immune monkey6 and the immune human serum7 which ‘exhibited the neutralizing power for the virus possessed also therapeutic properties for .monkeys inoculated with the potent virus of poliomyelitis in contradistinction to the normal serum from the same animal sources which was devoid of those properties. The experimental demonstration of the therapeutic activity of the immune sera was made in the following manner. Rhesus mon¬ keys were inoculated (a) intracerebrally and (b) intranasally with a virus which had be¬ come adapted to the monkey and was highly potent. The effective intracerebral dose of a Berkefeld filtrate of a 5 per cent, emulsion of the spinal cord of an infected monkey was less than 0.01 c.c. Hence the quantity of the filtrate injected into the brain of the ether¬ ized monkeys varied from 0.01 to 0.1 c.c. The inoculations were made in the afternoon and the therapeutic treatment was begun the next day, or from eighteen to twenty-four hours Poliomyelitis in Monkeys,” seventh note, J. A. M. A., 1910, LIY., 1780. 4 Levaditi and Netter, A., Presse med., 1910, XVIII., 268. Flexner, S., and Lewis, P. A., sev¬ enth note, loc. cit. s Flexner, S., and Lewis, P. A., 1 ‘ Experimental Poliomyelitis in Monkeys,” eighth note, J. A. M. A., 1910, LV., 662. 6 Flexner, S., and Lewis, P. A., seventh note, loc. cit. i Flexner, S., and Lewis, P. A., eighth note, loc. cit. later. When the virus was introduced by the nasal route the filtrate was not employed, but an emulsion of the spinal cord was rubbed upon the upper nasal mucosa. The immune sera were applied by intra- spinal or subdural injection. The usual method was to inject from 2 c.c. to 3 c.c. of the immune sera through the lumbar puncture needle daily for several days or daily for three injections followed by an interval of three days when the three injections were repeated. The conclusions reached from these experi¬ ments were in substance that if the quantity of virus is not in excess of a given dose, the infection can be either wholly prevented or the onset of the paralysis much delayed. In other words when dealing with the virus adapted to the monkey which induces poliomyelitis almost without exception and in which the symptoms are far more severe and the mortality far greater than occur in the disease in human beings, the immune monkey and human sera are capable of preventing in all but a few in¬ stances the development of the virus even when inoculated intracerebrally, and in the excep¬ tional instances in which the development is not wholly prevented, the onset of the disease is much delayed. The power, therefore, to neutralize the virus possessed by the immune sera is exercised in vivo under severe experi¬ mental conditions almost as constantly as in vitro under relatively favorable ones. In order that maximal effect of the immune sera may be secured it is necessary that the injections be made into the subdural space which can be readily and safely accomplished by means of lumbar puncture. The reason for this mode of application of the serum depends upon the facts that it is the most direct route to the central nervous tissues and, however the virus is introduced into the body, it estab¬ lishes itself in the cerebrospinal meninges.8 8 Flexner, S., and Lewis, P. A., seventh note, loc. cit. Flexner, S., ‘ ‘ The Contribution of Ex¬ perimental to Human Poliomyelitis,” J. A. M. A., 1910, LV., 1105. Flexner, S., and Amos, H. L., “Penetration of the Virus of Poliomyelitis from the Blood into the Cerebrospinal Fluid, ’ ’ J our. Exper. Med., 1914, XIX., 411. August 25, 1916] SCIENCE 261 It is logical, therefore, to endeavor to bring the immune serum in as high a concentration as possible into immediate relation with the seat of disease. The power of the immune serum, when in¬ jected subdurally, to prevent the development of experimentally induced poliomyelitis in the monkey, is further indicated by experiments9 in which, on the one hand, the virus has been injected into the blood under conditions in¬ suring its escape into the meninges and, on the other, when an emulsion of the virus has been introduced directly into the meninges and followed later by the serum injection. SERUM THERAPY IN MAN This aspect of the subject has been imper¬ fectly developed up to the present time. Net ter 10 was the first to apply the data ob¬ tained by experiments on monkeys to the treat¬ ment of cases of epidemic poliomyelitis in man. He has published the results obtained in a series of thirty-five cases which he re¬ garded as highly favorable to the method. He employed the serum from cases of poliomyelitis in which complete recovery from the acute condition has taken place some time and even as long as thirty years previously. The serum injections were given subdurally as early after the appearance and recognition of the symp¬ toms of poliomyelitis as possible. The dose of the serum, which must, of course, be sterile but need not be inactivated, should be deter¬ mined by the age of the patient and will, in part, be determined by the quantity of serum available. Probably doses ranging from five to twenty cubic centimeters will be found suitable, the injection to be repeated once or more times at twenty-four hour intervals ac- 9 Flexner, S., and Amos, H. L., ‘ ‘ Localization of the Virus and Pathogenesis of Epidemic Polio¬ myelitis, ” Jour. Exper. Med., 1914, XX., 249. , io Netter, A., “ Serotherapie de la poliomyelite nos resultants chez trentedeux malades, ’ ’ Indica¬ tions technique — incidents possibles, Bull, de l ’Acad, de Med., Oct. 12, 1915. Netter, A., and Salanier, M., “Deux nouveaux cas de poliomyelite a debut meninge gueris par les injections intra- rachidiennes de serum d’ anciens malades, ’ ’ Bull. Mem. Soc. Med. des Hop. de Paris, Mar. 10, 1916. cording to clinical conditions and indications. The effects of the immune serum should be sought in the checking of the progress of the disease, namely the prevention or minimization of the paralysis when employed in the pre¬ paralytic stages, and the arrest of its exten¬ sion when used in progressing paralytic con¬ ditions. Since the immunity substances have been determined by neutralization tests to persist in the blood for many years, it is prob¬ able as Netter has indicated that persons who have passed through an attack of poliomyelitis several years earlier may be utilized as sources of the serum; while reasoning from analogy it would probably be advantageous to prefer persons whose attack was less remote so as to insure as high concentration of the immunity bodies as possible. The conditions surround¬ ing the injection of the serum are identical with those observed in the analogous case of epidemic meningitis. Before each dose of serum is injected a suitable quantity of cerebro-spinal fluid is to be withdrawn, and the injection should be made slowly. In choosing the person who is to serve as the source of the blood from which the immune serum is to be derived precaution should of course be taken to secure a healthy donor; it would be ad¬ visable to fortify the usual clinical examina¬ tion by a Wassermann test. Simon Flexner THE CULTURE VALUE OF SCIENCE1 Wishing not to squander any of the few minutes allowed me in this program, I have written down what I have to say, and hope you will pardon me if by reading I seem unduly formal for the occasion. The Scripps Institution for Biological Re¬ search believes it has a mission over and above what is indicated by its name. As “ nomi¬ nated in the bond,” its function is to produce new knowledge in the realms of nature with i Remarks to the teachers of science in the sec¬ ondary schools of southern California on the oc¬ casion of their visit to La Jolla and the Scripps In¬ stitution for Biological Research of the University of California during the teachers’ institute week in November, 1915. 262 SCIENCE [N. S. VOL. XLIY. No. 1130 which it is occupied. But it would do some¬ thing also toward the humanization of science. Its work is not only to make science, but to make science human. Concerning its science- producing function you will learn something to-day from the other members of the staff. So the time at my disposal may be devoted to saying a little about what we mean by human¬ izing science. First, I remark on the eagerness with which we avail ourselves of this opportunity to help you, teachers of science in the secondary schools, to become acquainted with the insti¬ tution. We know well enough that if ever our theories about the humanization of sci¬ ence are to be realized, the teachers of boys and girls must be a large, probably the largest, factor in doing it. Despite the stupendous development of physical science in our day, there is wide- reaching, deep-seated misconception as to what science is; and this misconception is not con¬ fined to the laity. It pervades the fold of sci¬ ence itself. This assertion may surprise you; but I believe, a little reflection will convince you of its truth. Being teachers, you do not need to be told that the curricula of practically all schools make the sharpest distinction, ex¬ pressly or tacitly, between humanistic subjects and scientific subjects; between cultural and practical studies, science being the backbone of most of the practical courses. Have you ever known or heard of a school that consid¬ ered its science courses to be cultural in a genuine sense ? When “ culture courses ” are spoken of, are the scientific ones ever referred to ? If so, it is only in the few instances where some science teacher of exceptional insight and personal force has driven his or her col¬ leagues to accept such a valuation of subjects. So far as my observation has gone, admission of the culture-value of science that is not half¬ hearted and grudging is so rare as to be prac¬ tically negligible. And a fact of grave con¬ cern is the tendency vocational training has to blindfold scientists and teachers of science into accepting this exclusively physical valua¬ tion of science. From this influence and others it happens that science has become the ally, and to a large extent the background, of that theory and practise in the civilization of our day variously spoken of as economism, in¬ dustrialism, and commercialism. The mon¬ strous power this theory of civilization has for destroying all that is finest and noblest and most cherished in human life is at last being recognized by certain thoughtful persons. But few there are, apparently, who yet see with clear vision the profound importance for the situation of beliefs touching the cultural value of science. One lot of philosophers take the ground that on the whole science is prov¬ ing itself an enemy to mankind. They say the undeniable good science has done in providing man with more and better things to eat and wear, better dwellings, better means of com¬ munication, more abundant material wealth, greater immunity from disease, and so forth, are insufficient to offset the harm it does in robbing him of aspirations, ideals, faiths, sensitiveness to beauty in nature and in art, and love of his fellow beings. Just how nu¬ merous and influential these philosophers are, is difficult to estimate; but without doubt a sentiment of this kind is widespread in the community. It seems to have been growing during the last few decades; and the three- continent-wide struggle now raging is un¬ questionably helping it on. The dreadnaught service, the submarine service, the air-machine service, the giant artillery service, the poison¬ ous-gas service, and the rest, are making evi¬ dent to the whole world how efficient the sev¬ eral departments of Hell can be made by ma¬ king them thoroughly scientific. “ Poor sci¬ ence,” said a writer for a Socialist paper the other day, “ is too busy working in the service of militarism, perfecting instruments of de¬ struction,” to do much toward the advance¬ ment of civilization. I am sure science is less honored, less prized to-day, for any purpose not commercial or purely physical in some way, than it was when I was young; and to one aspect of the matter I would direct your special attention. Beyond a doubt these later years have wit¬ nessed a flocking of people in increasing num¬ bers to occult and mystical doctrines and prac¬ tises of various sorts. Make the rounds of the bookshops in almost any city and you will find August 25, 1916] SCIENCE 263 writings of this character more numerously and conspicuously displayed than works on sci¬ entific subjects other than those of applied science and school text-books. Judging from the testimony of publishers and book-dealers, the public is finding little in modern science that satisfies the deepest needs of human life. I want to insist that a radical change will have to be wrought in the feeling of educated people generally toward science, if civilization is to rise much above its present level. But estimation of the worth of science can be changed only as an incident to a profound change of conception of and feeling for na¬ ture. Let no one, especially no teacher of sci¬ ence, fail to make the sharpest distinction be¬ tween nature and science — between nature itself and knowledge of nature! I just mentioned feeling for nature. Here, I am persuaded, is the key to the situation. I wonder to what extent you have noted that the scientific authorities you read and meet rarely love nature. If they do, they rarely say so, or reveal their feeling in any way. In fact, it would be surprising if you have not been admonished by your leaders that feeling must be frozen out of science. With many a scientist the stigma that attaches to the phrase “ nature lovers,” from having been ap¬ plied to a group of slop-overs has been ex¬ tended to everybody who manifests love for na¬ ture in any way. We touch a subject here too vast to do much with in a talk like this. I can only remark that practical experience and the psychology of feeling demonstrate the utter fallacy of the theory that science must be emotionless. Have you yourself or has anybody you ever saw or heard of, done thoroughly well any task into which the “ whole heart,” as we say, has not entered ? But the “ whole heart ” is, as modern psychology is making us understand, the unerring folkway of saying that the feel¬ ings, the affective side of our natures, though not the intellect, must be ever present along with intellect in all high and effective en¬ deavor. And I urge you to mark well this fact: The very men of science who depreciate love of nature do not hesitate to extol love of truth. Truth, they say, not only may be, but must be loved that its pursuit, even by science, shall be assured. We hear men preach love of truth and of emotionless science, almost in the same breath! But what is truth? The query has beset all the sages of all the ages. Curiously enough, when you come to reflect, the sages who have sweated blood over this question have not been students of nature at all as modern sci¬ ence understands the phrase. The sages have looked at a few aspects of nature and have speculated endlessly and earnestly about na¬ ture; but they have not studied it. Let a humble naturalist try his hand at defining truth. Truth (with as big a T as you please) is all that has been learned plus all that remains to be learned about nature. At the particular institution of scientific research which you visit to-day, the theory is held that nature and truth, while not identical, yet have so much in common — overlap each other in so much of their range — that whatever place feeling rightly has in the pursuit of the one, it has in the pursuit of the other. And here is the most vital spot of all: Men love truth because truth is to their advantage. It is beneficent — it makes goodness in their lives. Exactly so with nature according to our theory. Mature is beneficent. It is a maker of goodness in human lives. Indeed, excepting through nature, there is no goodness; and the chief end of science is to show in detail and literally how we live, move and have our being in nature. Through the achievements of mod¬ ern medicine and hygiene and agriculture and industrial chemistry and mechanics, the most enlightened persons seem to have become con¬ vinced at last that nature is man’s preserver and sustainer. It remains now for them to become convinced that nature is man’s maker as well as his sustainer. This task falls more heavily on biology than on any other science. So I ask that while you look over the “ plant” of the Scripps Institution to-day and while you work toward a decision on whether or not you can accept the invitation we hope to extend to you before long to spend a little time at the institution next summer on some 264 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1130 work with us, you keep constantly before you the ideas and ideals of the institution here so sketchily described. Wm. E. Ritter La Jolla, Calif. THE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL On April 19, 1916, at the closing session of the annual meeting, the National Academy of Sciences voted unanimously to offer its serv¬ ices to the president of the United States in the interest of national preparedness. The council of the academy was authorized to execute the work in the event of the presi¬ dent’s acceptance. On April 26 the president of the academy, accompanied by Messrs. Conklin, Hale, Wal¬ cott and Woodward, was received at the White House by the president of the United States. In presenting the resolution adopted at the annual meeting, it was suggested that the academy might advantageously organize the scientific resources of educational and research institutions in the interest of national secur¬ ity and welfare. The president accepted this offer, and requested the academy to proceed at once to carry it into effect. Immediately following this visit, the presi¬ dent of the academy, in harmony with resolu¬ tions adopted by the council on April 19, ap¬ pointed the following organizing committee: Messrs. Edwin G. Conklin, Simon Flexner, Robert A. Millikan, Arthur A. Noyes and George E. Hale {chairman). At a meeting of the council of the academy, held in New York on June 19, the organizing committee presented the following statement of work accomplished up to that date. Much time was devoted during the first five weeks to the organization of committees to meet immediate needs, including those on Nitric Acid Supply (A. A. Noyes, chairman), in cooperation with the American Chemical Society; Preventive Medicine (Simon Flexner, chairman), in cooperation with the Committee of Physicians and Surgeons, and Synthetic Organic Chemistry (M. T. Bogert, chairman), in cooperation with the American Chemical Society. Special attention was also given to arrangements for cooperation with the scien¬ tific bureaus of the government, the committee of physicians and surgeons, the naval consult¬ ing board, the national societies devoted to branches of science in which committees were immediately needed, the national engineering societies, the larger research foundations, cer¬ tain universities and schools of technology, and the leading investigators in many fields of research, both on the industrial and the edu¬ cational side. The hearty encouragement re¬ ceived from all of these men and institutions leaves no doubt that, as soon as a general re¬ quest for cooperation is sent out, it will meet with universal acceptance. During this preliminary period a more comprehensive plan of organization was developed, and finally embodied in the form indicated below. It was recognized from the outset that the activities of the committee should not be confined to the promotion of researches bearing directly upon military prob¬ lems, but that true preparedness would best result from the encouragement of every form of investigation, whether for military and in¬ dustrial application, or for the advancement of knowledge without regard to its immediate practical bearing. The scheme of organiza¬ tion must be broad enough to secure the co¬ operation of all important agencies in accom¬ plishing this result. After considering a variety of plans the organizing committee presented to the Coun¬ cil of the Academy the following recommenda¬ tions : That there be formed a National Research Council, whose purpose shall be to bring into co¬ operation existing governmental, educational, in¬ dustrial and other research organizations with the object of encouraging the investigation of natural phenomena, the increased use of scientific re¬ search in the development of American industries, the employment of scientific methods in strength¬ ening the national defense, and such other appli¬ cations of science as will promote the national se¬ curity and welfare. That the council be composed of leading Ameri¬ can investigators and engineers, representing the Army, Navy, Smithsonian Institution and various scientific bureaus of the government; educational August 25, 1916] SCIENCE 265 institutions and research endowments; and the re¬ search divisions of industrial and manufacturing establishments. That, in order to secure a thoroughly representa¬ tive body, the members of the council be chosen in consultation with the presidents of the Ameri¬ can Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American As¬ sociation of University Professors, and the Asso¬ ciation of American Universities; that representa¬ tives of industrial research be selected with the advice of the Presidents of the Society of Civil Engineers, the American Institute of Mining Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Society of Electrical Engineers, and the American Chemical Society, and that members of the cabinet be asked to name the representatives of the various depart¬ ments of the government. That research committees of two classes be ap¬ pointed, as follows: (a) Central committees, rep¬ resenting various departments of science, com¬ prised of leading authorities in each field, se¬ lected in consultation with the president of the corresponding national society. (&) Local com¬ mittees in universities, colleges and other coopera¬ ting institutions engaged in scientific research. The organizing committee also recommended the following plan of procedure, subject to such modifications as the National Research Council may deem desirable. 1. The preparation of a national inventory of equipment for research, of the men engaged in it, and of the lines of investigation pursued in co¬ operating government bureaus, educational insti¬ tutions, research foundations and industrial re¬ search laboratories; this inventory to be prepared in harmony with any general plan adopted by the proposed government council of national defense. 2. The preparation of reports by special com¬ mittees, suggesting important research problems and favorable opportunities for research in vari¬ ous departments of science. 3. The promotion of cooperation in research, with the object of securing increased efficiency; but with careful avoidance of any hampering con¬ trol or interference with individual freedom and initiative. 4. Cooperation with educational institutions, by supporting their efforts to secure larger funds and more favorable conditions for the pursuit of re¬ search and for the training of students in the methods and spirit of investigation. 5. Cooperation with research foundations and other agencies desiring to secure a more effective use of funds available for investigation. 6. The encouragement in cooperating labora¬ tories of researches designed to strengthen the na¬ tional defense and to render the United States independent of foreign sources of supply liable to be affected by war. The council of the academy voted to accept the proposals of the organizing committee, and instructed it to proceed with the formation of the National Research Council in accordance with the plan recommended by the committee. In consultation with the presidents of the various societies already mentioned, most of the members of the council have now been chosen. The endorsement of the president of the United States and the authority to secure the appointment of government representatives is conveyed in the following letter to the presi¬ dent of the academy: Washington, D. C., July 24, 1916. Dr. William H. Welch, President of the National Academy of Sciences, Baltimore, Maryland. My Dear Dr. Welch: I want to tell you with what gratification I have received the preliminary report of the National Research Council, which was formed at my re¬ quest under the National Academy of Sciences. The outline of work there set forth and the evi¬ dences of remarkable progress towards the ac¬ complishment of the object of the council are in¬ deed gratifying. May I not take this occasion to say that the departments of the government are ready to cooperate in every way that may be re¬ quired, and that the heads of the departments most immediately concerned are now, at my request, actively engaged in considering the best methods of cooperation. Representatives of government bureas will be ap¬ pointed as members of the Research Council as the council desires. Cordially and sincerely yours, [Signed] Woodrow Wilson Under this authority, the appointment of representatives of the army, navy and various scientific bureaus of the government will now be arranged with the members of the cabinet. 266 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1130 It is expected that the first meeting of the council will be held in September. It has already been stated that cordial de¬ sire to cooperate has been encountered on every hand. Special reference may now be made to certain striking cases. The first of these illustrates how the council, taking ad¬ vantage of the increased appreciation of the value of science and the spirit of national service which have resulted from the war, may obtain the cooperation of educational institu¬ tions and assist them in adding to their en¬ dowments for scientific research. Throop College of Technology, in Pasadena, Cali¬ fornia, is a small institution of high standards which gives special attention to research. President Scherer, hearing of the plans of the research council, offered the assistance and co¬ operation of the recently endowed research laboratory of chemistry and secured at once an additional endowment of one hundred thou¬ sand dollars for scientific research. Under somewhat similar circumstances, a gift of $500,000 has been made to the endowment of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with the expectation that much of the income will be used for research at that institution. Another illustration of friendly cooperation, of special importance because it assures the support of the national engineering societies, is afforded by the following resolution of the Engineering Foundation of New York; adopted at the annual meeting of the founda¬ tion, on June 21, 1916 : Whereas, the National Academy of Sciences of the. United States of America has taken the initia¬ tive in bringing into cooperation existing govern¬ mental, educational, industrial and other research organizations with the object of encouraging the investigation of natural phenomena, the applica¬ tion of scientific principles in American industries, the employment of science in the national defense, and such other objects as will promote the national welfare, and Whereas, these objects are among the objects for which The Engineering Foundation was cre¬ ated, Now, Therefore, he it Eesolved, that The Engi¬ neering Foundation hereby registers its approval of the coordination and federation of the research agencies of the country undertaken by the Na¬ tional Academy of Sciences and expresses its will¬ ingness to join with and assist the National Acad¬ emy in accomplishing the above federation. The foundation also offered to devote its entire income for the coming year (including a special gift of $5,000 for this purpose from its founder, Mr. Ambrose Swasey) toward the expenses of organization, and to provide a New York office for the council in the Engineers Building. The presidents of the American Philosoph¬ ical Society, of the American Association of University Professors, and of Yale University have already expressed their intention of pro¬ posing the adoption of similar resolutions by the institutions which they represent and of recommending the appointment of committees to cooperate with the National Research Coun¬ cil; and it is expected that other societies and educational institutions will take similar action. Respectfully submitted by the organizing committee. George E. Hale (chairman) , Edwin G. Conklin, Simon Flexner, Robert A. Millikan, Arthur A. Noyes George E. Hale A BRITISH BOARD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY1 We have received for publication from the British Science Guild the following memo¬ randum on the relations which should exist in future between the state and science, and sug¬ gesting that a national statutory board of sci¬ ence and industry should be formed. The memorandum, which has been forwarded to the government, is signed by some 220 of the most important representatives of industry, science and education: The British Science Guild, which was founded in 1905 with the object of bringing home to all classes “the necessity of applying the methods of science to all branches of hu¬ man endeavor, and thus to further the prog¬ ress and increase the welfare of the empire,” i From Natwre. August 25, 1916] SCIENCE 267 is of opinion that the present European crisis affords a unique opportunity for impressing upon all who are engaged in the executive functions of government, as well as upon those who are concerned with industry and com¬ merce, the paramount importance of scientific method and research in national affairs. There has been much discussion upon these matters, and the following conclusions are submitted by the Guild as representing au¬ thoritative opinion: A. The material prosperity of the civilized world during the past century is mainly due to the application of science to practical ends. B. While we stand high among all nations in capacity for original research, as repre¬ sented by the output of our scientific workers, this capacity has been comparatively little utilized in British industry. C. The state has neglected to encourage and facilitate scientific investigation, or to promote that cooperation between science and industry which is essential to national develop¬ ment. D. Modern conditions of existence demand that instruction in science, and training in scientific method, should be a fundamental part of education. E. The present control of all stages of edu¬ cational work, from the primary school to the university, mostly by men who have an inade¬ quate appreciation of the meaning and power of science, is largely responsible for the un¬ satisfactory preparation commonly provided for the work of life. Since its foundation the British Science Guild has urged that, in the interests of na¬ tional welfare, serious attention should be given to these defects, and steps taken to rem¬ edy them. The establishment of the scheme for the development of scientific and indus¬ trial research, under a committee of the Privy Council, is a welcome recognition of the inti¬ mate relations between scientific investiga¬ tion and industrial advance; and the advisory council which advises the committee as to the expenditure of the sums provided by Parlia¬ ment, amounting for the year 1916-17 to £40,- 000, has already been responsible for the in¬ stitution of researches which should lead to most valuable industrial results. The outlook of the council may, however, be extended profitably in several directions; for it should be even more comprehensive than that of the development commission, which provides for the development of rural industries, among other matters. This commission, with the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, and the Imperial Institute, which has recently been transferred from the Board of Trade to the Colonial Office, is not concerned directly with manufacturing industries, upon which so large a part of the nation’s prosperity depends. The field of the Privy Council committee and its advisory council is thus distinct from that of any existing state department; and it should embrace all progressive industry and science. It is suggested that a board or min¬ istry is necessary to discharge the functions indicated in Clause I. of the recommendations subjoined, in such a way as to fulfil modern requirements. I. A national statutory board of science and industry, the permanent staff of which should consist mainly of persons of wide scientific knowledge and business experience, should be established to : 1. Promote the coordination of industrial effort. 2. Secure cooperation between manufactur¬ ers and all available laboratories of research. 3. Coordinate, and be the executive center of such joint scientific committees as have been formed by the Boyal Society, the Chem¬ ical Society and various trade and educational associations. 4. Undertake inquiries as to products and materials, and generally to serve as a national bureau of scientific and industrial intelligence. 5. Collect and publish information of a sci¬ entific and technical character; and provide so far as possible for the solution of important problems bearing upon industry. 6. Institute a number of paid advisory com¬ mittees consisting of men of wide scientific knowledge assisted by expert investigators and technologists who should receive reasonable fees for their services. 7. Organize scientific effort on the manu¬ facturing side and in commercial relations with other countries. 8. Arrange measures for the mobilization of the scientific, industrial and educational ac¬ tivities of the nation so as to ensure ready re¬ sponse to national needs and emergencies. 9. Encourage investigation, and, where nec¬ essary, give financial aid towards the synthesis and artificial production of natural products and for other researches. 268 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1130 Such a board would naturally administer the scheme of the Privy Council committee, as well as take over certain functions of exist¬ ing departments and boards. The functions of the board would be much the same as regards the promotion of scientific and industrial research and training, the co¬ operation of universities with industries through trade associations, and the mainte¬ nance of a record of scientific and technical experts, as outlined in the report on “ British Trade after the War,” by a subcommittee of the Board of Trade. II. In all departments of state in which scientific work is carried on, adequate pro¬ vision should be made for the periodical pub¬ lication and wide distribution of bulletins, leaflets and reports, so that increased public interest and attention may be encouraged in the results. III. Every industrial undertaking, subsi¬ dized or otherwise assisted by the state, should have upon its board of directors men who pos¬ sess expert scientific knowledge of the business in which they are engaged. IY. In order to develop industries which especially require the services of scientific workers, adequate remuneration and improved prospects should be offered by the government, by municipal corporations, and by manufac¬ turers to men who have received an effective scientific training. Means should be found of compensating and rewarding persons whose researches have proved of decided national or public advantage without being profitable to themselves. Y. A knowledge of science should be re¬ garded as an essential qualification for future appointments in the departments of the pub¬ lic service concerned with industrial, scientific and technical developments. The Royal Com¬ mission on the Civil Service recommended in 1914 that a committee should be appointed to consider the present syllabus of subjects of examination for clerkships (Class I.). This committee should be constituted without de¬ lay, and science as well as other branches of modern learning should be adequately repre¬ sented upon it, and upon the Civil Service Commission itself. YI. Measures should be taken to revise the educational courses now followed in the pub¬ lic schools and the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. YII. In elementary and secondary schools supervised by the Board of Education, more attention should be given to scientific method, observation and experiment, and to educa¬ tional handwork. NEW YORK MEETING OF THE AMER¬ ICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY Official announcement of the meeting of the American Chemical Society, to be held in New York September 25 to 30, in conjunction with the Second National Exposition of Chem¬ ical Industries, was issued to the members by Dr. Charles L. Parsons, secretary, on August 15. Dr. Charles H. Herty, of the University of North Carolina, president of the American Chemical Society, will open the exposition on Monday, September 25, at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, with an address reviewing the his¬ tory of chemistry and the chemical industries in this country, and outlining developments since the outbreak of war in Europe. The presidents of cooperating societies, such as the American Electrochemical Society, the Amer¬ ican Institute of Mining Engineers, and the American Paper and Pulp Association, will follow Dr. Herty with speeches of welcome and reviewing the progress made in the industries represented by them. The first general session of the American Chemical Society will open at Columbia Uni¬ versity on Tuesday morning, September 26, and arrangements are being perfected for a public meeting in the large hall of the College of the City of New York on Tuesday after¬ noon, when addresses will be made of general public interest pertaining to the interesting developments in the field of applied chemistry during recent years. The program of the week’s meetings will provide for general conferences on subjects in which the chemists of the country are now in¬ terested, and it is intended that the lecture hall of the Grand Central Palace and Rum- ford Hall in the Chemists’ Club building will be occupied each afternoon at the same time by one or other of the different divisions of the society for the discussion of such industrial topics as the production of dyestuffs, medicinal chemicals, industrial alcohol, the manufacture August 25, 1916] SCIENCE 269 of paper pulp and by-products, oils and motor fuels, glassware and porcelain, steel alloy metals, new developments in chemical indus¬ tries, etc. On Wednesday and Thursday mornings a general symposium on colloids will be held, theoretical considerations being discussed on the first day and the industrial applications of colloid chemistry on the second day. The American Electrochemical Society has planned a series of interesting meetings. The electrochemical group will open its meeting later in the week, on Thursday, September 28, with a technical session devoted to a review of American progress in the electrochemical in¬ dustry. A complimentary smoker will be held on Thursday evening, and on Friday evening there will be a joint banquet at the Waldorf- Astoria of the members of the American Chemical Society, the American Electro¬ chemical Society, and the Technical Associa¬ tion of the Pulp and Paper Industry. SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS The funeral of Sir William Ramsay took place at Hazlemere, High Wycombe, on Wed¬ nesday, July 26, in the presence of representa¬ tives of the Royal Society, the Chemical Soci¬ ety, University College, London, and many other societies and institutions. General William C. Gorgas, U. S. A., head of the yellow fever commission of the Inter¬ national Health Board of the Rockefeller Foundation, arrived at Bogota, Colombia, from Panama, on August 9. General Gorgas will consult with the Colombian government on sanitary conditions of ports in that country. Part of the Canadian Arctic expedition, which is led by Yilhjalmur Stefansson, has re¬ turned to Nome, Alaska, after spending three years in investigations on the north coast of Canada. Dr. Anderson, of the southern party, reports that Stefannson may not return until some time in 1918. He planned to start from winter quarters in May last to continue his explorations of the new land west of Prince Patrick Island. The Astley Cooper prize for the present year, for a treatise on “ The Physiology and Pathology of the Pituitary Body,” has been awarded to Dr. W. Blair Bell, of Liverpool. Mr. James Mooney, of the Bureau of Amer¬ ican Ethnology has been in North Carolina to continue his researches among the Cherokee Indians. Dr. Leo J. Frachtenberg, who has been in the field for the Bureau of American Ethnol¬ ogy for the past year, has changed his head¬ quarters to Portland, Oregon. Mr. C. B. Williams has been appointed by the Board of Agriculture, Trinidad, to study the parasites of the sugar-cane froghopper in that island. M. C. Whitaker, professor of chemical engi¬ neering, Columbia University, has been granted leave of absence for the first term of the academic year, 1916-17. Professor W. S. Miller, of the department of anatomy at the University of Wisconsin, has been giving a series of illustrated lectures before the Robert Koch Society for the Study of Tuberculosis, at Chicago, on “ The Lym¬ phatics and Lymphoid Tissue of the Lung and their Relation to Disease Processes,” and an illustrated lecture before the Cincinnati Re¬ search Society on “ The Anatomy of the Lungs with special reference to the Lym¬ phatics.” The Eugenics Education Society of Chicago holds its meetings once a month. Special speakers at these meetings during the current year have been Professor James A. Field, Professor John M. Coulter, Professor Frank R. Lillie, Professor Frederick Starr, Dr. Albert J. Ochsner, Alexander Johnson and Professor Judson Herrick. We learn from Nature that on Wednesday, July 26, the memorial to Sir William White, promoted by the Institution of Naval Archi¬ tects, was formally handed over to the council of the Institution of Civil Engineers. The presentation was made by Admiral Sir Reginald Custance and Earl Brassey, who stated that £3,000 had been collected. The money is to be allotted to the foundation of a research scholarship fund, the provision of a memorial medallion to be placed in the hall of 270 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1130 the Institution of Civil Engineers, and a grant to Westminster Hospital. The memorial was accepted by Mr. Alexander Ross, the president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and now occupies a position on the right hand of the entrance hall. The medallion consists of a portrait of Sir William, carved in relief in white stone, with a warship visible in the dis¬ tance. The carving is mounted on grey marble, and carries underneath it a tablet, on which are inscribed the words : “ Sir William Henry White, K.C.B., LL.D., D.Sc., E.R.S., Presi¬ dent, 1903-1904, Director of Naval Construc¬ tion, 1885-1902. A Tribute from the Ship¬ builders of Many Nations.” Above is a scroll bearing the motto, “ Build Staunch, Build True.” George Anthony Hill, at one time assist¬ ant professor of physics in Harvard Univer¬ sity, the author of a number of text -books in physics and mathematics, died on August 17, aged seventy-four years. John P. D. John, at one time professor of mathematics and astronomy in DePauw Uni¬ versity and later president of the institution, died on August 7, at the age of seventy-three years. Johannes Ranke, professor of anthropology at Munich, has died aged eighty years. Sir William Henry Power, E.R.S., distin¬ guished for his contributions to sanitation and public health, died on July 28, aged seventy- four years. Rowland Trimen, E.R.S., formerly curator of the South African Museum, author of works on the butterflies of South Africa, died on July 25, at the age of seventy-six years. Edgar H. Harper, professor of mathemat¬ ical physics in University College, Cork, known for his work on aviation, has been killed while serving as lieutenant.,. F. W. Caton, for a time connected with the Welcome Chemical Research Laboratory, and later lecturer on chemistry and inspector under the Staffordshire Educational Com¬ mittee, was killed on June 28, while serving as second lieutenant in the British army. Geoffrey W. Smith, fellow of New College, Oxford, captain in the British Army, has been killed in France. Dr. Alfred G. Mayer writes: “ In his death biology loses one of its ablest students, his researches upon the effects pro¬ duced by parasites upon the secondary sexual characters of Crustacea being a classic of sci¬ ence. He was among the first of the univer¬ sity men to enter the service of his nation, and in a letter to me he expressed his regret at leaving his studies, but ‘ England had need of many junior officers and many of these must be killed, so I must go as soon as pos¬ sible.’ High as his scientific attainments were, few men have been endowed with the rare charm of personality he possessed, and thus doubly must we mourn him.” The Susquehanna River Archeological Ex¬ pedition, in charge of Messrs. W. K. Moore- head, Alanson Skinner and George P. Done- hoo, finished its work on August 1. The party consisted of nine men, and began work at the head of the river, Otsego Lake, New York state. A preliminary survey was made of the entire river, from its source to Chesapeake Bay. Local students and collectors cooper¬ ated with the expedition at various points. The party examined a large number of sites along the Susquehanna, and exposed ancient villages attributed to the Delaware, Shawnee, Iroquois and Andaste Indians. A collection of several thousand specimens was secured for the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. The most important discovery during the journey was the location and exca¬ vation of an Andaste cemetery, near Athens, Pennsylvania, where fifty-seven skeletons were unearthed, with interesting specimens of Iro- quoian pottery, pipes and stone implements. Contrary to absurd newspaper reports, none of the skeletons were abnormal, nor were they found in a mound. One of the burials, of the so-called “ bundle ” type, was of unusual inter¬ est, since it was covered by a deposit of the antlers of the Virginia deer. The annual general meeting of the Society of Chemical Industry was held in Edinburgh on July 19-21. According to the account in Nature, the meeting this year took the form August 25, 1916] SCIENCE 271 of a congress on the progress made since the outbreak of war in British chemical industry. The following papers were read and discussed : (1) Fuel. — Fuel economy: a national policy required, Professor H. E. Armstrong; Some recent improvements in coke works practise, Dr. G. P. Lishman; Waste in coal production, Professor H. Louis. (2) Shale Oil. — The shale oil industry, D. It. Steuart. (3) Tar Distilling. — A short review of the influence ex¬ erted by the war on the tar distilling indus¬ try, W. H. Coleman; The extraction of tar fog from hot gas, G. T. Purves. (4) Dyes. — The difficulties of coal-tar color-making in war¬ time, C. M. Whittaker (British Dyes, Ltd.). (5) Fine Chemicals. — Notes on the production of alkaloids as affected by the war, D. B. Dott; The manufacture of synthetic organic drugs as affected by the war, F. H. Carr; The manufacture of fine chemicals in relation to British chemical industry, C. A. Hill and T. D. Horson. (6) Paper-making. — The paper- mill chemist in war-time, J. F. Briggs. (7) Patent Law. — The overhauling of our Pat¬ ent Law, J. W. Gordon; The influence of the Patent Laws upon industry, W. F. Beid; Pro¬ posed amendments to English Patent Law, W. P. Thompson. (8) Rare Earths. — The prog¬ ress of British rare-earth industry during the war, S. J. Johnstone. To illustrate the prog¬ ress that has been made, an exhibition was held, at the same time, of specimens of British- made coal-tar dyes, glass, porcelain and filter paper, along with several other interesting substances now made in Edinburgh. Among these may be mentioned cobalt-blue — a sub¬ stance never before manufactured in this country — now made by the Beaverhall Color Co.; trinitrotoluene by the Lothian Chemical Co.; erasers, etc., manufactured by the North British Rubber Co., the supply of which form¬ erly was entirely imported from Germany. The recovery of the valuable by-products from American coke manufacture made big advances in 1915 and has now attained the pro¬ portions of an important industry. The value of these by-products last year was nearly $30,- 000,000, a large increase over the previous high-water mark of $17,500,000 in 1914. Al¬ though there were material increases in the output and value of gas, tar and ammonia, which was to be expected with a greater output of by-product coke, the increase in benzol pro¬ ducts was remarkable and presented the most interesting feature of the year in the coke in¬ dustry. The value of these products rose from less than $1,000,000 in 1914 to more than $7,- 760,000 in 1915, according to C. E. Lesher, of the United States Geological Survey, Depart¬ ment of the Interior. Benzol has been recov¬ ered in this country from coke-oven gas for a number of years, but prior to 1915 the market was small and the prices low. The awakening of the American people to the need for a dye industry and to a realization that such an in¬ dustry can not spring full-grown from nothing but must be fostered and developed is now a well-known story. Few are aware, however, of the progress that has been made within a year in laying the foundations for future progress in that industry. Under the spur of almost fabulous prices for benzol products, re¬ tort coke-oven plants throughout the country quickly installed elaborate benzol-recovery systems and now save the valuable oils that not very long ago were being buried or wasted, or, if saved, were begging for a market. The benzol products obtained in 1915 amounted to 16,600,657 gallons. More than 13,000,000 gal¬ lons of the total output was reported as crude light oil and had an average value of 33 cents. Some of the plants have their own stills and refineries, and the pure benzol reported from those sources amounted to 2,516,483 gallons, with an average value of nearly 57 cents, at least three times the value of crude benzol be¬ fore the war, and 623,506 gallons of toluol, with an average value of $2.45 a gallon. Crude benzol, which in 1914 was used to some extent for motor fuel, contained the toluol, which is now separated out and .sold at fancy prices. More than 138,000,000 gallons of tar was ob¬ tained from coke ovens and sold for $3,568,384 in 1915. The ammonia, of which nearly 100,- 000 tons was reported as sulphate and the re¬ mainder as liquor (10,626,612 gallons) and anhydrous ammonia (30,002,196) pounds), brought a total of $9,867,475 to the producers. 272 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1130 Surplus gas to the extent of 84,356,000,000 cubic feet, valued at $8,625,000, was sold or used. Of that quantity 17,196,000,000 feet was used as illuminating gas, 27,591,000,000 feet as domestic fuel, and 39,569,000,000 feet as fuel for steam raising, open-hearth furnaces, gas engines, and other industrial purposes. These by-products, which had a total value of $29,824,579, were obtained by the carboniza¬ tion of 19,500,000 tons of coal, from which was also obtained 14,000,000 tons of coke, valued at $48,500,000. The total value of the coke and by-products was more than $78,- 300,000. The production of bituminous coal and an¬ thracite in the United States in 1915 amounted to 531,619,487 short tons, valued at $686,691,- 186, an increase, compared with 1914, of 18,- 094,010 tons or 3.5 per cent., in quantity, and of $5,200,543, or 0.8 per cent., in value, accord¬ ing to C. E. Lesher, of the United States Geo¬ logical Survey. Of this total output, 442,624,- 426 short tons, valued at $502,037,688, was bi¬ tuminous coal and lignite, and 88,995,061 tons, valued at $184,653,498, was Pennsylvania anthracite. Pennsylvania, with an output of 157,955,137 tons of bituminous coal and 88,- *995,061 short tons of anthracite, ranks first among the coal -producing states. West Vir¬ ginia, with a production of 77,184,069 tons; Illinois, with 58,829,576 tons; Ohio, with 22,- 434,691 tons, and Kentucky, with 21,361,674 tons, follow in order of production. Thirty states and the territory of Alaska contributed to the total, of which number 13 states and Alaska had increased production, and 17 had decreased production, compared with 1914. To produce this coal, 734,008 men were employed for an average of 209 days. The second Interstate Cereal Conference will be held at the University of Minnesota, University Farm, St. Paul, July 11, 12 and 13. At this conference there will be a discussion of the various phases of cereal research re¬ lating to the region of which St. Paul may be considered the center. The program will in¬ clude papers on problems of wheat, oats, barley and flax production in the Northwest; the grading of barley and corn ; breeding winter wheats for Minnesota; ergot of rye; methods for the eradication of bunt or stink¬ ing smut; problems in flax diseases, and a symposium on milling and baking. Two days will be devoted to the presentation and dis¬ cussion of papers. The third day will be used in an inspection of the plant work of the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station and of one of the local flour mills. Receipts from national forests for the fiscal year 1916 reached the high-water mark of ap¬ proximately $2,820,000, according to figures just compiled. This is $341,000 above the 1915 total, which in turn exceeded any previous year. Officials say that the gain was due to in¬ creased demand for all classes of forest prod¬ ucts. There was a decided growth in the rev¬ enue from all sources, the largest being that of $203,000 in timber sales. Grazing fees showed a gain of $77,000. Receipts for water power development were over $12,000 more than for 1915. Sales of turpentine privileges and charges for special uses were both consider¬ ably in excess of the previous year. The Na¬ tional forests are important factors in the prosperity of the regions in which they are located, on account of the large amounts of timber, range and other resources which they hold available for use as needed. Business conditions are reflected in the receipts of the forests. Consequently the showing for the past year is regarded as an index of increased business activity throughout the sections where the national forests are found. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS Columbia University has received $100,000 from Mr. James N. Jarvie, the banker, for the new dental school, plans for which were announced last spring. The Municipal University of Akron is about to erect an engineering laboratory at the cost of $50,000, provided by a bond issue of the city. The new library building, erected at a cost of $40,000, is now open for use. Princeton University announces that Octo¬ ber 26 has been set aside as the day for the laying of the corner stone of the handsome new student dining halls, now being erected at the corner of Nassau Street and University August 25, 1916] SCIENCE 273 Place. The dining quarters and the kitchens will be far enough advanced to accommodate the number of undergraduates who formerly took their meals at “ Commons,” comprising about one thousand students. Dr. Walter A. Jessup, dean of the college of education at the State University of Iowa, has been elected president of the university, to succeed Dr. Thomas H. Macbride, the botanist, who retires at the age of sixty-eight years. Howard C. Parmalee, of Denver, has been elected president of the Colorado State School of Mines at Golden. At Dartmouth College, Charles N. Haskins has been promoted to be professor of mathe¬ matics on the Chandler foundation, Norman E. Gilbert has been promoted to be associate professor of physics and Arthur B. Meservey to be assistant professor of physics. Carl C. Forsaith has been appointed instructor in biology. W. S. Miller, of the department of anat¬ omy, at the University of Wisconsin, has been promoted from associate professor to professor of anatomy. Stanley C. Ball, Ph.D. (Yale, ’15) has been appointed instructor in zoology in the Massa¬ chusetts Agricultural College. Frank N. Blanchard (Tufts, ’13) has resigned from the department in order to enter the graduate school of the University of Michigan. Dr. T. G. Moorhead has been elected pro¬ fessor of the practise of medicine in the School of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, in the place of Sir John Moore, who has retired. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE NORTH AMERICAN FAUNAL AREAS A very interesting discussion of the geo¬ graphical distribution of the fresh-water faunas of North America1 has recently been published by Mr. Louis Germain. This author i ‘ ‘ L ’Origine et la Distribution G4ographique des Faunas d ’eau Douce de L ’Am<5rique du Nord, ” Annales de G6ographie, No. 32, XXIII- XXIV. annee, pp. 394-406, 1915. reviews the works on this subject by American authors in a very able manner and the paper is a valuable contribution to the literature of this subject. There are several statements, however, which probably will not be accepted by all American zoologists. Germain accepts Simpson’s-2 division of the continent into the Pacific, Atlantic and Mississippian regions as representing the best and only natural division into faunistic areas. The subdivisions by Dali3 and Baker4 are believed to be too com¬ plex; and the latter author is criticized for es¬ tablishing so complex a subdivision of the ter¬ ritory based on the data supplied (apparently) by a single small division of animals. But the facts are that the map on page 57 of the Lymnsea monograph was made not only from data furnished by the Lymnseas, but also by all of the families of basommatophorous mol- lusks, Planorbis , Plnysa, etc., the data for which was secured while working upon the Lymnseid monograph. Not only, however, do the families of Basommatophora fit into this detailed scheme, but it is quite possible that all of the fresh-water mollusks, gastropods as well as pelecypods, may be included. The Amnicolidae, Pleuroceridae and Yiviparidae, as well as the great Unionidse family, have many groups of species which are confined to some one of the divisions indicated by the map in question. As the writer has already stated in the Lymnsea monograph, the distribution of fresh¬ water mollusks, or for that matter of any fresh¬ water group of animals, can be understood only by a study of the river systems, past and present. It is more frequently the natural divides separating river drainages that form the boundaries of faunal areas rather than the presence of mountain chains, which indeed do not always afford a barrier, but a means of communication, as, for exaTnple, Two Ocean Pass in Wyoming, at the summit of the con¬ tinental divide, where the head waters of the •2 C. T. Simpson, “Synopsis of Naiades,” p. 505. 3 W. H. Dali, * ‘ Land and Fresh- water Mol¬ lusks of Alaska,” p. 1. * F. C. Baker, “Lymnafidae of North and Middle America,” p. 56. 274 SCIENCE [N. S. VOL. XLIV. No. 1130 Yellowstone and Snake rivers mingle during the wet season and afford a means by which fresh-water animals have crossed from one drainage to the other. The dispersal of all fresh-water forms has been normally by means of the changes in river systems, the fauna fol¬ lowing up the river as the head waters of the latter work their way into new territory. Fre¬ quently, ancient changes in streams, incident to piracy or beheading, etc., may be known long afterward by the peculiarities of the fauna inhabiting the present river system, in¬ dicating many times that the present system is made up of several ancient systems. A case in point is the Tennessee River system which has been shown by C. C. Adams,5 from a study of the distribution of the molluscan genus lo, to be made up of several smaller systems once separated by divides. Ortmann’s studies on the Unionidte and the crayfishes also bring out the value of distributional areas by river sys¬ tems. The peculiar physical changes in the Ohio River previous to and following the gla¬ cial period, will doubtless be reflected in the fauna, both recent and extinct, when detailed studies are made bearing on this subject. The point which the writer wishes to bring out and emphasize is that while it is true that there are the three primary divisions as indicated by Simpson and so strongly advocated by Ger¬ main, there are also in addition many smaller divisions which form precise faunal areas just as true and natural as the three major areas. The true relation of the different fresh-water faunas can only be determined by dividing the continent into areas separated by natural water partings, as has been done by Dr. Dali and the writer. That too many divisions have been made by the writer in his Lymnaea monograph may be true and is to be expected in a first at¬ tempt, but the method is the only satisfactory one for the study of fluviatile animals, a state¬ ment in which I am sure all American stu¬ dents will agree. Studies from this standpoint, however, have not yet been made in sufficient number and detail to work out a comprehen¬ sive scheme of subdivision. It was with a view 5 National Academy Sciences, Memoir XII., No. 2, 1915. to stimulating such studies that the map in question was published. Germain (page 39Y) criticizes the author for his statement (page 84) that “ It is not be¬ lieved by the writer that the supposed land connection with Europe via Greenland con¬ tributed to any extent in the formation of the present Lymnseid fauna,” and states that it is dangerous to base a general conclusion on a particular case. The statement was not based on the Lymnaeidae alone, but on the whole Basommatophorous group, the exotic species of which, from the data at present known, seems to have reached America by way of Alaska rather than by the Greenland connec¬ tion. The absence of such striking forms as Lymncea stagnalis, Galba palustris and Aplexa hypnorum from the Greenland fauna and their presence in the Alaska fauna is tangible evi¬ dence, to say the least. It is of course pos¬ sible that this condition is due to a lack of sufficient detailed field work in northeastern America, but until this has brought to light the missing data the deductions must remain as based on present information. The invasion from Siberia was evidently contemporaneous with that of the larger mammals which oc¬ curred in the late tertiaries. The northeastern land connection is thought to have been used by several mollusks (Margaritana and some helices) and it would be strange indeed if some fresh-water mollusks of other groups did not also take advantage of the land bridge. How¬ ever, in this as in other things the deductions must be based on the available facts and not on theories. The discovery of the European land snail Tachea hortensis in Pleistocene de¬ posits6 goes a long way toward establishing the existence of a northeastern land connec¬ tion in late Tertiary time. The critical study of the fresh-water faunas of many states and the ecological work of sev¬ eral universities is providing a mass of data which will ultimately afford the material for a satisfactory division of North America into natural faunal .areas. It is quite possible, how¬ ever, that it will be difficult to establish a sys¬ tem that will include both fresh-water and ter- e C. W. Johnson, Nautilus, XX., p. 73, 1906. August 25, 1916] SCIENCE 275 restrial species, the methods of dispersal be¬ ing different in the two classes of animals. Frank Collins Baker New York State College of Forestry, Syracuse University “ SAME”— EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENT STATIONS To the Editor of Science : I have read with much interest the bill of Senator Hewlands for the establishment of engineering experi¬ ment stations and heartily approve “ same.” It is especially gratifying to note that bul¬ letins giving results of investigations “ shall be sent to persons, newspapers, institutions and libraries ... as may request same” (Sec. 3, Science, p. 891). In connection with “ same ” it is interesting to note that the use of the word u same ” without “ the ” before it, which formerly was considered a sign of illiteracy, has now so far become customary that it may be allowed in a bill introduced in the Senate of the United States, and that both “ same ” and “ as ” may be used as relative pronouns. The bill for the establishment of engineering experiment stations should be passed, after it has been improved by the Senate’s grammat¬ ical censor. It is to be hoped that some day in the near future another bill will be introduced in the Senate for the establishment of one or more Educational Experiment Stations. The government, through its Agricultural Experi¬ ment Stations teaches the farmer how to raise crops; through its Bureau of Mines it teaches the mine owners ho-w to mine coal and to avoid wastes of property and of life; should it not have Educational Experiment Stations to teach our schools and colleges how to avoid educa¬ tional wastes? Wm. Kent SCIENCE AND WAR To the Editor of Science : The Boston Sun¬ day Herald prints a feature called “ Herbert Kaufman’s Weekly Page.” It must be popular, though the writer has never heard it quoted — in contrast to this paper’s apotheosis of Amer¬ ican wit, the “ Line o’ type.” The page is a collection of moral sentiments in a form to which no one can deny a frequent force and picturesqueness. Its dominant appeal is emo¬ tional. A few issues since it contained an ap¬ preciation of science running in part as fol¬ lows: For half a century we have liberally endowed, supported and encouraged the scientists. Com¬ munity funds paid for the institutions in which they were educated and underwrote their experi¬ ments. And all the while, we believed that these endeav¬ ors were promotions in the interest of civiliza¬ tion. . . . To-day we stand horror-stricken before the evi¬ dence of inhumanities only made possible through scientific advancement. . . . Chemistry, you stand indicted and shamed be¬ fore the Bar of History! . . . You have prostituted your genius to fell and ogrish devices. . . . You have turned killer and run with the wolf- pack. But we will reckon with you in the end. We can probably agree with Mr. Kaufman that science has increased the amount of suf¬ fering that war inflicts. Ho account need be taken here of the questions if this is due to science or human nature, and if the compensa¬ tions are not sufficient; the second because it admits an endless argument, and the first, of none. The issue boils down to whether, if the encouragement of science on the broad lines of the past were abandoned, the horrors of war would be proportionately lessened. This would be conceivably so if it were hu¬ manly possible to restrict scientific work to lines of no value for warfare. But success in war is as keenly desired as ever, and it is the part now of every prudent nation to equip itself in the best practicable manner for carry¬ ing it on. The writer has elsewhere remarked on the commonplace that victory is not to the side that can exert the strongest physical force with its own bodies but which can most intelli¬ gently direct the forces of nature. If the total amount of scientific work were thus restricted the human result would be to concentrate the work of science more and more upon warlike matters with a consequently increased social suggestion of war. A liberal encouragement of scientific progress serves to diffuse men’s energies over other and more peaceful inter¬ ests. To blame chemistry for the horrors of 276 SCIENCE [N. S. Vo L. XLIY. No. 1130 war is a little like blaming astronomy for noc¬ turnal crime. It is better to keep the bellicose applications of science as its incidental prod¬ ucts rather than the chief ones they would be¬ come under those elements of human nature that must also be “ reckoned with ” in the end. F. Lyman Wells McLean Hospital, Wayerley, Mass. QUOTATIONS SCIENTIFIC APPOINTMENTS UNDER THE GOVERNMENT A scientific journal must avoid the discus¬ sion of party politics, but it is legitimate to point out that the two leading parties have adopted platforms which, as far as their prin¬ ciples go, might almost be interchanged, and have nominated candidates who have much in common, both of them being lawyers, univer¬ sity professors and sons of clergymen. In view of these circumstances it is of interest to those concerned with science that Mr. Hughes in his first campaign speeches should select as one of his two leading issues the appointments by President Wilson to scientific offices under the government. This would not have been a vital political issue a few years ago, and it is certainly gratifying that it should now have become so, more especially as both parties and both candidates profess the same desirable principles and only dispute about the extent to which they have been maintained. In opening his campaign at Detroit, Mr. Hughes charged the administration with hav¬ ing displaced the scientific heads of the census and of the coast and geodetic survey with men not having scientific qualifications. The word “ displaced ” is ambiguous and was perhaps in¬ tended to be so, and the reply of the secretary of commerce that both men had “ voluntarily retired ” is also, and it may be purposely, am¬ biguous. Men familiar with university affairs, like the two candidates for the presidency, know that professors sometimes have their resignations presented to them. It is allow¬ able to say either that Dr. Wilson displaced Dr. Patten as president of Princeton Univer¬ sity or that Dr. Patten resigned and was suc¬ ceeded by Dr. Wilson. As a matter of fact, Dr. Durand’s resignation as director of the census was forced, and Dr. Tittman, who was sixty- five years old and in indifferent health, re¬ signed voluntarily from the Coast and Geo¬ detic Survey. The vulnerable point in the action of the administration is the appointment of their successors. Mr. William J. Harris, appointed director of the census, was chairman of the democratic state committee of Georgia and the appointment appears to have been for political reasons, as has unfortunately so often hap¬ pened in the bureau of the census, where the extension of civil service rules has been least adequate. E. Lester Jones, when appointed superintendent of the coast and geodetic sur¬ vey to succeed Dr. Tittman, was deputy com¬ missioner of fisheries. His appointment to that office and his promotion to the head of the survey in the same department appear to have been personal rather than political. He has proved to be an efficient executive, but his appointment to both offices certainly violated the principle that these positions should be held by experts. It can not, however, be denied that there are two sides to this question. Under modern conditions a distinguished man of science is likely to be a good executive, but the number of scientific men available for a position of this character is limited, and it is by no means certain that it is desirable to divert the skilled expert from his research work to an exec¬ utive position. Another solution of the prob¬ lem would be to make the heads of bureaus purely administrative officers, to be filled by men used to administrative work, but for the scientific policy of the bureau to be decided by a committee of its scientific experts and for the more eminent of these to receive salaries not smaller than that of the executive head. Mr. Hughes has not pointed out, as an im¬ partial judge might have done, that the two scientific appointments mentioned are the only ones in which the president is open to criti¬ cism, or that he is the first president who has officially asked the advice of scientific men on such points. At the meeting of the council of the American Association for the Advance- August 25, 1916] SCIENCE 277 ment of Science, held in Washington on April 22, 1913, shortly after President Wilson’s in¬ stallation, the following resolution, proposed by Mr. Cattell, was passed: Whereas, It is eminently desirable that scien¬ tific men especially skilled in their departments be appointed as heads of the scientific bureaus of the government, therefore, Resolved, That a committee of three be ap¬ pointed to communicate to the President of the United States that it is the opinion of the council of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that a scientific man skilled in meteorol¬ ogy should be selected as the Chief of the Weather Bureau. The committee waited on the president who requested the secretary of agriculture to con¬ sult with the committee of the association. The secretary of agriculture at that time stated that no appointment in the department of agriculture had been made or would be made for political reasons, or even be given to a man who. sought the office. The committee of the American Association called the atten¬ tion of the secretary to the fact that the Na¬ tional Academy of Sciences is by law the scientific adviser of the government, and the president, as far as we are aware for the first time since the law was enacted in 1863, asked the advice of the academy on an appointment. A committee of experts of the academy recom¬ mended three men skilled in meteorology and fitted for the office of chief of the Weather Bu¬ reau, and one of these was appointed by the president. In like manner the commissioner of fisheries was appointed from candidates pro¬ posed by the American Society of Naturalists and the American Zoological Society. In other cases President Wilson has asked and followed the advice of scientific bodies and scientific men, and his record in this respect is certainly better than that of any of his re¬ cent predecessors. We can only hope that he himself or Mr. Hughes, as the case may be, will still further improve this record in the course of the next four years. — The Scientific Monthly. PRESIDENT WILSON’S SCIENTIFIC APPOINT¬ MENTS Candidate Hughes has publicly charged President Wilson with having made appoint¬ ments to scientific departments of the govern¬ ment without consideration of the scientific fitness of the appointees and to the detriment of the public service. The charge is so unfair and untrue that it deserves to be repudiated by all who know the facts with regard to any of these appointments, as it has been denounced already by Secretary Redfield and Acting Sec¬ retary Sweet with respect to the superintend¬ ent of the Coast and Geodetic Survey. The fact is that no president within recent years at least has taken so much pains to ob¬ tain the advice of scientific societies and of scientific men regarding appointments to sci¬ entific positions within the government; and none has more faithfully followed that advice, as is shown, for example, in his appointment of the present commissioner of fisheries, the chief of the Weather Bureau, the chief chem¬ ist of the Department of Agriculture, etc. The contrast between President Wilson’s attitude in this respect and that of some of his predecessors is very striking. In 1898 the American Society of Naturalists and the American Society of Zoologists appointed a committee to wait upon President McKinley and urge him to appoint as commissioner of fisheries some trained scientific man who should have a practical knowledge of the fish and fisheries of our coasts. President Mc¬ Kinley told the committee that he was not free to consider their recommendation since the place had already been promised to one who, as it turned out, was not scientifically trained and whose only known qualification was that he was a deserving Republican. In 1913 the same societies passed a similar resolution and sent a similar committee to President-elect Wilson upon the same subject. Mr. Wilson thanked the committee for bring¬ ing the matter to his attention and asked for recommendations of persons for the position. The committee considered the matter carefully and after consulting with various members of the societies and with others interested in our fisheries recommended three persons in order of preference and, although it is known that much pressure was brought to bear upon Pres- 278 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1130 ident Wilson to continue the custom of his im¬ mediate predecessors of appointing the com¬ missioner of fisheries for partisan rather than for public services, he appointed the man who stood first in the committee’s recommenda¬ tions. Again, in appointing the chief of the Weather Bureau, President Wilson took un¬ usual means to secure the best available man by requesting the National Academy of Sci¬ ences to recommend a suitable person for the position. Although the Academy was estab¬ lished by Act of Congress in 1863 to serve as adviser to the government in matters of sci¬ ence, and although since that time it has had among its members the most distinguished sci¬ entific men in America, this was the first time that a president of the United States ever asked the Academy for advice as to a scientific appointment. Also, in the selection of the chief chemist of the Department of Agricul¬ ture and of the chief of the Bureau of Mines, the president sought and acted upon the best scientific advice which he could get. In no one of these cases did he inquire about the political affiliation of the person recommended. In many other matters President Wilson has shown an unusual and unprecedented de¬ sire to consult the leading scientific bodies of this country on subjects of science and a marked degree of independence in following their advice, sometimes in spite of much po¬ litical or personal opposition. Through his individual action the question of the best means of abating the slides at Panama was re¬ ferred to the National Academy of Sciences, and at his request a committee was appointed to investigate and report upon this subject; the names of the committee were a sufficient guarantee that their work would be well done, and their report, which was promptly made, will probably be of inestimable value to the nation. Quite recently the President requested the National Academy of Sciences to take the initiative in bringing into cooperation existing governmental, educational, industrial and other research organizations with the object of promoting national welfare and of provid¬ ing for national defense. As a result there has been established through the cooperation of national scientific societies, research insti¬ tutes, universities and the scientific depart¬ ments of the government a National Research Council, as described by Dr. George E. Hale in a letter to The Times on August 1, which should be of great and lasting value to this na¬ tion. Under these circumstances it does not seem fitting that scientific men should allow to go unchallenged the statement that the scientific work of the government has been degraded by President Wilson’s appointments or the im¬ plication that his interest in that work has been that of a partisan. — Edwin G. Conklin of Princeton University in the New York Times. SCIENTIFIC BOOKS Analytical Mechanics. By H. M. Dadourian, M.A., Ph.D. Second edition, revised and enlarged. In his second edition of his “Analytical Mechanics,” Dr. Dadourian has made a num¬ ber of changes and additions. What he as¬ sumes as the fundamental principle of mechan¬ ics he now calls the “ Action Principle ” which is a modified form of what he formerly called “ The Principle of Action and Reaction.” “ A new chapter has been added which is devoted to the equilibrium of framed structures and graphic statics.” “ The number of diagrams has been increased by one hundred and thirty, and about three hundred practical problems have been added.” Other smaller changes have been made. In all the book has been enlarged by about seventy additional pages. In his first edition, the author states that the book “ is based upon a course of lectures and recitations which the author has given during the last few years to the junior class of the electrical department of the Sheffield Scientific School.” “In order to make the book suitable for the purposes of more than one class of students a larger number of spe¬ cial topics are discussed than any one class will probably take up. But these are so ar¬ ranged as to permit the omission of one or more without breaking the logical continuity August 25, 1916] SCIENCE 279 of the subject.’’ “ The historical order of the development of mechanics is followed by dis¬ cussing equilibrium before motion.” The author certainly has given considerable thought to the preparation of his book, which contains some very interesting matter. In the large collection of problems he gives, there will be found some very interesting ones. The reviewer himself was sufficiently interested to think out solutions for a number of them. The plan of the book is certainly unique in a number of ways. This is not necessarily a criticism. There is a wide feeling that text¬ books in mechanics written for our engineer¬ ing students fail to interest the students as they ought to do, and it may be that that book that will be found most satisfactory will be written according to a plan that will be quite unique when compared with the plans in ac¬ cordance with which our present standard text¬ books on mechanics are written. The re¬ viewer of this particular text-book is unable to appreciate, however, the author’s point of view of some parts of his book. In the first place, the author devotes his first chapter (of 11 pages) to “ Addition and Resolution of Vectors.” After that he merely states that a quantity has magnitude and direction and that, therefore, it is a vector. In the composition and resolution of such quantities, he then uses the law of addition and resolution of vectors as developed in his first chapter. This makes everything easy, at least as far as the author is concerned. For in¬ stance, the composition of couples reduces itself to this: The resultant of two couples is a third couple whose torque is the vector sum of the torques of the given couples.” That is all that need be said concerning the composition of couples. Similarly for the composition of the other directed quantities. The reviewer does not wish to criticize this mode of procedure but wishes to ask if this mode of procedure is legitimate. Vector addi¬ tion is simply one of the operations in an algebra in which the parallelogram law is made one of the fundamental assumptions. Before we apply the law of vector addition to any kind of quantity, ought we not first assure ourselves that the parallelogram law holds for these quantities? Since force, for instance, is a directed quantity, does it follow that the parallelogram law holds for forces ? The same may be said of other directed quantities. Vector representation of directed quantities is very important and useful, and vector addi¬ tion and resolution should be given, but it should be given only after we are assured that the parallelogram law holds with reference to such quantities. If the author is correct in reversing this process, then certainly the theory underlying the composition and resolu¬ tion of directed quantities becomes very simple. In the second place, the author’s plan is unique in that he takes the following principle as the foundation of his book : “ The vector sum of all the external actions to which a system of particles or any part of it is subject at any instant vanishes.” This principle he calls the “ action principle.” To understand what the author means by this principle, we must under¬ stand what he means by “ action.” On page 15, the author states that “ all ac¬ tions to which a particle is capable of being subject may be divided in two classes, namely, forces and kinetic reactions ." He then de¬ fines force as the action of one particle upon another. On page 17, he states that kinetic re¬ action represents the action of the ether on a particle and that it equals the product of the mass of the particle by its acceleration. That is, if q is this kinetic reaction then q — — ma. The negative sign is used since the direction of the action of the ether on a particle is oppo¬ site to the direction the particle is accelerating. If now F is the vector sum of the forces acting on one particle then the above action principle may be stated as follows (page 17) : 2(F + 0.) The reviewer is not sure that he understands what the author means by kinetic reaction. On page 17 and also on page 150, he states that kinetic reaction is the action of the ether on a particle. And on page 150 he adds that “ kinetic reactions are not aggressive. In this respect they are similar to resisting and fric- 280 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1130 tional forces, but the latter come into action with velocity, while the former come into play with acceleration.” On page 152 he states that “ both forces and kinetic reaction must be the same type of magnitude.” These statements, together with others, seem to indicate that the author considers kinetic reaction as something real and of the nature of a force. In fact it is a force, although the author on page 150 states that kinetic reaction can not be called a force because we have re¬ stricted the latter term to the action of one material body upon another. Call it what we will, to the reviewer it seems to be nothing more nor less than a backward pull of the ether on a body as the body moves through the ether with accelerated motion. In fact, the author seems to say that the inertia of a body is due to the force with which the ether is pulling back on a body when the body is being accel¬ erated. Assuming that the author’s conception of kinetic reaction is here correctly given, the re¬ viewer is inclined to believe that several ques¬ tions will at once present themselves to the readers of his book. Why is it that the ether acts on a body only when it is being accelerated and not when the body is moving with constant velocity ? If kinetic reaction is the action of the ether on a particle, and if it is the same kind of a quantity as force (is a force in fact), and if the resultant force F acting on a particle and the kinetic reaction q are always equal in magni¬ tude but opposite in direction (both equal to ma in magnitude), why is the body not in equilibrium? The author recognizes this diffi¬ culty in a footnote (page 153) by stating in effect that we must not call kinetic reaction a force, for if we do then the vector sum of all the forces acting on a particle will always equal zero without this particle necessarily being in equilibrium, a state of affairs which is not consistent with the condition of equilib¬ rium of a particle. Refusing to call kinetic reaction a force, however, in order to keep out of trouble simply dodges the question and does not answer it. The reviewer does not wish to say that the author is wrong in his conception. All he wishes to say is that he entirely fails to appre¬ ciate the author’s point of view. There is considerable difference between the author’s action principle and D’Alembert’s principle. Let there be a number of forces act¬ ing on a particle, then the resultant force (an ideal force) equals ma, or R — ma. This ideal force may be called the effective force. D’Alem¬ bert’s principle then says that a system of forces acting on a particle together with the reversed effective force will form a system of forces in equilibrium. It should be remembered that this reversed effective force is an ideal force and not a real force. How in the author’s action principle the kinetic reaction is a real force (or action as the author prefers to call it) and is due to the action of the ether on a particle. The author’s action principle (even if sound) involves a number of conceptions which must be understood in order to understand the prin¬ ciple itself, and it seems that such a principle ought to follow rather than precede an ele¬ mentary treatment of mechanics. E. W. Rettger Ithaca, N. Y. SPECIAL ARTICLES EXPERIMENTAL ABLATION OF THE HYPOPH¬ YSIS IN THE FROG EMBRYO In the following preliminary paper the effect of the extirpation of the epithelial portion of the hypophysis upon the subsequent growth and development of tadpoles is summarized. The work was first attempted in 1914, Diemy- ctylus torosus being used, repeated in 1915 upon Rana pipiens, and again repeated in 1916 upon Rana boylei. In this paper the results obtained with R. boylei are reported. The operation was most successfully carried out upon approximately 3 mm. larvae, at which time the tail-bud is forming and the stoma- deum can be detected. At that stage the epithelial hypophysial invagination can be ac¬ curately determined from the pit that it forms, or from its location between the protuberance of the forebrain and the stomadeum, and can be removed without injury to the adjacent brain. August 25, 1916] SCIENCE 281 This epithelial ingrowth was removed with some neighboring epithelium. The wound healed within three hours, less than 1 per cent, of the larvae disintegrating after the operation. About 200 larvae of the 3 mm. stage were oper¬ ated upon, the hypophysis being successfully removed in over 60 per cent, of the cases. Ap¬ proximately 30 per cent, of those animals in which the gland was extirpated did not give reliable results in the rate of growth as the mouth was wholly or partially removed thus interfering with feeding. For checks, un oper¬ ated specimens and those in which the ablation of the gland was unsuccessfully attempted were available. The operated animals and checks were kept in boiled water for five days and then transferred to a frog tank where they were in an essentially normal environment. The hypophysis-free animals grew more slowly than the normal controls. Ho hypophy- sectomized animals reached the size of the largest checks and the averages of the two show a noticeable difference. On June 6 the oper¬ ated but not hypophysectomized animals had an average length of 40-43 mm., the hypoph¬ ysis-free animals averaging 33-35 mm. A ratio such as this prevailed throughout their growth. The ratio of body to tail length is the same in the two classes, the difference in size being uniform for all parts of the animal. Differences in color began to be noticeable at an early stage. From then on the contrast in pigmentation between the hypophysectom¬ ized animals and the checks was striking. Those animals without a hypophysis had a slightly darkened silvery appearance of an al¬ most uniform character; however, the dorsal side was more pigmented than the ventral. These are referred to as albinos. The checks were a brown-black color often showing a mottling. This color difference was more noticeable over the body than on the tail, but was evident in both regions and was the most striking feature up to the time when the hind legs began to appear in the checks. Sections show that in the albinos the epidermis is pig¬ ment-free while that of the checks is filled with it. The subcutaneous pigment is present in the albino in as great a quantity if not greater than in the normal animal. The ret¬ inal pigment appears to be the same in both. The hind leg buds appear, normally, when the tadpole has reached a length of 25-27 mm. In the albino the hind limb buds appear but slightly later than in the checks or when they are from 26-28 mm. in length. From this stage on, however, the hind limbs in the hy¬ pophysectomized animals grow but little if at all, although their total length increases at a rate but slightly under the normal one. For instance in 28 mm. checks the hind legs aver¬ age 1.0 mm.; in 30 mm. checks 2.0 mm.; in 38 mm. checks 4.0 mm. In the albinos of each of the above sizes and ages the hind legs were 0.1 mm. long. The above is in accord with Adler (’14) / who found that the removal of the hypophysis in a 20 mm. stage inhibited the growth of the hind legs. Sections of the albino and normal animals show striking contrasts in the organs. Of the specimens yet sectioned none described above as albino or hypophysectomized have had a trace of the anterior lobe of the hypophysis present. Thus it is certain that the entoderm has not the intrinsic power to form a hypoph¬ ysis, but that if it enters into the formation of the gland at all it must be considered as a tissue inclusion which may become changed through its adaptability into glandular par¬ enchyma, a conclusion previously drawn by the writer Smith (’14) .2 Comparison with the checks shows that the infundibulum under¬ goes structural modifications, although the saccus vasculosus, as far as determined, ap¬ pears to be normal. In the checks that region of the diencephalon which rests against the pars glandularis is of considerable thickness, hav¬ ing in addition to the ependyma a rudimentary pars nervosa. Caudad to this the wall is formed almost entirely of ependyma. In the hypophysectomized animals the pars nervosa 1 Adler, L., ‘ ‘ Metamorphosestudien an Betra- chierlarven. I. Extirpation endokriner Driisen. A. Extirpation der Hypophyse, ” Arch. f. Eniwick- elungsmech. d. Organ., Bd. 39, 1914. 2 Smith, P. E., ‘ ‘ The Development of the Hy¬ pophysis of Amia calva,” Anat. Bee., Yol. 8, 1914. 282 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1130 is reduced throughout most of its extent to an ependymal layer. Small localized thickenings may occur but nothing corresponding to the normal animal. The difference in size and structure between the thyroid of an albino and that of a check is very marked. The thyroid of a normal 38 mm. tadpole with 4.0 mm. hind legs is approxi¬ mately three times the size of a 37 mm. albino with 0.1 mm. hind legs. The compactness and character of the parenchyma show an even more striking contrast. A sagittal section through the thyroid of a 38 mm. check shows on an average 15-18 vesicles, many of which are largely distended with colloid, the par¬ enchyma of the whole gland being compacted together, as compared with that through the thyroid of a hypophysectomized 37 mm. speci¬ men which shows 4-5 atrophied vesicles con¬ taining but a slight amount, or no colloid, and with large spaces between the vesicles. The cells making up the vesicles of the former are cuboidal and protoplasmic-rich, in the latter little but nuclei remain. The results obtained from the experimental feeding of thyroid by Gudernatsch and others makes it highly prob¬ able that the non-development of the hind legs in the albinos is due immediately to the atrophy of the thyroid and not to the direct action of the hypophysis, a suggestion which Adler’s work upon the tadpole also supports. An examination of the gonads shows signif¬ icant size differences between the normal and albino specimens. In the hypophysectomized animal the development of the sex glands is apparently much retarded and the size corre¬ spondingly reduced. The author in a later and more complete ac¬ count will describe any changes which may be found in the other endocrine glands and treat of the progressiveness of the changes noted. P. E. Smith Anatomical Laboratory, University of California EFFECT OF GRINDING SOIL ON THE NUMBER OF MICROORGANISMS In connection with a study of the bacterial content of soil, it was found that pulverizing soil in a ball mill seriously affected the num¬ ber of bacteria. This treatment not only reduced greatly the bacteria, but also that of many other microorganisms. In many cases the soil was partially air dry and con¬ tained clumps which were not easily broken by shaking in a water suspension. Because of the mass of soil particles, it was thought that per¬ haps grinding would result in a higher count. Prom the results below, it will be seen that such was not the case. Instead of a gain, there was a loss in number of organisms which was more marked the longer the soil was ground. The test was made as follows: Fresh or par¬ tially air-dried soil, containing not more than 10 per cent, moisture, was placed in a ball mill partly filled with large pebbles. The mill was geared so that the porcelain jar revolved at the rate of 70 revolutions per minute. TABLE i A COMPARISON OF THE NUMBER OF BACTERIA IN GROUND AND UNGROUND SOIL Bacteria in One Gram of Dry Soil Test Nc Date Soil Unground Ground Time of Grind¬ ing, Hours 1 April 4 Miami silt loam 4,225,000 3,439,000 1 2 April 5 Red clay 626,000 570,000 1 3 April 6 Fine sand 216,000 198,000 1 4 April 11 Black silt clay loam 3,300,000 2,200,000 1 6 April 12 Colby silt loam 1,200,000 1,800,000 1 6 April 13 Carrington silt loam 2,000,000 400,000 1 7 April 14 Sandyloam 1,200,000 300,000 1 8 April 18 Medium sand 362,000 186,000 1 9 April 19 Plainfield loam 264,000 174,000 1 10 April 20 Muck 2,064,000 1,746,000 1 11 April 26 Miami silt loam 44,602,000 10,540 8 12 May 3 Garden soil 3,194,000 5,610 8 13 May 4 Garden soil 3,194,000 75 24 The following results, shown in Table I., il¬ lustrate the difference in the number of bac¬ teria in the ground and the unground soil, as well as the effect of time of grinding on the number of bacteria. Grinding greatly reduced the number of bacteria except in one case, No. August 25, 1916] SCIENCE 283 5 Colby silt loam. Apparently the greatest injury caused by grinding for one hour is noted dn the case of sandy soils. When the soils were ground for 8 or 24 hours, there was an enormous decrease in the bacterial flora. This is readily noted from the figures of the last three soils given in Table I. After 24 hours of grinding the soil was rend¬ ered almost free of bacteria. It is of interest in this connection to note the effect of long grinding on other soil organ¬ isms, e. g., soil protozoa. Dilution counts on various culture solutions adapted to protozoa showed that the unground soils contained pro¬ tozoa in dilutions greater than 1 to 10,000, while in many cases the ground soil failed to show any growth of protozoa. The garden soil, Ho. 12, contained protozoa in the first dilution, one gram in 10 c.c. of the medium. When ground for 24 hours this same soil did not show the presence of protozoa. From the results, it seems fair to conclude that grinding soil in a ball mill injures the soil microorganisms. If this process is con¬ tinued for several hours, the soil will be par¬ tially sterilized. Although no definite study has been made, it is most probable that the larger forms of plant life as fungi, yeasts and algse suffer the same fate as the protozoa and bacteria. E. B. Fred University or Wisconsin • AN ACOUSTIC DEMONSTRATION BEARING ON THE PULSE THEORY OF RADIATION Some years ago I made the acquaintance of the “ pulse theory ” of radiation. As I under¬ stood it then, the periodicity of any mono¬ chromatic light as observed by means of a spectral system was a function of the instru¬ ment of dispersion. If so, how various sources could give different spectra when their radia¬ tion was dispersed by the identical instrument was to me an unanswered question. It was unthinkable that there should not be some characteristic difference between the pulses, or their manner of succession, in the two cases. The demonstration which I am about to describe developed as the result of a more recent informal discussion of the subject in this laboratory. It occurred to me that the acoustic analogy of such a theory should have as its consequence this fact: that an irregular series of impacts would cause wave disturb¬ ances in the air such that a resonator of any period, within certain limits, should respond. Such a series of impacts was furnished by a stream of sand-particles falling against an inclined paper surface, and the resonator was the classic glass bottle, which was made to respond to different periods by introducing different amounts of water. Essentially the experimental set-up (which was about twenty minutes in construction) consists of a vertical glass tube of 7 mm. bore, constricted to about 4 mm. at a point near its top and some 42 cm. from its lower end; of a funnel, whose expanded end is covered with a rather loose diaphragm of thin tracing paper; and the resonator described. The sand was allowed to flow through the constriction in the tube, and the stream subsequent to this was kept from spreading too much by the portion of the tube below, falling freely a distance of 12 cm. from the lower extremity of the latter before striking the diaphragm (Fig. 1). The sand was what is known to the drug trade as 284 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1130 “ fine silver sand,” from which the smaller par¬ ticles, to the extent of about one third of the mass, had been sifted out for another purpose. There is to my knowledge nothing critical about these specifications. They are simply the result of guess and circumstance, with the re¬ sult about to be stated. Several resonators were tried until one was found that worked properly in the position shown in the figure. Along with the general hiss and roar of the impact of the stream a faint, fluttering musical tone could then be distinctly heard when the ear was held close to the mouth of the bottle. By repeating the ex¬ periment with various amounts of water in the bottle tones of various pitches could be ob¬ tained, in every case sensibly identical with the tone obtained by blowing across the mouth of the bottle. It would seem in advance that out of a helter-skelter series of impacts a group could be selected having, within certain limits, any given period with a sufficient degree of accu¬ racy to set a resonator into action. Naturally such a state of things could not continue in¬ definitely. The individuals of the group could be expected to get out of step, stop the resonance by interference and set it going again in another phase. Hence the fluttering quality of the note, due apparently to the sepa¬ rate wave-trains so set up. If the regular periodicity is a function of the analyzer, how may two pulse-series as sup¬ posed in the case of black -body radiation at two different temperatures give rise to character¬ istically different spectra? The answer to this question seems to me now quite natural. If we consider the effect, in this experiment, of vary¬ ing the size of the constriction which limits the outflow of sand, it seems probable that in¬ creasing the outflow, by increasing the average number of impacts per unit time, would cause the resonator to give relatively greater response (as to amplitude or energy) at higher fre¬ quencies and vice versa. Another condition bearing on the “ spectral distribution ” of energy in this case would seem to be the rela¬ tive numerousness of the different-sized par¬ ticles composing the sand; other conditions being equal, the smaller ones presumably tend¬ ing on the whole to give rise to high, the larger to low frequencies. This is merely speculation, as the careful experimentation nec¬ essary to show such changes has not been carried out. The experiment as described here is scarcely demonstrable to more than one person at a time. It has certainly yielded large educa¬ tional returns, to me personally at least, con¬ sidering the insignificant outlay of time and material. I am especially interested in know¬ ing whether it is essentially new or whether it has been proposed or used before. P. W. Cobb Nela Research Laboratory, National Lamp Works of General Electric Company, Nela Park, Cleveland, Ohio A PRIMARY CIRCUIT KEY FOR QUANTITATIVE INDUCTION WORK Physiological investigation requiring either the calibration of an inductorium or the use of such calibrated inductorium necessitates a Fig. 1. “ make ” and “ break ” key in the primary cir¬ cuit which possesses certain qualities. Each August 25, 1916] SCIENCE 285 “ make ” and each “ break ” must occur with a constant velocity. The contact must be made and broken suddenly and firmly and there must be no vibration at the contact points. Martin’s key1 has proved to answer these qualities but is not so compact as the key here described. Erlanger’s key2 designed to be used as a “ knock over ” key is not suitable for use except with a pendulum. Such a large number of keys have been de¬ scribed that one hesitates to add another. It seems, however, that the simplicity of this principle and the ease with which this key may be used merits description. In this key the well-known principle of in¬ duced magnetism is employed. The current for the coils ((7 and C') is obtained from a dry cell battery (A) so connected through an ordi¬ nary push-botton key (I7) that when one but¬ ton is down the current passes through one coil ( C ) ; when the other button is down the current passes through the other coil ( G '). The coils contain soft iron cores ( x and x'). One iron core ( x ) has a brass pin projecting from its center which prevents the steel band -cm q 8 n Fig. 2. core. The steel band swings in an adjustable brass socket (S), the details of which are shown in Fig. 2. From the steel band a light spring wire (TF) leads to a post ( F ) thus per¬ mitting free swing. For contact points, plati¬ num iridium is used ( P and P'). The one ( P ) is soldered onto the steel band and has a flat contact surface. The other (Pf) is soldered onto an adjustable brass pin ( D ) and has a convex contact surface. T and T' are the terminal binding posts from which connections are led to the induction coil. The whole is mounted on black fiber %" thick, the connect¬ ing wires being imbedded on the under side. The key has not been tested out with the string galvanometer, but has been used in ma¬ king calibrations and found to give satisfac¬ tory results. E. E. Lee Gunning Northwestern University Medical School THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY ORGANIC DIVISION C. G. Derick, Chairman H. L. Fisher, Secretary The Synthesis of p-Cymene Mono cart) oxylic Acids and of certain of their Derivatives : M. T. Bog- ert and J. R. Tuttle. The authors have prepared the two possible ring isomers, cymene 2-carboxylic acid and cymene 3- carboxylic acid, from the corresponding bromo de¬ rivatives by the Barbier-Grignard reaction, using C02 under pressure, and have studied these acids and the following derivatives thereof: Na, K, Ba, Ca, Cu and Ag salts, methyl and ethyl esters, acid chlorides, amides, anilides, hippuric ester and acid compounds, hydrazides, furo- and thio-diazoles. Small amounts of the 2-acid have been obtained heretofore by other investigators and a few salts have been recorded, but we believe that this is the first time that the acid has been prepared in suffi¬ cient amount for more extended study. The iso¬ meric 3-acid appears to be entirely new. ( B ) from touching the core, thus eliminating any possibility of a “ dead center ” in the swing of the steel band. The contact points prevent the steel band from touching the other 1 Martin, Am. Jour. Phys., XXIX., 1910, 181. 2 Erlanger and Gerrey, Am. J our. Phys., XXXV., 1914, 384. Benzoylene TJrea and Some of its Nitro Deriva¬ tives: M. T. Bogert and G. Scatchard. The preparation of benzoylene urea from anthra- nilic acid, through o-ureidobenzoic acid, has been improved. The nitro derivatives were prepared either from the corresponding nitro anthranilic acids or by direct nitration of benzoylene urea itself. These nitro benzoylene ureas are struc- 286 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1130 turally related to the nitro phenols, and certain of them have been found to be very sensitive indi¬ cators for the determination of hydrogen ion con¬ centrations. A New Group of Azo Dyestuffs: M. T. Bogert. It has been shown by various investigators, in¬ cluding the author, that azo dyestuffs may be pre¬ pared from quinazolines carrying a primary Bz-amino group, by diazotizing this amino group and coupling the resulting diazo bodies with any of the well-known couplers. It has now been found that quinazolines themselves may function as couplers and, by combination with various dia- zotized or tetrazotized bases, a new series of azo dyestuffs has been obtained. Methylene Disalicylic Acid and Derivatives : Rob¬ ert A. Hall. The Addition Compounds of Phenols with Organic Acids: James Kendall. Derivatives of l-Isocamphoric Acid — An TJnusual Formation of a Methyl Ether of a Hydroxy Acid: William A. Noyes and Glenn S. Skinner. The method employed in the preparation of 1- isocamphoric acid was that outlined by Noyes and Knight.0 The methyl ester of isoaminocampho- nonic acid was prepared according to the procedure of Noyes and Littleton? with slight modifications. The above ester was decomposed with nitrous acid and the following compounds have been found: (1) The methyl esters of two unsaturated acids, (2) the methyl ester of a hydroxy acid, and (3) the methyl ether of a hydroxy acid. Difficul¬ ties were encountered in the purification of the products. However, it has been shown without much doubt that one of the unsaturated acids is lauronolic acid. The physical constants of the hydroxy acid obtained by saponifying the ester correspond in the main to those of cis-campho- nolic acid. The keto acid obtained by oxidation of this acid with chromic acid shows a like re¬ semblance to camphononic acid. The formation of the ether acid under the con¬ ditions of the experiment is, so far as we are aware, unparalleled. Its identity has been estab¬ lished by analysis and by the determination of the methoxy group according to the method of Zeisel. Its configuration has not been determined. The study of these compounds is being continued. Besearches on Pyrimidine-Nucleotides. New De¬ velopments: Treat B. Johnson. 0 J. Am. Ch. Soc., 32, 1669. ? Ibid., 35, 75. The Action of Ferric Chloride and other Ferric Compounds upon Cellulose: Louis Kahlenberg. It has long been known that ordinary solutions of ferric chloride and other ferric salts have some solvent action upon cellulose. That action has hitherto been found to be but slight. However, a very concentrated solution of ferric chloride, such as is obtained by melting the usual commercial hexahydrate, dissolves cellulose with great ease. In fact, it is the best solvent for cellulose thus far discovered. The action begins at the melting point of tl e hydrate and proceeds very well at 50° centigrade. On heating to somewhat higher tem¬ peratures the action is very greatly accelerated. At the temperature of the water-bath it is a simple matter to dissolve 5 per cent, of cellulose in the concentrated solution resulting from the melting of the hexahydrate. More cellulose will be taken up until the whole mass becomes an exceedingly stiff syrup. On allowing the material to solidify it may be pulverized, and it will be found that it has to a very large extent lost its hygroscopic proper¬ ties, which would indicate that a combination be¬ tween the ferric salt and the cellulose has taken place. Attempts to isolate such a combination have been made and are still in progress. When the solution of the cellulose in the con¬ centrated ferric chloride solution is poured into water there separates out a precipitate of hy¬ drated cellulose, which fact has been determined by careful analysis. Only a portion of the cellu¬ lose, however, is thus precipitated. The remainder stays in solution, having been converted into glu¬ cose. . By heating the 5 per cent, solution of cellu¬ lose in the strong ferric chloride solution for two to three hours on the water-bath, all of the cellu¬ lose is converted into glucose. The ferric chloride may best be removed from such solution by di¬ luting, treating with an excess of freshly precipi¬ tated basic lead carbonate, warming and filtering. Pinal traces of iron and lead are removed from the filtrate by means of ammonium sulphide. The filtrate then contains the glucose and some am¬ monium salts, but the latter do not interfere seri¬ ously with the characterization of the glucose by means of the test with phenyl hydrazine. Ex¬ cellent crystals of glueosazone of characteristic melting point may be thus obtained from the so¬ lution. Very concentrated ferric bromide and ferric sulphate solutions act similarly, but they are by no means equal to the ferric chloride in their sol¬ vent action. Not only may simple cellulose, like cotton and filter paper, be dissolved in the very August 25, 1916] SCIENCE 287 concentrated ferric chloride solution, but also compound celluloses, like woody fibers of all kinds, are thus disintegrated. The entire subject is being pursued further, par¬ ticularly as applied to the study of the compound celluloses and the various products that are associ¬ ated with them in the various woods and woody fibers of different plants. Similarly, concentrated solutions of the chlorides of other metals, like those of copper, cobalt, nickel, aluminum, calcium, magnesium, etc., have also been tested as to their solvent action upon cellu¬ lose. While these have some action upon cellulose, the action is quite slight as compared with that of ferric chloride. The action of ferric chloride upon cellulose, therefore, is a highly specific and unique one. This entire subject is being studied further, especially as to its possible practical applications in isolating and utilizing various plant products. DIVISION OF INDUSTRIAL CHEMISTS AND CHEMICAL ENGINEERS H. E. Howe, Chairman S. H. Salisbury, Jr., Secretary The Determination of Ash in Coals with a High Percentage of Calcium Carbonate : S. W. Parr. The Mechanical Sampling of Illinois Coal: S. W. Parr. A New Form of Adiabatic Calorimeter: S. W. Parr. Beport on Last Year’s Progress of the Industrial Fellowship System of the Mellon Institute: E. F. Bacon. An Investigation of Composition Flooring: E. F. Bacon and E. E. Shively. A Contribution to the Chemistry of Laundering: H. G. Elledge. On the Use of Certain Yeast Nutriments in Bread Making: H. A. Kohman. On Hydrated Lime: J. F. MacKey. On the Prevention of Glass Pot Corrosion: S. E. SCHOLES. On the Behavior of Manganese in Glass: S. E. SCHOLES AND E. W. TlLLOTSON. Further Experiments on Volatilization of Plati¬ num: G. K. Burgess and E. G. Waltenberg. This paper is a continuation of previous work on the loss in weight on heating of platinum lab¬ oratory ware. It is shown that all grades of platinum contain at least traces of iron, that there is no appreciable loss in weight of crucibles heated to 900° C., but that above this temperature the loss increases rapidly with temperature, is greatest for platinum containing iridium and least for platinum alloyed with rhodium. The Isomeric Lactones, Caryophyllin and Ur son: Francis D. Dodge. Caryophyllin (C10H16O)n, constituent of clove buds, was thought to be an alcohol, C4OH0o(OH)4, but the present work indicates that it is more probably an oxy-lactone, C30H4SO3. Salts, two mono-acetyl and a diacetyl derivatives have been prepared. Oxidation with nitric acid gives caryo- phyllie acid, C^n^Oo ; and acetylation of this acid gave an acetyl derivative, m. 210°, probably from an oxy-di-lactone derived from caryophyllic acid by the loss of one molecule of C02 and of H20. Urson, a constituent of bear-berry leaves (Uva Ursi), C30II44O3, is probably an isomer of caryo¬ phyllin. Both lactones give the color-reaction of Lieber- mann for the cholesterol series. Tautomeric Equilibrium Constants and Chemical Structure. A Measure of Valence in Terms of Energy: C. G. Derick. Preparation and Characterisation of Trimethylene Oxide: D. W. Bissel and C. G. Derick. Trimethylene oxide was successfully prepared by two methods. The first used was by the action of trimethylene chlorhydrine on fused potassium hy¬ droxide at 140°, yield 6-8 per cent. The other method was by the action of the acetate of tri¬ methylene chlorhydrine upon fused postassium hy¬ droxide at 100-110°, yield 22 per cent. The oxide is purified by fractional distillation after remov¬ ing unsaturated products by bromination. Its structure follows from the fact that it yields hexanol-1 with propyl magnesium bromide; and trimethylene chloride with phosphorus penta- chloride. Trimethylene oxide is a colorless, mobile liquid; miscible with water and having a pleasing odor. B. P. 47.8° (corr.) ; D|o° 0.893; (N)25° 1.389 by Abbe instrument with ordinary light. The Action of Metallic Oxides on Trimethylene Halides and of Heat upon ClCH2CH2CH2-0-Mg-I : E. H. VOLLWEILER AND C. G. DERICK. Lead oxide acts on trimethylene bromide at 200°, giving a substance boiling at 50-60° which con¬ sists mainly of unsaturated compounds. The yield was poor. A polymer of trimethylene oxide, boil¬ ing at 180° under 50 mm., is obtained. Its struc¬ ture follows from the fact that it gives hexanol-1 with propyl magnesium bromide. Mercuric and silver oxide react similarly, yield¬ ing no appreciable quantities of monomoleeular trimethylene oxide. Trimethylene iodide can not 288 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1130 be used as it decomposes and tbe chloride reacts too slowly. Cl-CH2CH2CH2-0-Mg-I prepared by tbe Grig- nard reaction decomposes at 270°, giving mainly trimethylene iodide and a small amount of product boiling at 70-100° which is partly ethyl iodide and partly some unidentified mixture of iodine com¬ pounds. The Behavior of [3-Phenoxy Ethyl Bromide in JVurtz-Fittig Synthesis: St. Elmo Brady. The type of ether, C0H5-O-CH2CH2Br, was pre¬ pared from sodium phenolate and ethylene bro¬ mide and the reaction so regulated as to obtain a maximum yield of the bromethylphenyl ether in¬ stead of the diphenoxy ether which under certain conditions has an equal chance for formation with the bromethylphenyl ether. The regular Wurtz- Eittig synthesis was carried out with the single modification of varying the amount of sodium used. The products were ethylene gas, sodium phenylate, and a, 5-diphenoxybutane in 10 per cent., 20 per cent, and 30 per cent, yields respec¬ tively. The interesting fact observed in this synthesis was the unvarying yield of a, 5-diphenoxybutane with increasing amounts of the reacting mate¬ rials and an increase in the yield of ethylene gas under the same conditions. The yield of ethylene gas is directly proportional to the amount of sodium used. Preparation and Characterization of e-Acetylca- proic Acid: St. Elmo Brady and C. G. Derick. Trimethylene bromide and acetoacetic ester were condensed, molecular proportions of the reacting substances being used. The resulting condensation product was hydrolyzed with 20 per cent, hydro¬ chloric acid and the nonhydrolyzable matter sepa¬ rated. The aqueous portion is treated with solid sodium carbonate and the separating product re¬ moved and purified. This is 7-acetylbutyl alcohol. The alcohol is brominated and the bromide con¬ densed with malonic ester. The 1, 1 diearbox- ethyl heptanone-6, after purification, is hydro¬ lyzed with 20 per cent, hydrochloric acid and the resulting dicarboxylic acid heated to 170°. By the loss of carbon dioxide the e-acetylcaproie acid is formed. The acid is easily soluble in alcohol, ether and water and is somewhat hygroscopic. It melts at 28° and boils constant at 145° under 1 mm. pressure. The ionization constant is 1.638 .0005 X 10-°. Preparation and Characterization of S-Acetylvale- rianic Acid: B. W. Hess and C. G. Derick. Trimethylene glycol was converted into the bromide by refluxing with aqueous HBr. By using the proper proportions the yield was increased from 50 per cent, to 80 per cent. 7-Brombutyro- nitrile was made from the trimethylene bromide and KCN. When a mixture of water and alcohol was used as a solvent the yield was 20-25 per cent., but with absolute methyl alcohol it was 40- 50 per cent. The action of 7-brombutyronitrile on sodium acetoacetic ester gave two new products, the one desired, S-cyano-a-acetylvaleric ethyl ester and another 1, 7, -dicyano-4-aceto-4-carboxethyl heptane. The latter boils at 200° under 5 mm. pressure; melts at 73.5° and is insoluble in most organic solvents. An excess of acetoacetic ester prevents the formation of this substance. The former distills at 154° under 2 mm. pressure and hydrolyzes to 5-acetylvalerianic acid with constant boiling HC1. B. p. 181° under 25 mm. pressure; m. p. 36.5°; ionization constant 1.93 X 10~5. A Study of the Isomeric Aminoethylbenzenes and Certain of their Derivatives : O. S. Keener, O. Kamm and C. G. Derick. Syntheses in the Naphthalene Series: Oliver Kamm and H. B. McClugage. A Study of the Equilibrium in the Friedel and Craft Reaction ; Oliver Kamm and S. D. Kirk¬ patrick. On the Reactions of the Formamidines. V. On some Pyrazolone Derivatives : F. B. Dains, H. R. O’Brien and C. L. Johnson. Contributions to our Knowledge of Dichlorether. Part II.: G. B. Frankforter and S. J. Reichert. The Action of Aluminum Chloride on the Alcohols and Carbohydrates Alone and in the Presence of Other Organic Compounds: G. B. Frank¬ forter and Y. Kokatnur. A Catalytic Decomposition of Some Phenol Salts: W. H. Hunter. Some Work on the Reimer-Tiemann Reaction: W. H. Hunter. Notes on the Use of the Multiple Unit Electric Furnace and of a Modified Carbon Dioxide Gen¬ erator in the Dumas Method for the Determina¬ tion of Nitrogen: Harry L. Fisher. The furnace has excellent temperature control with all ranges, the units are well insulated, and it has a nickel trough which is permanent and does not stick to melted glass. The combustion tube can be inspected at any time. The generator ' is arranged for either pressure or vacuum work and can be constructed of vary¬ ing capacity and in a compact form. It consists of two round-bottomed flasks, the upper being in- August 25, 1916] SCIENCE 289 verted and connected with the lower one with a T-tube, which allows equalization of pressure in both flasks, and a 3-way stopcock. By means of the latter sulfuric acid may be dropped upon sodium bicarbonate in water or the acid in the upper chamber replenished or removed. The Relations in Composition of Petroleum, Coal and Natural Asphalts: C. F. Mabery. I have distilled Palmyra, C., coal in vacuo to compare the products with the constituents of Mahone petroleum which is in the same section. The distillates were composed of an oil heavier than water which was composed to a considerable extent of color substances which appeared during purification of the hydrocarbons in various shades of red, green, blue and violet. From the lighter oil was separated a number of hydrocarbons of the series C„IL,n, CnH2„_2, CnH2n_„, resembling the hydrocarbons separated from Mahone petroleum, three years ago. A considerable proportion of solid hydrocarbons were separated, including some of the higher paraffines. Acetic aldehyde ap¬ peared in the lower distillates as it has been rec¬ ognized in Mahone petroleum. I have also dis¬ tilled Gilsonite in vacuo and obtained 56 per cent, of a thin oil from which a series of hydrocarbons similar to those in petroleum. Three classes of products were separated; the last mentioned, that evolve HBr copiously with bromine, forming a substitution lighter than water, a second, closely resembling hydrocarbons of a different character, that I mentioned 25 years ago as separated from acid sludge, and then alluded to as resembling the terpenes, giving with bromine hydrobromic acid and a product heavier than water, and a third class, composed of nitrogen derivatives like those I described 15 years ago as from California pe¬ troleum and recently identified in other varieties, especially in larger amount from Russian (Baku) petroleum. These products are at present under examination. The Occurrence of Esdragol in Rosin: Charles H. Herty and V. A. Coulter. On the Phenolsulphonplithalein Dyes and the Quinonephenolate Theory of Indicators: E. C. White, H. A. Lubs and S. F. Acree. On the Use of Viscose as a Dialysis Membrane: H. A. Lewis and S. F. Acree. On the Tautomeric Reactions of the Silver and Mercury Salts of l-Phenyl-4, 5-dihydro-5-oxy-3- triazolyl Methyl Sulphone with Alley l Halides: E. H. Wight and S. F. Acree. On the Reactions of Both the Ions and Molecules of Acids, Bases and Salts: The Inversion of Menthone by Sodium, Potassium and Lithium Ethylates: W. A. Gruse and S. F. Acree. The Galactan of Larix occidentals : R. W. Schorger and D. F. Smith. Further Evidence for the Electronic Formula of Benzene and the Substitution Rule: H. S. Fry. Reactions in N on-aqueous Solvents: Chromyl Chloride and Phosphorus Halides: H. S. Fry and J. L. Donnelly. Electronic Tautomerism: The Existence of Elec¬ trometers An Dynamic Equilibrium : H. S. Fry. Partial Hydrogenation of Cotton-seed Oil: Ben H. Nicolet. The Reaction between Alcohols and Hydrochloric and Hydrobromic Acids: James F. Norris. The Nitro Phenyl Ethers: Hilton Ira Jones and Alfred N. Cook. The ortho and para nitro phenyl ethers have been studied and numerous errors corrected. Eighteen sulphonie acid salts have been prepared and seventy-two new phenyl ether dyes, several of which are of brilliant shade and have commercial possibilities. These are equally divided between the ortho and para ethers of the sulphonated and unsulphonated series. A new method has been de¬ vised for the preparation of potassium phenolate to all non-nitro phenols. The effects of the posi¬ tions of the groups upon the properties of the compounds and colors of the dyes have been care¬ fully studied and various interesting facts ob¬ served. The Relations in Composition of Coal, Petroleum and the Natural Asphalts: C. F. Mabery. In distilling Deerfield, 0., coal in vacuo, and gilsonite, it is found that the distillates contain petroleum hydrocarbons of the series C^H^..,, solid paraffines, the series CreILn-4, and nitrogen com¬ pounds resembling those which have been sepa¬ rated from California, Russian and other pe¬ troleums. Intense colors appeared in some dis¬ tillates. A series of terpenes appeared resembling those extracted by acid from petroleum. Naph¬ thene acids were recognized. These products and also a new series of petroleum hydrocarbons, prob¬ ably terpenes, separated twenty years ago in large quantity with the sulphur compounds, are under examination. Esterification of Acids by Isomeric Mercaptans: J. W. Kimball and E. Emmet Reid. It has long been known that alcohols of differ¬ ent structure show different velocities and limits of esterfication, these values being much lower for secondary than for primary alcohols. It has also 290 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1130 been shown that mercaptans are analogous to alco¬ hols in esterfication. In the present work the rates and limits of esterification of benzoic acid by normal, iso-, and secondary butyl mercaptans have been measured at 200° and the same relations found to hold with the mercaptans as with the al¬ cohols. Esterification of Acids by Isomeric Mercaptans: J. H. Sachs and E. Emmet Reid. Since with a given alcohol, isomeric acids show different esterification velocities, the present work was undertaken to find whether the same relations hold when isomeric acids are esterified by the analogous mercaptans. The three toluic acids have been heated with ethyl mercaptan at 200°. Esteri¬ fication progresses most rapidly with the meta isomer and most slowly with the ortho. The limits are nearly the same, 14.4, 13.2 and 13.3 per cent, for ortho, meta and para, respectively. Catalytic Preparation of Nitriles: G. D. Van Epps and E. Emmet Reid. It is known that when the vapors of acetic acid and of alcohol are mixed and passed over certain metal oxides at high temperatures, water is split off and ethyl acetate is formed. It is now found that when the vapor of acetic acid and ammonia gas are passed over alumina at 500°, water is eliminated and acetonitrile is formed up to 85 per cent, of the theoretical. CH3COOH + NH, = CH3CN + 2H20. The Preparation of Nitriles: G. D. Van Epps and E. Emmet Reid. Reid’s method for the preparation of nitriles, which consisted in heating a mixture of the zinc salt of the organic acid and lead sulphocyanide, and which gave good results with aromatic acids, has been extended to aliphatic acids and good yields obtained. The preparation of acetonitrile was extensively studied, a large variety of modifi¬ cations of the method being tried. Good yields have been obtained, but this method is rendered obsolete by the discovery of the catalytic method. The Identification of Acids: E. Emmet Reid. p-Nitrobenzyl bromide has been found to be an excellent reagent for the identification of acids. One gram of this reagent is boiled an hour with an excess of the alkali salt of the acid in 15 c.c. of 63 per cent, alcohol. E. g., 0„N.C6H4CH2Br CH3COOK = KBr + CH3C00.CH2.C6H4.N02. The p-nitrobenzyl esters so formed crystallize well as a rule, have good melting points, and con¬ venient solubilities. With the alkali salts of phenols, under the same circumstances, the same reagent forms ethers which are convenient for the identification of phenols. Some Anomalies in the Solidification Points of Fats: B. H. Nicolet and L. M. Liddle. On the Nitration of Toluene: I. W. Humphrey. The Hydrolysis of Chloropentanes as affected by High Pressures: Synthetic Fusel Oil: H. Essex and B. T. Brooks. The Effect of Sulphur on the Auto-Oxidation of Organic Compounds: B. T. Brooks, I. W. Humphrey and B. Y. Long. Two New Methods of Determining Acetylene in Gaseous Mixtures: G. O. Curme, Jr. Note on Lead Propionates : S. Frank Cox. Neutral lead propionate is formed almost quan¬ titatively when lead carbonate is treated with hot, dilute propionic acid. It is an amorphous, white solid, very soluble in water, insoluble in ether. If the tetroxide be treated with dilute propionic acid, the black dioxide is thrown out on boiling the mix¬ ture, and neutral lead propionate is formed prac¬ tically quantitatively. If litharge containing a considerable percentage of carbonate be used, neu¬ tral lead propionate, rather than either of the basic propionates which are reported, is formed. Analy¬ sis shows that lead carbonate will give the purest propionate, and the yields in this case are also the most satisfactory. Lead and hydrogen determina¬ tions, also the reaction with chlor di methyl ether whereby lead chloride is formed quantitatively, were used to identify the salts prepared. Crystalline fi-Methyl Fructoside and Its Tetrace- tates: C. S. Hudson and D. H. Brauns. A Fourth Crystalline Pentacetate of Galactose and Some Belated Compounds : C. S. Hudson and J. M. Johnson. The Isomeric Pentacetates of Glucosamine and of Chondrosamine : C. S. Hudson and J. K. Dale. Indirect Measurements of the Botatory Powers of Some of the Alpha and Beta Forms of the Sugars by Means of Solubility Measurements: C. S. Hudson and E. Yanovsky. Some Numerical Belations among the Botatory Powers of the Compound Sugars: C. S. Hudson. DIVISION OF FERTILIZER CHEMISTRY J. E. Breckenridge, Chairman F. B. Carpenter, Secretary Plant Food Deficiencies of Coastal Plain and Pied¬ mont Soils: C. B. Williams. Charles L. Parsons, Secretary ( To be concluded) SCIENCE Friday, September 1, 1916 CONTENTS The Evolution of Herbs: Dr. Edmund W. Sin- nott . ; . 291 Contributions of Chemistry to the Science and Art of Medicine: Dr, L. Junius Desha... 298 The School of Hygiene and Public Health at the Johns Hoplcins University . 302 The National Exposition of Chemical Indus¬ tries . 303 Scientific Notes and News . 304 University and Educational News . 309 Discussion and Correspondence : — Amblystoma not Ambystoma : Dr. Charles P. G. Scott. Ambystoma: F. Sturges Allen. The Lime Requirement of Soils: F. P. Veitch. The Survival of Beat in the Removed Heart of the Snapping Turtle: Dr. Philip B. Hadley . 309 Quotations : — Scientific Societies and the Government . . . 312 Scientific Boohs: — Farrington on Meteorites: Dr. George P. Merrill. Weld’s Theory of Errors and • Least Squares: Professor Charles C. Grove . 314 Aristotle’s Echeneis not a Sucking Fish: Dr. E. W. Gudger . 316 Special Articles: — Antagonism and Weber’s Law: Professor W. J. V. Osterhout. Do Fungi live and produce Mycelium in the Soil ? Selman A. Waksman . 318 The American Chemical Society: Dr. Charles L. Parsons . 322 MSS. intended for publication and boots, etc., intended for review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison- On-Hudson, N. Y. THE EVOLUTION OF HERBS The most ancient system of botanical classification which we know, first proposed by Aristotle and Theophrastus and even continued after the dawn of modern botany with the herbalists of the sixteenth cen¬ tury, divided all plants into three great and easily distinguishable groups, the trees, the shrubs and the herbs. As time went on, however, and as botanical knowledge grew more and more thorough, it became evident that any system of this sort, based simply on the habit of growth, not alone brought together many plants unrelated in almost every respect but separated others which clearly resembled one another in most of their characters. The old classi¬ fication was therefore gradually abandoned and in its place grew up various systems in which an attempt was made to gather plants into more natural groups. Finally the theory of evolution, with its emphasis on actual genetic relationship as the basis of all sound classification, gave a great in¬ centive to the building of hypothetical family trees and lines of descent in the vegetable kingdom. Almost all of these have been founded mainly on a compara¬ tive study of the various floral parts; and it is therefore with such structures that modern students of the morphology and taxonomy of plants have for the most part concerned themselves. The various types of growth habit, those most evident and striking of plant characters, so much em¬ phasized by the earlier botanists, have con¬ sequently been largely neglected as being too variable and too dependant on a chang¬ ing environment to be of much use in de¬ termining actual relationships. 292 SCIENCE [N. S. Vox,. XLIV. No. 1131 But however valueless an inquiry which concerns these more conspicuous distinc¬ tions may be in tracing outlines of descent and determining the evolution of flora , it does provide us with important informa¬ tion as to the origin and development of plant forms, the evolution of vegetation. In many ways this knowledge is of more importance than the construction of family trees alone, for it is more often the growth habit of plants rather than their systematic position which is correlated with the cli¬ matic, geological and zoological factors in their environment. Indeed, to man himself the distinction between an herb and a tree is frequently of greater economic signif¬ icance than that between two families of plants. Investigations on this problem of the evolutionary history of growth forms among the higher plants has produced evi¬ dence from various sources that in com¬ paratively recent geological time there has been a radical change in the character of much of the earth’s vegetation, perhaps the most important one since the appearance of the angiosperms; a change produced by the origin and wide dispersal of those lowly but numerically abundant, quickly matur¬ ing and rapidly spreading plants, the herbs, in a vegetation which seems to have been previously composed almost entirely of trees and shrubs. Light has also been thrown on the factors which were respon¬ sible for the development of this new plant type and on the far-reaching changes which its introduction has caused in the history of plants, animals and man. In any such problem of evolution as this we naturally turn first to a study of the fossil record. Of course the very earliest of land plants, if our present theories are correct, were delicate semi- aquatic species, probably resembling our modern liverworts, plants which from their essentially herbaceous structure failed en¬ tirely of preservation. As to the develop¬ ment of these lowdy forms into the vigorous and land-loving vascular plants which are now so completely dominant we know almost nothing, either from the geological record or from the occurrence of inter¬ mediate types. The luxuriant vegetation of the latter part of the Paleozoic, which gave us our first fossil plants, was com¬ posed of various ancient types of ferns, lycopods, horse-tails, cycad-ferns and gym- nospermous seed plants. It is significant that although nearly all of these were either trees or stout woody forms, their representatives which have been able to survive to the present time have with few exceptions been reduced to such an her¬ baceous stature as characterizes our ground pines, horse-tails, quillworts and ferns to-day. Among the angiosperms, which oc¬ cur as fossils only since the lower Cre¬ taceous, a similar change seems to have oc¬ curred for nearly every one of the early fossil members of this great group were apparently woody plants. Of course it must be borne in mind, as in all such cases, that the geological record may not present us with a fair sample of an ancient flora; for the leaves of woody species would in general be much more favorable for pres¬ ervation than the more delicate ones of herbaceous plants. As far as it goes, how¬ ever, the geological evidence tends to indi¬ cate that among vascular plants, at least during the period covered by the earlier fossil record, woody forms were the domi¬ nant type of vegetation. The labors of the botanical taxonomists have also provided us with a valuable clue as to the history of growth habits, particu¬ larly among the angiosperms. This now dominant race is generally agreed to have descended either from cycad-like types or from forms related to the conifers. Both September 1, 1916] SCIENCE 293 of these groups are to-day (and seem always to have been) composed entirely of woody plants. Furthermore, although opinion is still divided as to which of the living angio- sperms are the most ancient, it is generally agreed that this distinction belongs either to the naked-flowered, catkin-bearing types grouped together as the Amentiferte, or to the complete but simple-flowered Ranales. The former are almost exclusively trees or shrubs to-day and the latter are predomi¬ nantly so, making it probable that the angiosperms at their inception were woody in character. Moreover, in cases where a particular genus, family or order contains both woody plants and herbs and where it is possible, on evidence from other sources, to determine which members are primi¬ tive and which are more recent, it is found in practically every instance that the woody forms are more ancient in type than the herbaceous ones. This is well illustrated in the Leguminosae. Here the two most prim¬ itive sub-families, the Mimosae and Caesal- pineae, are almost exclusively woody, prac¬ tically all the herbaceous forms being included in the obviously less ancient Pa- pilionatas. Evidence derived from a study of plant descent therefore also indicates the greater antiquity of the woody type of vegetation. This conclusion again receives confirma¬ tion from a study of the anatomical struc¬ ture of woody plants and herbs, for in the latter the various elements of the wood — the vessels, rays and parenchyma — are often widely different from their primitive condition as we see it in admittedly ancient types of vascular tissue, and have evidently undergone much modification and special¬ ization. The distribution of these various growth types over the globe to-day is of expectional interest in providing us with evidence not only as to their relative antiquity but as to the factors which have caused the change from one type to the other. The most striking fact which such an investigation establishes is the overwhelming predomi¬ nance (in number of species) of herbs in temperate regions and of woody plants in the warmer parts of the earth. In Table I. are shown the numbers and percentages of herbaceous species in the floras1 of nine¬ teen typical regions. TABLE X Total Species Herba¬ ceous Species Per Cent. Herbs Ellesmereland . 76 71 93 The Faroes . 164 150 91 Switzerland . 1,899 1,726 91 Iceland . 221 200 90 Great Britain . 927 821 89 Rocky Mountains . 2,206 1,910 87 Russian Empire . 14,704 12,588 86 Germany . 1,117 947 85 Spain . 4,481 3,554 79 Northern United States . 2,662 2,089 78 Japan . 3,257 1,861 57 Florida Keys . 415 225 54 Tropical Africa . 8,577 3,560 42 Hongkong . 728 293 40 Ceylon . 1,793 670 37 British West Indies . 2,249 675 30 Java . 3,188 867 27 Brazil . 15,981 4,092 26 Lowlands of the Amazon Valley . 2,209 265 12 It will be noted that in the tropics only about ten to forty per cent, of the species are herbaceous, but that as we go into cooler regions the proportion of such plants greatly increases until in arctic and alpine areas they constitute ninety per cent, or more of the flora. Of course these figures do not mean that the vegetation of temper¬ ate regions is mainly herbaceous. Forests, indeed, are well developed there, but they are composed of only a few hardy families of trees; whereas in the tropics almost every family has numerous woody repre¬ sentatives. The tropical floras analyzed included in almost all cases many plants i In these analyses dicotyledonous plants alone are considered. 294 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1131 from cool upland or mountain regions, where herbs are commoner than in low¬ lands, and the herbaceous percentage is ac¬ cordingly higher. In the lowland tropical forest, however, as is shown in the selected figures for the Amazon Valley only, her¬ baceous species are extremely few. The most important limiting factor to the spread of tropical vegetation seems to be the occurrence, even for a very short time during the year, of temperatures near the freezing point. As to just what the climate was like under which the angio- sperms first appeared we are not altogether certain, but freezing temperatures seem for the most part to have been quite absent. We may reasonably infer that conditions then favored an overwhelming development of trees and shrubs such as we see in winterless regions of the earth to-day. An examination of those floras which are believed to be very ancient and to be com¬ posed of plant types which have elsewhere disappeared, is of especial interest for our problem. The organic life of certain iso¬ lated oceanic islands, in particular, is gen¬ erally recognized as giving us a rough idea of the fauna and flora which existed over wider areas in ancient times ; and the “endemic” animals and plants — those which are peculiar to the region and are found nowhere else, and which in such oceanic islands constitute a large propor¬ tion of the species — are regarded as still more ancient than the non-endemic ele¬ ment ; for they must either have had a long evolutionary history in the region or must be remnants of older types which have elsewhere become extinct. Table II. shows the percentage of herbs among the non¬ endemic species (most recent element) ; the endemic species of non-endemic genera (in¬ termediate element) ; and the species of the endemic genera (most ancient element) in certain of these insular floras. TABLE XI Recent Element, Per Cent. Herbs Inter¬ mediate Element, Per Cent. Herbs Ancient Element, Per Cent. Herbs Hawaii (582 species) . 76 21 9 Fiji (563 species) . 26 2 0 Juan Fernandez (89 species) 94 27 0 St. Helena (41 species) . 73 32 0 Socotra (517 species) . 85 26 9 Mauritius and the Seychelles (587 species) . 59 16 5 It is evident that the youngest element is predominantly herbaceous, the intermediate one less so, and the oldest almost entirely woody. In fact, the great majority of herbs in these insular floras apparently arrived such a short time ago that they have not yet developed into endemic types, but are still identical with species in other regions. This is the more noteworthy since herbs, because of the brevity of their life- cycles and their consequent multiplication of generations, tend to change more rapidly than woody plants. The vegetation of these ancient islands thus seems to have been, in times not very remote, even more, devoid of herbs than it is at present. In such islands as Bermuda and the Azores, on the contrary, where from the almost com¬ plete absence of endemic species we have reason to believe that the flora is not ancient, the percentage of herbs is fully as high as in continental areas of similar climate. The larger land masses of the south tem¬ perate zone — Australia, New Zealand, southern South America and South Africa — which have also been isolated in a greater or less extent from the continental areas of the northern hemisphere, resemble ancient oceanic islands to a certain degree in the composition of their vegetation. In Table III. are shown the percentages of herbs among the species of the non-endemic genera (recent) and among the endemic genera (ancient) in the floras of these regions. September 1, 1916] SCIENCE 295 TABLE III Recent Genera, % Herbs Ancient Genera, % Herbs Australia (5,711 species) . 62 17 New Zealand (1,026 species) . Southern South America (1,587 81 20 species) . 87 48 South Africa (7,984 species) . 58 30 Here again, though not to as marked a degree as in insular floras, the more ancient element is predominantly woody and the more recent predominantly herbaceous. It is noteworthy that there are many species of plants in the ancient insular floras which are identical or nearly iden¬ tical with species on widely distant oceanic islands or on ancient continental areas, a fact which strengthens our belief that the vegetation of these regions is a remnant of one which was formerly much more widely spread. If the herbaceous element in the vegeta¬ tion of such isolated regions as we have described is entirely or in great part of recent arrival, we naturally look for its seat of origin to the extensive land areas of the north temperate zone where herbs to¬ day reach such high development, and where so many new types of animals and plants have had their birthplace. Even here there is evidence that the woody element in the vegetation was at one time much more diversified and prominent than at present, for very many genera and families of trees and shrubs are found here as fossils from the Cretaceous and Tertiary which are ab¬ sent from the living floras. This is par¬ ticularly true of Europe, where there are to-day so few species of woody plants. These facts — that woody plants are more ancient than herbs as shown by evidence from fossils, from natural relationships and from anatomy; that herbs are now domi¬ nant and woody plants few in species in regions subject to low winter temperatures, and vice versa ; that regions which have been isolated from the north temperate land mass possess few herbs in the ancient por¬ tion of their floras, and that the northern continents supported at no very ancient date a much more varied woody vegetation than at present — all suggest the conclusion that, a large portion, at least, of our modern herbaceous vegetation originated in the north temperate zone in response to the progressive refrigeration of climate which we know to have taken place there during the Tertiary. The great advantages conferred by the possession of an herbaceous habit of growth in a region subject to low winter tempera¬ tures are obvious, for such plants are able to complete their cycles and to mature seed in the warm summer months and can then survive the cold of winter in the form of resistant seeds or by hibernating under¬ ground. Only the hardier types can main¬ tain permanent aerial stems under these conditions. The more delicate woody families have either been exterminated out¬ right in temperate regions or have sur¬ vived only by assuming an herbaceous habit and thus flourishing in that part of the year which is free from frost. As might be expected if low temperature has indeed been the determining factor in the develop¬ ment of herbs, most of those families which are well able to survive cold as trees or shrubs and which form the bulk of the woody vegetation of the north temperate zone — the willows, birches, oaks, beeches, walnuts, hickories, wax myrtles, elms, hollies, maples, heaths, buckthorns, lindens, planes, sumachs, cornels, and viburnums — are families which are almost entirely with¬ out herbaceous members. Being hardy, they have not been forced to adopt the her¬ baceous habit. As to the details of this change in growth habit we can not of course be sure, but in those forms which it did not kill outright 296 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1131 the increasing cold probably effected a gradual reduction in size and an attendant shortening of the time necessary to reach maturity, until very dwarf forms were pro¬ duced which were able to develop from seed to seed in a year or two, and which could be killed back to the ground every winter — in short, perennial herbs. The herbaceous vegetation in arctic and alpine regions to-day is still composed almost en¬ tirely of such plants. The annual herb seems to have developed from this primi¬ tive type under more favorable environ¬ ments, where a plant growing from seed, and thus without a subterranean food res¬ ervoir to give it a rapid start, could become large enough in a single season to reproduce itself. The northern vegetation thus developed proved extremely hardy and aggressive, and was able not only to overspread the great continental area of the north tem¬ perate zone but to invade as well the tropics and even the Antipodes. The presence of a large number of typically northern genera of plants in Australasia, southern South America and South Africa, often separated from their related forms by the whole width of the tropics, has long been recognized as one of the most fascinating problems of plant distribution. It is im¬ portant to note that this invasion of north¬ ern plants (nearly 200 genera are known) which has been so successful in penetrating far southern regions and which displays so well the ‘ £ wonderful aggressive and coloniz¬ ing power of the Scandinavian flora” to which Wallace and others have called at¬ tention, has in reality been an invasion of herbs, for almost none of the northern trees and shrubs have participated in it. Herbaceous plants have also been de¬ veloped in the south temperate zone appar¬ ently in response to the refrigeration of climate there in the late Tertiary. Ant¬ arctic herbs were doubtless among the very last plants to leave the polar continent as the glaciers advanced. They are still almost all alpine or cold-loving perennials and have as yet failed to give rise to the aggressive lowland annual type. Refrigeration of climate was doubtless not the only factor in the development of an herbaceous vegetation. A large body of such plants seem to have originated in arid regions, where they spring up rapidly and produce seed during a rainy season, thus bearing precisely the same relation to extremes of moisture that arctic or alpine herbs do to extremes of temperature. The assumption of a rapidly climbing habit, especially in the tropics, has also resulted in the development of an herbaceous type of stem in such families as the melons, milk¬ weeds and passion-flowers. But whatever the cause of their origin, herbs have proved themselves an exceed¬ ingly versatile and aggressive type of vege¬ tation under almost all climatic conditions. The reasons for this dominance of the herb are not far to seek. It is able not only to thrive in cold and arid regions but, from the brevity of its life-cycle, can take advan¬ tage of temporarily favorable conditions of any sort. Its evident and great superiority over woody plants in rapidity of dispersal and ability to invade new areas quickly is due in large measure to the fact that its interval from seed to seed, instead of being many years, is only a few months. Every seed may itself become a center of dispersal in a season’s time. The amount of seed produced, too, in proportion to the bulk of plant body which has to be developed is far greater among herbs than among woody forms. Owing to the rapid multiplication of their generations herbs are capable of more rapid evolutionary change than are trees or shrubs and hence are able to adjust themselves more rapidly to new conditions. September 1, 1916] SCIENCE 297 With these various advantages it is not sur¬ prising that the herbaceous habit to-day characterizes not only great numbers of the commonest and most dominant native plant species in all parts of the world but also that huge array of hardy and ubiquitous plants which we know as weeds. This radical change in the growth habit of many plants from a woody to an her¬ baceous type which has taken place for the most part since the beginning of Tertiary time cannot have failed to exert an im¬ portant influence on animal life. It may well be connected with the rapid evolution of mammals which we know to have oc¬ curred after the early Tertiary. To quote from Chamberlin and Salisbury: The earliest Eocene mammals were much more primitive and obscurely differentiated than even those of the middle Eocene, and this rapid back¬ ward convergence seems to point to some set of conditions which caused an exceptionally rapid development of the great class at this stage, what¬ ever their previous history had been. The coming into a new domain of rich and varied conditions, whether by immigration or indigenous develop¬ ment, may be safely included among those condi¬ tions. Is it not reasonable to suppose that the appearance of a great body of herbaceous vegetation just at this time was one of these conditions? This would affect di¬ rectly the development of all herbivorous types and indirectly of many others. In the evolution of the tooth of the herbivora, indeed, we can trace the change from a sharply cusped type, suitable for chewing tough leaves and twigs, to the modern flat condition which is capable of dealing only with the softer herbaceous tissues. The development of herbs was also ap¬ parently of some importance in the evolu¬ tion of bird life, for the appearance of an immense new food supply produced by this terrestrial, seed-bearing vegetation, must certainly have led to the much greater abundance of such ground-loving types as the finches and others, and may well have been responsible for their origin. So closely are plants and insects related, too, that a radical change in the one can not have been without effect on the other. Far more important, however, is the part which the herb has played in the develop¬ ment of human civilization. Primitive man seems to have been mainly arboreal in his habits, or at least primarily a forest dweller, and the wood, bark and fruit of trees and shrubs were of supreme impor¬ tance to him as sources of shelter, fuel, im¬ plements, clothing and food. One of his first steps from this barbarism toward civilization was to enter the open and begin the practise of agriculture. Those plants which most commended themselves to the earliest tillers of the soil were probably not the slow-growing trees and shrubs but rather the herbs, since the rapidity with which they grow and reach maturity makes possible their culture even among such rov¬ ing tribes as were our North American Indians. Only as man acquired a settled place of abode and a more permanent form of society could he begin the culture of woody plants in orchard and vineyard ; and it is only in very recent times that agri¬ culture has extended beyond these fruit¬ bearing trees and shrubs and, in the form of forestry, has begun to treat timber trees themselves as a crop to be cultivated. The marked superiority of the herb in ease of agricultural manipulation, together with the wide variety of uses of root, stem, leaf and fruit, have given it an increasingly high place in man’s favor. To be sure, trees and shrubs provide us with timber, fuel, paper, rubber, fruits, nuts, coffee, tea, cocoa, vineyard products, turpentine and many drugs and items of lesser conse¬ quence. Among herbaceous products, how¬ ever, are found all the cereals and vege¬ tables, together with sugar, tobacco, most 298 SCIENCE [N. S. Yol. XLIV. No. 1131 of the fibers, certain of the fruits, and very- many other valuable commodities. In ad¬ dition to all this, the animal industries, which are the sources of milk, meat, leather and wool, are dependent entirely upon herbs. The dominance of such plants in agriculture is shown by the fact that in the United States they contribute 96 per cent, of the value of the products of this fundamental industry. Without herbs, the feeding and clothing of our great populations to-day would be quite impos¬ sible, and though it is conceivable that with the advance of science civilized man might possibly dispense with woody plants, in the absence of herbs he would perforce revert almost to savagery again. Human society is essentially an herbaceous product. Although a study of the evolution of growth-habits may not provide much in¬ formation as to the natural relationships of the higher plants, as we remarked at the outset, it does nevertheless introduce us to a momentous chapter in the history of the vegetable kingdom, for these lowly forms have not only possessed the earth and de¬ termined the character of many types of animal life, but to their indispensable aid man himself really owes his career as a civilized being. Edmund W. Sinnott Connecticut Agricultural College CONTRIBUTIONS OF CHEMISTRY TO THE SCIENCE AND ART OF MEDICINE1 At the last two meetings of this Society the general sessions have been devoted chiefly to symposia upon the contributions of the chem¬ ist to the varied phases of our American indus¬ trial development. Such emphasis is both timely and well merited. But I am impressed that this record of achievement should not be 1 Presented to the Division of Biological Chem¬ istry of the American Chemical Society at the spring meeting at Champaign, Ill., April 17-21, 1916. closed without some consideration of the con¬ tributions of chemistry to the science and use¬ ful art of medicine. The opportunity seems likewise propitious for some suggestions as to means by which future contributions in this direction may be increased in number and in value. The science of medicine consists in the knowledge of the normal processes of the human body (physiology) and of the nature and causes of abnormal deviations (pathology). The art of medicine includes the prevention of such deviations (hygiene), their identification (diagnosis) and their correction or alleviation by therapeutic or surgical treatment. For its present state of development each of these branches owes much to the contributions of chemistry. Since Lavoisier’s demonstration of the iden¬ tity of respiration with combustion the chem¬ ist has gone step by step with the physiologist in elucidating the normal operations of the first internal combustion engine. Chemical structure of inanimate carbohydrates, lipins and proteins sheds reflected light upon the re¬ actions and structure of living protoplasm. Colloidal chemistry, catalysis and the laws of chemical dynamics furnish all that we know of those servants of the cells, the enzymes. A new constituent of the blood is recognized to-day and to-morrow we have a new theory of metabolism. Thermochemistry is the foundation of nutrition and dietetics. The occultism of biogenesis, growth and the inter¬ nal secretions is giving way before the calorim¬ eter and the differential equation. In a word, the whole datum of physiological chem¬ istry is a contribution to physiology and hence to the science of medicine; that much of it yet lacks practical application is no discredit to the contributor. So much yet remains to be done in the field of chemical pathology that we are sometimes inclined to disparage past achievements. But these are not inconsiderable. In edema, con¬ cretions, diabetes and other conditions of acidosis, pathological variations in metabolism in fever, and in numerous other directions sub¬ stantial gains have been recorded. Uric acid September 1, 1916] SCIENCE 299 has been found not guilty of most of the of¬ fenses charged in the earlier indictments — and part of the responsibility for gout must be borne by as complete a chemical abstrac¬ tion as tautomerism. But, by all odds, the greatest progress in the field of pathology is the widening recognition that in the future the important advances must be made by the chemical rather than by the histological route. These contributions of chemistry to the science of medicine are for the most part dis¬ tinctly modern. Far earlier were many of those to the art. Paracelsus gave chemistry a practical object as it emerged from the clouds of alchemy when he declared that “ the object of chemistry is not to make gold, but to pre¬ pare medicines.” In England, to-day, the drug store is the “ Chemist’s Shop,” and those are not lacking in this country to whom the term chemist has a similar significance. Both are the spontaneous acknowledgment of the services of the chemist in supplying these tools of the physician. For if Paracelsus, Francis- cus Sylvius and their followers of the iatro- chemical school failed in their effort to de¬ velop chemistry simply as an adjunct to medi¬ cine they planted the seed which through many generations have brought forth Liebig’s chloral, Ehrlich’s salvarsan and the host of other synthetics which make up most of the materia medica of to-day. The development in synthetic drugs which has followed the recognition of a connection between chemical structure and pharmacolog¬ ical action is a fascinating story; less, pos¬ sibly, on account of actual results than be¬ cause of the tantalizing probabilities. But with the establishment of the definite effects of at least some configurations and a measure¬ ment of the mutual influence of different radi¬ cals have come practical results. Guided by this information, old remedies have been im¬ proved by blocking the groups responsible for secondary effects or entirely replaced by better ones constructed to specifications. At the same time experimental pharmacology has been stimulated with the result that the mod¬ ern physician has at command, for producing almost any desired effect, a variety of drugs of great reliability. But internal therapy does not exhaust the resources of treatment and if synthetic chem¬ istry has done much for the former it has done still more for surgery and the surgical special¬ ties. Anesthesia and asepsis are the pillars of these structures — and the stones of the pillars are the synthetics ether, chloroform, iodoform. Strangely enough, diagnosis is the last branch of medicine to which applied chemistry has brought substantial benefit. To be sure we have had for many years an attempt at diagnosis by means of qualitative tests.2 The urinalysis consisting only of qualitative tests for sugar and albumin is worth just as much as the feel-your-pulse, see-your-tongue, give- you-calomel variety of clinical diagnosis and treatment — just as much and no more. The essentials of progress may be a slow and steady growth, but the results usually appear by spurts and in response to some particular incentive. In this case the impetus was furnished by the new methods of blood and urine analysis, introduced by Folin and his co-workers, which in a short time have found such wide applica¬ tion. Nitrogen partition in the urine and re¬ tention in the blood ; urobilin index of erythro¬ cyte destruction; differentiation and prognosis in renal and cardiac conditions ; sugar and ace¬ tone elimination in diabetes ; hydrogen ion concentration of the blood in other conditions of acidosis — these are but types of the appli¬ cations of quantitative chemistry to clinical diagnosis. Scarcely a month in which the journals fail to report another. In this resume no claim is made to com¬ pleteness — still less to originality — of data. But it is hoped that from a somewhat pan¬ oramic view there may be caught a concep¬ tion of the truly basal relationship of chem¬ istry to medicine. It is for this collective con¬ cept that I bespeak the consideration which it has received of few chemists and still fewer physicians. To be sure, chemistry has long occupied a more or less perfunctory position in the curricula of medical colleges — becom- 2 ‘ ‘ As long as only qualitative methods are used in a branch of science, this can not rise to a higher stage than the descriptive one. Our knowledge is then very limited, although it may be very useful. ’ ’ — Arrhenius. 300 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1131 ing rather more than less perfunctory as the actual preparation of medicines, its most clearly recognized application, passed out of the hands of medical men. And chemistry is one of the subjects in which examination is required by official licensing boards. But it would require a most gifted intelligence to be able to deduce from the adventitious subject- matter of most of these examinations any suggestion that chemistry is a fundamental part of medicine rather than some extraneous attachment. Let me explain what I mean by perfunctory position in the medical curriculum. Until the very recent general upheaval, medical instruc¬ tion in all branches left much to be desired (to be conservative in expression). Rather than an exception to this statement, the old so-called “ medical chemistry ” was a glaring case in point. Crowded with descriptions of natural occurrences and methods of prepara¬ tion of drugs, indications, effects and dosage, clinical symptoms of poisons and their labora¬ tory detection — so much was usurped from the provinces of pharmacy, materia medica, phar¬ macology and therapeutics that little space was left even in the ponderous “ Textbooks of Medical Chemistry” for references to funda¬ mental chemical principles. When included at all these latter were carefully segregated within the paragraphs of their original men¬ tion — paragraphs which could be omitted quite as easily as those on the oxides of iodine with¬ out impairment to the continuity of the text. And in practise it would appear that these paragraphs on chemical principles were omitted with even greater facility. We may well congratulate ourselves that “ all that’s put behind us,” far away if not long ago. Instruction in chemistry in the medical colleges is now exclusively in the charge of full-salaried teachers, most of whom are trained chemists. Matters extraneous to chemistry are no longer allowed to preempt the place which belongs to the fundamentals of chemical theory and the present-day courses in chemistry, as given in most medical col¬ leges, are of quite the same degree of excellence as those in other professional or academic in¬ stitutions. It is satisfying to regard this improvement, but facts are not wanting which raise other questions. May we still be lacking somewhat of the highest possible efficiency? In the Standards of the Council of Medical Educa¬ tion of the American Medical Association, de¬ fining the “ Essentials of an Acceptable Med¬ ical College,” this dictum is laid down, “ Non¬ medical men should be selected as teachers in medical schools only under exceptional circum¬ stances and only because medical men of equal special capacity are not available.” The ob¬ vious advantage sought is the wider point of view of men trained to the practical applica¬ tions of their subjects to other branches of medicine and able to direct the minds of stu¬ dents to these interrelationships. There is no department of instruction in which this ad¬ vice of the Council has been so consistently disregarded as in the selection of chemistry teachers — and for the very good reason indi¬ cated, that “ medical men of equal special capacity” were not (and are not) available. Medical instruction in chemistry is, therefore, for the most part in the hands of men ade¬ quately enough trained in chemistry but with¬ out formal education in medicine. As one of that very class, I venture to raise the question as to whether we have always sufficient catho¬ licity. Is it not possible that we sometimes overlook the fact that we are training men to be physicians, not chemists ? In our very righteous indignation at the inefficiency of the old “ medical chemistry ” may we not have swung the pendulum a little too far away from the point of practical contact? To the last question it may be replied with perfect logic that when we have laid an ade¬ quate foundation of sound theory it is for the physiologist, the pathologist and the internist to build upon it according to the particular needs of his subject. But, like the gas laws, this logic applies strictly only under ideal con¬ ditions. As a practical fact the pathologists, internists, etc., concerned are not infrequently men who have succeeded less on account of any knowledge of chemical principles than in spite of the handicap of their inadequate in¬ struction in that subject. Most of us have known chemists, the great men of a passing September 1, 1916] SCIENCE 301 generation, who having passed middle age before the advent of certain theories were entirely unable to use them in their reasoning although according formal acceptance. It were hardly fair to prescribe a more rigid re¬ quirement for our medical teachers of the present, though we may expect much more of those now in the making. In the meanwhile, shall the student be allowed to miss much which is essential because the chemistry teacher prefers to draw about himself the white mantle of pure science and pass by on the other side? Another question occurs. By inference there has already been suggested a need for teachers trained both in chemistry and in medicine. The large number of published researches by “ John Doe, Ph.D., and James Smith, M.D.” suggests another field of usefulness for the man who can unite the training indicated by these two degrees, while the increased appli¬ cation of chemical analyses to clinical diag¬ nosis is a third factor in creating a demand for such preparation. The last factor is worthy of some special consideration. This increased demand for chemical data in diagnosis is al¬ ready marked, but it has only commenced. There must be men to do the work — and the practician is excluded. The methods con¬ cerned are quantitative and their usefulness depends upon the accuracy of the results. Even assuming the possibility of developing a quantitative conscience in a medical student within the available time, analytical efficiency can not be maintained by sporadic efforts — and the maintenance of regular quantitative work is incompatible with the practise of medicine. The requisite skill can be provided only by chemically trained men who give it their regular attention, and this is the way it is actually working out. The movement to¬ ward concentrating medical practise in hos¬ pitals is already well under way; an eminent authority has predicted that it will soon be¬ come universal. Already the hospitals are pro¬ viding their corps of clinical chemists. Is it not time to make some special educational provision for the particular kind of combined training which will peculiarly fit men to dis¬ charge the functions of teaching, research and clinical control which have been indicated? It may be suggested that adequate prepara¬ tion for such work may be secured even now by pursuing the courses leading to he Ph.D. degree in chemistry and subsequently going on to the M.D. A few men do this and we recognize the a priori advantages which they possess over those who have only the one de¬ gree. But it is not economically sound to advocate this regimen for all who would so qualify themselves. Of the four years re¬ quired for the medical degree (already it is five in those institutions which set the stand¬ ards for to-morrow) more than half the time is devoted to the subjects of anatomy, surgery, obstetrics and minor allied subjects to which present or prospective chemical methods are only remotely related. It would appear both desirable and feasible to provide in our medi¬ cal schools (or some of them) a special course for men already thoroughly trained in chem¬ istry. Within two years could be compassed intensive courses in biology, physiology, ad¬ vanced physiological chemistry, pathology, bacteriology and internal medicine with very brief attention to such portions of other branches as might appear desirable. With a bachelor’s degree including as much chemistry as is now obtainable would it not be possible to arrange such a special course as suggested and, following this with a year of research, grant at the end of seven years the Ph.D., D.Sc., or a new degree of equal dignity? A few years ago the Division of Organic Chemistry held a symposium upon methods of teaching that subject. If there are enough of the members of this Biochemical Division who are interested in the suggestions raised, or in allied considerations, it might be of advantage to provide at some future meeting for a similar free discussion of the whole matter. Out of such a frank canvassing of the situation there should come results which would enable the chemistry of the future to offer even more substantial contributions than the chemistry of the past has made to the science and art of medicine. L. Junius Desha Memphis, Tenn. 302 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1131 THE SCHOOL OF HYGIENE AND PUB¬ LIC HEALTH AT THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY i Our president, with a self-denial which I might appreciate, has intrusted to me the agreeable function of announcing upon this occasion one of the most important and grati¬ fying gifts ever bestowed upon this university, a benefaction likewise of national interest. This is the provision of funds by the Rocke¬ feller Foundation for the purpose of establish¬ ing in connection with the J ohns Hopkins Uni¬ versity a school of hygiene and public health. This action of the foundation was communi¬ cated to the trustees of the university only to¬ day shortly before these exercises. It is hardly necessary to add that the trustees have acted promptly in accepting this generous gift and have already taken the first steps toward organization of the new school in selecting Dr. Howell as the head of the physiological divi¬ sion of the institute of hygiene and to co¬ operate in the work of organization and devel¬ opment, and in appointing me as director. It is expected that the school will be opened in October, 1917, as it is estimated that a year will be required for the planning, construction and equipment of the building and the gather¬ ing together of the staff of teachers. The nec¬ essary funds for construction, equipment, maintenance and expenses of the school will be provided by the Rockefeller Foundation. When we consider the revolutionary discov¬ eries of the last forty years in our knowledge of the causes and means of prevention of dis¬ eases, the great progress in the science and art of public health and the incalculable benefits to the community in the application of this knowledge, we can all realize the beneficent service rendered to this great cause by this latest gift of the Rockefeller Foundation, which has already contributed so largely to the advancement of medical science and edu¬ cation. Not only this university, but also this city and state and the whole country owe a great debt of gratitude to the foundation for i Remarks by Dr. Wm. H. Welch at the com¬ mencement exercises of the Johns Hopkins Uni¬ versity, as reported in the University Circular. the provision thus made of improved oppor¬ tunities for training in preventive medicine and public health work and for cultivation of the sciences which find application in public and personal hygiene. It is naturally most gratifying to us that Baltimore and the Johns Hopkins University have been selected for the location of the new school of hygiene and public health. Our city, in its situation, its relations to the south and other parts of the country, its proximity to the national capital, and its opportunities for study and work in the field of preventable diseases, is favorably located for such a school. I think that I may say that determining considerations have been the advantages arising from close as¬ sociation of the school with the medical school, the hospital, the school of engineering and other departments of the Johns Hopkins University, and it is for these reasons especially that the decision reached by the foundation after pro¬ longed and careful study of the situation in different parts of the country is so gratifying to us. The wider extension of the influence and usefulness of the university, the possibil¬ ities of greater service to this city and state and to the country at large about to be opened by the new school, should materially strengthen the position of the Johns Hopkins University and aid in securing much-needed support in the development of other departments. While the detailed plans of organization of the school of hygiene and public health will be worked out and announced later, a few points may here be touched upon. Inasmuch as the profession of the sanitarian and worker in public health, although closely connected, is not identical with that of the practitioner of medicine, the school of hygiene and public health, while working in coopera¬ tion with the medical school, as well as with the school of engineering, will have an inde¬ pendent existence under the university co¬ ordinate with these schools. Opportunities in each will be available to students of the other schools. The central and principal feature of the school will be an institute of hygiene housed in its own building, provided with the requisite September 1, 1916] SCIENCE 303 laboratories and facilities and with its own staff of teachers giving their entire time to the work of teaching and investigating. There will be here laboratories of sanitary chemistry, of physiology as applied to hygiene — a most-important although much-neglected subject — of bacteriology and protozoology, and provision for epidemiology, industrial hygiene, vital statistics, a museum, library, etc. Addi¬ tional facilities for instruction and research will be supplied by the medical and the engi¬ neering schools, the hospital, especially the newly opened wards for infectious diseases of the Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children, and other departments of the university, which will be aided in undertaking the new work. It is anticipated that mutually helpful rela¬ tions will be established with our municipal and state departments of health, assurance of which has been given by our public-spirited mayor and other authorities, and with the fed¬ eral public health service, whereby opportu¬ nities will be afforded for field work and other practical experience in various branches of public-health work. Especially advantageous will be the relations with the International Health Commission of the Rockefeller Foundation, which is engaged in the study and control not only of hook¬ worm, but also of malaria, yellow fever and other tropical diseases, which will receive due attention in the work of the institute. It is intended that the school shall furnish opportunities of a high order for the cultiva¬ tion of the various sciences which find applica¬ tion in hygiene, sanitation and preventive medicine, and for the training of medical stu¬ dents, engineers, chemists, biologists and others properly prepared who wish to be grounded in the principles of these subjects, and above all for the training of those who desire to fit them¬ selves for careers in public-health work in its various branches — that most attractive profes¬ sion for those qualified to practise it. The most urgent need at the present time is pro¬ vision for the scientific training of prospective health officials and for supplementary and ad¬ vanced courses for those already engaged in sanitary work. Suitable recognition of the satisfactory completion of work in the school will be given by the bestowal of certificates and degrees. Directions in which it may be expected that the usefulness of the school of hygiene and public health will be extended are cooperative efforts with our training school for nurses and other agencies in the training of public-health nurses, who have become such important agents in voluntary and public-health work, and in the education of the public by exhibits, lectures and other means to a better application and understanding of the significance and needs of public and personal hygiene. The dreams which many of us in the med¬ ical faculty have long cherished are now about to be realized. The opportunity which this great benefaction places in the hands of the Johns Hopkins University is most inspiring. It is comparable to that presented to the uni¬ versity at its beginning for the promotion of higher education, and later to the medical school and the hospital for advancement of the standards and methods of medical education. The responsibilities devolving upon the uni¬ versity in this new undertaking, entrusted to it with such high hopes, are commensurate with the splendid opportunities. May we not con¬ fidently anticipate that in this new field the results will be in keeping with the achieve¬ ments of the university in the other fields it has cultivated so successfully? THE NATIONAL EXPOSITION OF CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES Recently the managers of the Second Na¬ tional Exposition of Chemical Industries, at the Grand Central Palace, New York, during the week of September 25, had to arrange the second floor for exhibits, and now they report that there are but a few spaces still remaining on that floor. To meet the requiremefits of the societies which will hold meetings at the Grand Central Palace the auditorium has had to be increased in size, so that now it will comfortably seat 500 persons. An automatic motion-picture machine of the latest design will be used to display the motion pictures, many of which 304 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1131 will be loaned by exhibitors. In many cases there will be lectures to take the audience through a pictorial tour of a plant and they will be shown machinery and processes in the manufacture of materials that, until then, had never been previously shown. Many of the films are at present being made and are ex¬ pected to be finished in time to be shown at the exposition. A few of these films are as follows : Making of Black Powder, Manufacture of Iron, Manufacture of Fertilizers, Mining and Manufacturing of Iron, Manufacturing of Silk, Making of Blotting Paper, Silver Mining, Manufacturing of Yarnish, Asphalt. Two other features of the exposition that have been added this year are a large section showing the opportunities that await the chem¬ ist in our south and known as the “ Southern Opportunity ” section and a section for the “ Paper and Pulp Industry ” composed of ma¬ terials and machinery used in the manufacture of paper and other related products. The “ Southern Opportunity ” section is an ambitious undertaking to display the latent wealth in the undeveloped resources of the south. It will show that the materials have formerly been shipped to foreign countries to be enhanced in value by manufacture and re¬ turned to the original producers at a greater price. The Bureau of Mines is preparing an elabo¬ rate exhibit that will cover much space — it will be a working exhibit, one where the visitor can see the “ wheels go round.” The exposition will be opened by Dr. Charles H. Herty, president of the American Chem¬ ical Society and chairman of the exposition advisory committee. Mr. Francis A. J. Fitz¬ gerald, president of the American Electro¬ chemical Society, and Arthur B. Daniels, presi¬ dent of American Paper and Pulp Association, will also make addresses. The American Chemical Society, whose an¬ nual meeting is being held during the week and in conjunction with the exposition, has arranged for conference meetings at the ex¬ position. Other meetings of the society will be held at Columbia University, at the College of the City of Mew York and the Chemists Club. The Chemists Club, which is a few squares from the Grand Central Palace, has been se¬ lected as the headquarters of the American Chemical Society, and on Monday afternoon the council of the society will hold a business meeting there, followed by a dinner tendered to the council by the Mew York Section. The American Electrochemical Society has arranged a series of meetings beginning on Thursday morning, September 28, with the “ Made in America ” technical session at the Grand Central Palace. This session will be devoted to papers and discussions on the varied electrochemical industries of America, fol¬ lowed on Friday morning by another technical session, devoted to the theoretical side of elec¬ trochemistry. Registration will be on Wed¬ nesday evening at the exposition, headquarters of the society being at the Electrochemical So¬ ciety booth. The Technical Association of Pulp and Paper Industry, which is also holding meetings in conjunction with the exposition, is arrang¬ ing headquarters in the midst of the “ Paper and Pulp Industry ” Section on the second floor of the Grand Central Palace. A large number of interesting papers are promised on the technical aspects of pulp and paper manu¬ facturing. On Friday morning the meeting will be held in the auditorium at the Grand Central Palace, and the afternoon meeting will be a joint conference with the American Chem¬ ical Society. The members of the American Chemical So¬ ciety and the American Electrochemical So¬ ciety will receive badges which will admit them to the exposition without further tickets. SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS Sir T. Clifford Allbutt has been elected president of the British Medical Association. A message of congratulation was at the time sent to him on the attainment of his eightieth birthday which occurred on July 20. September 1, 1916] SCIENCE 305 Sir Norman Lockyer has been elected a for¬ eign honorary member of the American Acad¬ emy of Arts and Sciences. The Paris Academy of Sciences has voted to confer its Delalande-Guerineau prize on Sir Ernest Shackleton. Professor C. F. Marvin, chief of the Weather Bureau, and Dr. L. O. Howard, chief of the Bureau of Entomology, have been ap¬ pointed by the secretary of agriculture to rep¬ resent the IT. S. Department of Agriculture on the Council of Research which is being or¬ ganized by the National Academy of Sciences. The forty-fourth annual meeting of the American Public Health Association will be held in Cincinnati, October 24 to 27, under the presidency of Dr. John F. Anderson, of New Brunswick, N. J., formerly assistant surgeon general of the United States Public Health Service. Dr. Emery R. Hayhurst, of Columbus, has resigned as chief of the bureau of occupational diseases of the Ohio State Department of Health, to accept the assistant professorship of industrial hygiene in the Ohio State Uni¬ versity. Dr. Roscoe P. Albaugh succeeds Dr. Hayhurst as chief of the bureau of occupa¬ tional diseases. The Chicago commissioner of health has ap¬ pointed a committee to undertake research on infantile paralysis. The members are: Dr. M. Herzog, chairman, and Drs. Iv. Meyer, H. B. Thomas, A. Hoyne and A. K. Armstrong. J. N. B. Hewitt, of the Bureau of American Ethnology, is continuing this summer his eth¬ nologic researches among the Iroquois tribes. Van H. Manning, director of the bureau of mines of the department of the interior, vis¬ ited Seattle on August 14 for the purpose of determining whether the experimental mining and metallurgical station to be established in the northwest by the federal government should be in Seattle. Dean Milnor Roberts, of the college of mines of the University of Washington, has offered the facilities of his college for use by the station and has asked that the station be located on the university campus. Mr. Manning also inspected other possible locations for the station. Dr. W. A. Murrill returned on August 21 from a vacation of two weeks spent in the Catskills, at Arkville, Delaware County, New York, where he obtained about 400 numbers of fungi for the New York Botanical Garden herbarium. .Arkville is of special interest to botanists in New York City because it is in¬ cluded in the local flora range and furnishes many species found in the Adirondacks. The George Williams Hooper Foundation for Medical Research of the University of California has sent a member of its staff, Dr. Ernest Linwood Walker, associate professor of tropical medicine, to South America, to carry on investigations as to tropical diseases on the upper reaches of the Amazon. He will be stationed for most of the year 1,500 miles up the Amazon, in the region of Porto Zelho, Rio Madeira, Amazon, Brazil. For his re¬ searches as to parasitic infections of man he is to have the privileges of the hospital main¬ tained there by the Madeira-Mamora Railroad, of which the medical director is Dr. Allen M. Walker, a graduate of 1907 of the University of California Medical School. A cablegram to the press from Buenos Aires reports that Sir Ernest Shackleton left Punta Arenas, Chile, on August 26, on board the ship Yelclio, to make a third attempt to rescue the members of his expedition marooned on Ele¬ phant Island. At the meeting of the American Chemical Society, to be held in New York, from Septem¬ ber 25 to 30, the program will include a sym¬ posium on occupational diseases which will be presided over by Professor Charles Basker- ville, head of the department of chemistry of the College of the City of New York. Among the topics which will be. discussed are the chemical trades, prophylaxis in chemical in¬ dustry, diseases incidental to work in aniline and other coal tar products, cedar lumber, M mines and explosives. There will be a gen¬ eral discussion, the speakers including Dr. W. Gilman Thompson, of New York; Dr. F. L. Hofman, Dr. J. W. Schereschewsky, G. P. 306 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1131 Adamson, H. K. Benson, W. A. Lynott, Alice Hamilton and J. B. Andrews. Dr. Charles Lincoln Edwards, director of nature study in the Los Angeles Public Schools, gave an illustrated lecture on the evening of August 16 before the California Academy of Sciences on his experiences in the Bahama Islands. The eighth biennial vacation course in con¬ nection with the School of Geography at Oxford was held this year between the 3d and 18th of August. The opening address was given by Dr. Keltie on “ The Progress of Geography in the last half-century and its present position.” At the annual meeting of the British Phar¬ maceutical Conference, held on July 12, Dr. David Hooper devoted his presidential ad¬ dress chiefly to an account of the drug re¬ sources of India and the British colonies. Arthur Marion Brumback, professor of chemistry in Denison University since 1905, died on August 12, aged forty-seven years. William Scrugham Lyon, known as an au¬ thority in botany and horticulture in the Philippine Islands, died on July 20, in Manila. Mr. Lyon served at one time as head of the California State Board of Forestry. In 1902 he went to the Philippines for the Bureau of Agriculture. In 1905, he left this bureau to engage in the business of collecting and ex¬ porting orchids, in which he continued until the time of his death. Professor Scott, of the electrical engineer¬ ing department of Robert College, Constanti¬ nople, has been killed by contact with a wire carrying 10,000 volts. Dr. J. A. Harvie-Brown, a Scottish landed proprietor and ornithologist, died on July 26, at the age of seventy-two years. Among deaths in the war announced in Nature are: C. M. Selby, formerly assistant naturalist in the Dublin National Museum; A. St. Hill Gibbons, known for his geograph¬ ical explorations in Africa; Arthur Poynting, only son of the late J. H. Poynting, E.R.S., an engineer; and George Andrew Herdman, only son of W. A. Herdman, F.R.S., who, though only twenty years of age, had pub¬ lished investigations on biological problems. The death is announced of Dr. Alexandre Layet, formerly professor of hygiene at Bor¬ deaux, and correspondent of the Paris Acad¬ emy of Medicine. According to the report presented to the British Medical Association, more than 400 British physicians have lost their lives at the front in the past twelve months. Twenty graduates of American universities left Paris for the front on August 16, as mem¬ bers of a newly formed section of the Amer¬ ican ambulance field service. The sum of $50,000 has been given by Mrs. Streatfeild, to be held in trust jointly by the Royal College of Physicians of London and the Royal College of Surgeons of England, for the promotion of research. It is announced that the present Lord Ave¬ bury has handed to the British Museum au¬ thorities, for retention in the national collec¬ tion or distribution among provincial mu¬ seums, certain portions of the late Lord Ave¬ bury’s collection of prehistoric and ethno¬ graphical specimens from various parts of the world, use of which was made in the writing of “ Prehistoric Times.” The gift includes a fine series from the early Iron Age cemetery at Hallstatt, Upper Austria, which will be kept in the British Museum, but many of the stone implements are available for distribution. Regulations for enforcement of the new federal migratory bird law have been approved by President Wilson and now are effective. Shooting is prohibited between sunset and sunrise. Insectivorous birds are protected in¬ definitely, and no open season is allowed. Band-tailed pigeons, cranes, wood ducks, swans, curlew, willet, upland plover and smaller shore birds are protected everywhere until September 1, 1918. In his address at the anniversary meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, Mr. Douglas Freshfield gave some details in regard to the map of Europe and the Nearer East on the 1 : 1,000,000 scale. Twenty -two sheets of the map have been compiled by the society September 1, 1916] SCIENCE 307 and reproduced and published by the geograph¬ ical section of the general staff ; eighteen sheets have been compiled and are in process of reproduction, while seventeen others are in a more or less advanced state of preparation. The scope of the map has been extended north¬ ward to the North Cape and the new Russian port of Alexandrovsk, eastward to Baghdad and the Caspian, and southward to Cairo and the head of the Persian Gulf. The fifth Brazilian Geographical Congress will, as we learn from Nature , be held at Bahia on September 7-16. There will be twelve sections, devoted respectively to the fol¬ lowing subjects: Mathematical Geography (astronomical geography, topography, geod¬ esy) ; Physical Geography (aerology, oceanog¬ raphy, geomorphology) ; Physical Geography (hydrography, potamology, limnology); Vul- canology and Seismology; Climatology and Medical Geography; Biogeography (phyto- geography and zoogeography) ; Human Geog¬ raphy; Political and Social Geography; Eco¬ nomic and Commercial Geography, including Agricultural Geography; Military and Histor¬ ical Geography; Teaching of Geography, Rules and Nomenclature; Regional Monographs. Among the forthcoming publications an¬ nounced by the University of Chicago Press are the following : The Control of Hunger in Health and Disease, by Anton J. Carlson. Finite Collineation Groups (The University of Chicago Science Series), by Hans F. Blichfeldt. Parallaxes of 27 Stars, by Frederick Slocum and Alfred Mitchell. Second-year Mathematics for Secondary Schools, by Ernst R. Breslich. Agricultural Economics, by Edwin G. Nourse. The Psychology of Religion, by George A. Coe. Truancy and Non-attendance in Chicago, by Sophinisba P. Breckinridge and Edith Abbott. The Electron (The University of Chicago Science Series), by Robert Andrews Millikan. Quarter-centennial Bibliography of Faculties, by a Committee of the Faculty of the University of Chicago. That 1915 was the most successful year of production in the, history of the petroleum in¬ dustry is shown by statistics just compiled under the supervision of J. D. Northrop, of the U. S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior. The total quantity of crude petroleum entering the world’s markets in 1915, which amounted to 426,892,673 barrels, exceeds the former record, established in 1914, by 28,194,307 barrels, or 7 per cent. The bulk of the increase in 1915 came from the United States and Mexico, though Russia, Argentina and Japan recorded significant gains. The distribution of this production is shown in the following table : Country Barrels of 42 Gallons Per Cent, of Total United States . .281,104,104 65.85 Russia . . 68,548,062 16.06 Mexico . . 32,910,508 7.71 Dutch East Indies . . 12,386,808 . 12,029,913 2.90 Roumania . 2.82 India . . 7,400,000 1.73 Galicia . . 4,158,899 .98 Japan and Formosa. . 3,118,464 .73 Peru . . 2,487,251 .58 Germany . 995,764 .23 Trinidad . 750,000 .18 Argentina . 516,120 .12 Egypt . 221,768 .05 Canada . 215,464 .05 Italy . Other . 39,548 ] 10,000] .01 426,892,673 100.00 The twenty-seventh annual conference of the Museums Association was held in Ips¬ wich on July 10-12, when, as we learn from Nature, the following institutions were repre¬ sented by delegates: (1) Five national mu¬ seums — the British Museum, the British Mu¬ seum (Natural History), the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Museum of Wales, and the Museums of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew; (2) two London museums — the Horniman Museum and the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum; (3) the following twenty-five provincial museums and art gal¬ leries — Brighton, Bristol, Carlisle, Chelms¬ ford, Derby, Dundee, Expter, Halifax, Hast¬ ings, Hull, Ipswich, Leicester, Lincoln, Liver¬ pool, Merthyr Tydfil, Newbury, Norwich, Perth, Peterborough, Plymouth, Reading, Sal¬ ford, Warrington, Worcester and Worthing; and (4) the Museum of the University of Man¬ chester. After a welcome by the mayor of Ipswich, the president, Mr. E. Rimbault 308 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1131 Dibdin, curator of the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, addressed the delegates, taking as his subject the effect of the war upon the art museums of the country. He had sent a series of questions to eighty-two art museums in Great Britain, and from their answers was able to give some interesting details as to their experiences. Briefly summarized, his re¬ marks indicated that whereas several London galleries have been closed by the action of the government, and one or two others report a re¬ duced attendance, the majority of the provin¬ cial institutions show an increased attendance, and only one has been closed. It thus appears that the protest lodged with the prime minister by the Museums Association against the gov¬ ernment retrenchment committee’s suggestion that provincial museums and art galleries should be closed has been thoroughly justified. At the coming convention of the American Electrochemical Society which will be held in New York from September 27 to 30, one of the sessions will be devoted to “ Made in America ” products of the electric furnace and electric cell. These products include many of our most important staples such as copper, alum¬ inum, abrasives, bleach and many more. It is an interesting fact that whereas other chem¬ ical industries, such as the coal-tar dye indus¬ try are primarily European, the electrochem¬ ical industry is largely American. It is here that the production of aluminum was invented and put on a commercial basis. The first plant for the electrical synthesis of the ele¬ ments of the air and the production of artificial fertilizer nitrate was erected at Niagara Falls. At the Falls, also, tons of abrasives are pro¬ duced in large powerful electric furnaces. The importance of these abrasives can best be ap¬ preciated by the fact that if these supplies were to cease to-day practically every mill and fac¬ tory in the country would have to shut down within three months’ time. Other electro¬ chemical products of decided economical im¬ portance and value are graphite, phosphorus, hypochlorite of lime, magnesium, metal, car¬ bon bisulphide, calcium carbide, hydrate of sodium, ferro silicon and other iron alloys which are indispensable to the steel trade. We learn from the London Times that the British Advisory Council for Scientific and Industrial Research announces that it is ap¬ pointing standing committees of experts to report on proposed researches of great impor¬ tance submitted to it. Committees in mining and metallurgy have already been formed, con¬ sisting both of scientific men and of leaders of the industries concerned. Each committee will have two sections. Sir William Garforth, the coal owner, is chairman of the mining committee and of its nonmetals section, and Mr. Edgar Taylor, of the firm of John Taylor and Sons, owners of mines in various parts of the world, will preside over its metals section. Sir Gerard Muntz, of the Muntz Metal Com¬ pany (Limited), Birmingham, has accepted the chairmanship of the metallurgy committee and of its non-ferrous section, and Sir Robert Hadfield, F.R.S., of Hadfield’s (Limited), Sheffield, is chairman of its ferrous section. A similar committee for engineering is con¬ templated. The council is making grants to various societies to enable them to continue researches already in progress for which the necessary staff and equipment are obtainable, and quite recently valuable results have been obtained from researches connected with the production of optical glass. The council has also recommended a grant in aid of an im¬ portant new research into the manufacture of hard porcelain, especially for domestic pur¬ poses. This has been undertaken by the Stoke-on-Trent Central School of Science and Technology, and the Staffordshire Potteries Manufacturers’ Association, with a view to es¬ tablishing the manufacture of hard porcelain in this country. Particulars have been ob¬ tained of the research work, not only of the scientific and professional societies, but also of the universities and higher technical schools, with a view to establishing a register of research. The possibility of collecting in¬ formation under the seal of confidence as to the research work of particular firms is also being considered. The training of an ade¬ quate supply of research workers will be an important branch of the advisory council’s work. It is impossible to announce definite September 1, 1916] SCIENCE 309 plans during the war, but the council has already made recommendations which, if adopted, will, it believes, secure that all that is practicable in existing circumstances shall be done. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS An endowment of $70,000, to create the “ Howison Foundation,” has been given to the University of California by George Holmes Howison, professor of philosophy, emeritus, in the University of California, and Lois Caswell Howison, his wife. Subject to an annuity during their lifetime, the endowment is to maintain the Howison Traveling Fellowship, of $1,200 to $1,500 a year, $600 a year to con¬ stitute the Lois Caswell Fund for the Dean of Women to aid deserving women students, and three or four Anne Sampson scholarships or fellowships, in honor of Mrs. Howison’s mother, for women students in English litera¬ ture and criticism. Dr. Alice Rohde has been appointed in¬ structor in research medicine in the George Williams Hooper Foundation for Medical Re¬ search of the University of California. A graduate of the University of Chicago of 1903 and of Johns Hopkins Medical School of 1910, Dr. Rohde has had special training in research medicine under Professor Walter Jones and Professor J. J. Abel at the Johns Hopkins University and under Dr. Emil Eischer at Berlin. Dr. Joseph H. Grossman, of Cleveland, has been appointed lecturer on diagnosis of tuber¬ culosis in the school for applied social sciences of Western Reserve University. At the last meeting of the corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology the fol¬ lowing assistant professors were promoted to be associate professors: Daniel F. Comstock, theoretical physics; George L. Hosmer, topo¬ graphical surveying; C. L. E. Moore, mathe¬ matics; Ellwood B. Spear, inorganic chemis¬ try; William E. Wickenden, electrical engi¬ neering. The following instructors were made assistant professors : J ames M. Barker, struc¬ tural engineering ; Ralph G. Hudson and Waldo V. Lyon, electrical engineering, Earl B. Millard, theoretical chemistry; Thomas H. Huff, aeronautical engineering. Mr. T. E. Gordon has been appointed pro¬ fessor of surgery in Trinity College, Dublin, in succession to Professor E. H. Taylor. Professor J. J. van Loghem has been ap¬ pointed to the newly founded chair of tropical hygiene in the University of Amsterdam. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE AMBLYSTOMA NOT AMBYSTOMA To the Editor of Science: In a letter printed in Science for June 30, 1916 (43: 929), Dr. M. W. Lyon, Jr., presents and defends the thesis, " Ambystoma not Amblystoma/’ If so, the spotted salamander has another spot on his name. Ambystoma is a dark saying. Dr. Lyon refers to the original paper of the author, Tschudi, 1839 (Scudder gives 1838), and says that the name is “ written by him Ambystoma in four different places in his work, and only in that manner.” He adds : “ The derivation of the word is not given by him, and there is nothing to indicate that he intended Ambly¬ stoma and made a lapsus calami.” But outside of Tsclrudi’s print, there is something to indicate that he intended Ambly¬ stoma, and made a lapsus of some sort ; namely, the fact that Ambystoma has no assignable meaning in any known language, while Ambly¬ stoma has an assignable meaning in the lan¬ guage of science — that European or cosmo¬ politan Latin which has supplied the main vocabulary of science, and will probably supply it for ages to come; being, like the rustic’s indefluent river, in omne volubilis aevum. In this voluble vocabulary Amblystoma, or the adjective latent behind this name, means “ having a blunt mouth.” In form and mean¬ ing it is parallel to Amblystomus, the name of a genus of beetles, and to Amblyrhynchus, the name of a genus of' lizards — which are cousins, once removed, of salamanders. These are but three of a long string of zoologic names beginning with Ambly-. But Ambystoma stands alone, though it appeared in the same decade with most of the others. Whether Amblystoma, with the sense “hav¬ ing a blunt mouth,” is an accurate or a suita- 310 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1131 ble name for the hapless salamanders to which it, or Ambystoma, has been applied, is a sepa¬ rate question. If the framer of the word which first ap¬ peared as Ambystoma did not state the in¬ tended formation or the intended meaning, and if his description does not give a clue, it was a case in which science, for once, made a mistake — it left uncertain what it might have made certain. One must guess, or reason out, what the author meant. His hand wrote — what? His printer printed Ambystoma. He printed it four times, we are told; but the second, third and fourth times may merely prove the metic¬ ulous care of the printer to repeat the first error, and thereby to secure that pleasing uni¬ formity of error which is the undying passion of that deserving tribe. (What the tribe de¬ serves I will not here disclose.) How, any scientific gentleman who thinks that it is a proper plan to form, print or defend a word Ambystoma, as a name for even the humblest of God’s creatures, ought to con¬ sider whether he can “ get across ” with it. He may, indeed, find champions among his learned associates, especially among those to whom a printed error in a scientific work, if made early in the morning (I allude, of course, to one aspect of the rule of priority), has a Mohammedan or Shakespearian sacrosanctity ; and some of these champions may try to sup¬ port the error by daring flights into the clouds of etymology; as, in this case, the attempt mentioned by your correspondent, to support Ambystoma by capturing as its source a Greek phrase that is erroneous in itself, is non¬ existent (except in the clouds), and could not without violence be persuaded to assist in forming such a word. The fact that this imagined Greek phrase is in Science printed with one error in each of its three words, exonerates the printer from the censure of Mohammedan superstition. If I were to repeat the phrase here, he would be quite willing, I am sure, to oblige us with other variations. The printer of Tschudi was more rigid : “ What I say four times is true.” But supposing that Ambystoma does not mean anything, what of it? Are we not often told that a name in zoology need not mean anything — that it may be a mere label, like a number ? This answer, however, does not meet the point. Names that seem to be formed from the Latin or Greek vocabulary in the usual manner will for ever be compared with their apparent sources; and anomalous names like Ambystoma or Liopa or Fedoa will for ever be challenged by scholars; and no agreement by a committee to take the first form found in print, or to acquiesce in de-facto fictions, will settle the question or the questioning. Amby¬ stoma, so printed, seems to be intended for a word of the usual Latin and Greek vocabulary ; but it means nothing, and it looks as if it were an error for Ambly stoma; and to that form Agassiz corrected it. I will not dwell upon the fact that Ambly - stoma, though a deliberately corrected form, is itself, considered as a neuter noun requiring a neuter specific adjective ( Amblystoma macu- latum), etymologically incorrect. But this point has been ignored in the framing of many Hew Latin names : and to consider it here were perhaps to consider it too curiously, never¬ theless, a fact ignored is still a fact there. Ambystoma, then, it seems, has no right ex¬ cept the right of having started wrong. But the right of having started wrong is a right which the world is much disposed to admit. This is the case with many respectable sects and parties that have continued long upon the wrong road, and now obey at eve the erring voice which they obeyed at prime; or hold extra conventions to ascertain their principles. Whatever was, is right. Personally and scien¬ tifically, I do not believe this; but it is evi¬ dent that many persons find a satisfaction in dogmas of literature and zoology, and in names and forms of words, that arose in former times. The glamour is in the preterition. These things were. That is something. The past, at least, is secure. Such things have a history ; and they are at any rate free from the vice of being up to date. It should be noted that the difference be¬ tween Ambystoma and Amblystoma is not, September 1, 1916] SCIENCE 311 really,' a difference of “ spelling.” Scimitar , simitar , simiter, cimiter, are four out of more than thirty spellings of one word, and amoeba and ameba are two spellings of one word; but Ambystoma and Amblystoma, whatever their status may be in zoology, are either two differ¬ ent words, or else two forms, one erroneous, of one word. No one asserts that they are two different words. All who have spoken agree that one is an erroneous form of the other. Which was intended? Let it be decided. In all scientific compound names, intention is supposed to be present; and for this reason it will always be necessary that “ science ” shall correct what “ science ” has erroneously published; in other words, that Jones and Robinson shall correct the errors of their dis¬ tinguished predecessors Brown and Smith. This is good science, and good fun, too, for Jones and Robinson. What but this, indeed, is the progress of science? Is there not a scientific error in the attitude of those scientific men who prefer to take the first form and “ have done with it ” ? Can science have done with anything? What the advocates of priority do is, in fact, to turn over an unfinished job to other men. This is reasonable enough, if they will let the other men finish it. It were to be wished that the advocates of rule in zoologic nomenclature would play one game or the other — either the good old Pres¬ byterian euchre, in which words are borrowed or manufactured orthodoxly from Greek and Latin sources (admitting, also, some heathen of the better sort), or else the less exacting Mohammedan solitaire, whose first law is the chance priority of print. It is hardly fair to mix with cards bearing the good old Presby¬ terian names of Amblycephalus, Amblychila, Amblycorypha, Amblyopsis, Amblyrhynchus, and the rest, a card bearing the Mohammedan and solitaire appellation of Ambystoma. (I am assuming that euchre and solitaire are played with cards.) If this isolated Ambystoma is correctly formed, tell us how it is done and what it means. And then throw it out, nevertheless; for the scientific reason that it would be for¬ ever confusable with the similar-seeming words with which, on the Mohammedan theory, it has no connection. Notwithstanding all the politic reports and mosaic codes of the committees on nomen¬ clature, committees which have done an in¬ estimable service to science, and which should be liberally supported by money and advice (two sources of enrichment, of which one will never fail), I hold that it is the duty of scien¬ tific men to correct the errors which they find within their own domain; or at least not to enforce or prolong any error, great or small, by devotion to any rule of priority or any other hand-made rule intended to serve con¬ venience in registration, regulation, indexing or proofreading. It is not right to make a rule out of chance and to call it a rule of order. It is not right to set up priority, which is a part of history, and to call it science, which is a part of reason. If we will use the language of science, we must apply the science of language. And we must not ignore or reject that science on the ground that “ the authorities differ ” or that “the doctors disagree.” Let me end with a hard saying : The doctors do not disagree. It is only some writers and advisers and com¬ mittee men who disagree. The rest of us are agreeably unanimous. Let every man of sci¬ ence place his hand upon his heart, and agree ! Charles P. G. Scott Yonkers, July 28, 1916 AMBYSTOMA In connection with Professor M. W. Lyon, Jr.’s note on “ Ambystoma not Amblystoma ’/ I may mention the fact that Dr. Willard G. Van Name used Ambystoma as the scientific generic name of the spotted salamander in Webster’s “ New International Dictionary ” which was published in 1909. F. Sturges Allen THE LIME REQUIREMENT OF SOILS To the Editor of Science: At this time when methods for the determination of the lime requirement of soils are receiving much 312 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1131 attention it is desired to point out several im¬ provements in the lime-water method, as de¬ scribed in Journal of the American Chemical Society, 26, p. 661. It has been found that to “ draw off ” the supernatant liquid and boil it to a volume of about 5 c.c. may lead to errors of 200 or 300 parts per million, because traces of soluble alkaline lime salts may not diffuse into the upper portion of the supernatant liquid. The method has been modified to read . . . allow to stand over night, with occasional shaking, shake thoroughly and filter immediately through a neutral filter paper (S. & S. 588 is good) rejecting the first 10 to 15 c.c., or until the filtrate is quite or nearly clear, place in a Jena (Nonsol or Pyrex, or other insoluble glass may be used) beaker. . . . I have realized from the first that the lime- water method gives high results on soils very rich in organic matter. One of the reasons for this was recently observed by Mr. Holman, of this laboratory. It is that the character¬ istic pink color developed when phenolphthalein is added to an alkaline solution is often al¬ most immediately destroyed rather than masked in solutions containing much dissolved organic matter. The error which may be thus introduced is lessened but not entirely eliminated by boiling down the filtrate to about 10 c.c. and adding, watching carefully meanwhile for the tempo¬ rary pink color, the phenolphthalein a drop at a time. This is not the only cause for the high re¬ sults obtained on soils rich in organic matter. Other causes, modifications to eliminate them and improvements simplifying and shortening the method, will be presented at an early date. F. P. Veitch Washington, D. C. THE SURVIVAL OF BEAT IN THE REMOVED HEART OF THE SNAPPING TURTLE The aim of the present note is to place on record the details of the survival of pulsations in the heart of the snapping turtle. A speci¬ men having a shell-length of about twelve inches was captured in the vicinity of Kings¬ ton by one of the boys of the community. For three days it was kept in a tub without food and on the fourth was killed and dressed “ to make a stew.” The writer was not present at the killing which occurred at 9 :45 in the morn¬ ing. The heart was brought to the laboratory at 10:45, the boy being interested in the fact that the beating continued. At the time the writer first observed the specimen it was lying in a small pool of blood in a saucer with the vessels cut short. It was then beating strongly at the rate of eleven times per minute. At 11 :35 the blood was washed out of the saucer and normal salt solution added to partly cover the organ. The further record of the beats per minute was made as follows, the room tempera¬ ture being 73° F. 9:45 . turtle killed. 10:45 . rate 11 beats. 11:05 . rate 12 beats. 11:35 . rate 12 beats. 12:30 . rate 16 beats. 1:00 . rate 18 beats. 1:30 . rate 18 beats. 2:00 . rate 18 beats. 2:30 . rate 18 beats. 3:00 . no contractions. From the above it will be observed that the contractions continued at a slightly increasing rate for a period of about six hours. At the end of this time mechanical stimulus failed to produce further contractions. Philip B. Hadley Kingston, R. I., June 27, 1916 QUOTATIONS SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES AND THE GOVERNMENT The letter in the Times of Professor E. G-. Conklin, of Princeton, pointing out that no president has given such generous recognition to the National Academy of Sciences and other scientific bodies as Wilson, deserves larger attention than it will get. It occurs to few that the government could make profitable use of scientific auxiliaries. Though the Na¬ tional Academy of Sciences was authorized fifty-three years ago by Congress, in response to a demand by Alexander Bache, superintend¬ ent of the Coast Survey, for an official organi¬ zation for research; though it was launched with a membership including Agassiz, Davis, September 1, 1916] SCIENCE 313 Gray, Dana, Guyot, Peirce, Joseph Henry and Hilgard; and though it has numbered the best American scientists since, it has made little popular impression. Professor Conklin states that Wilson was the first president to ask its advice in appointing an expert — following its recommendation in choosing the chief of the Weather Bureau. Again, though the Amer¬ ican Society of Naturalists and the American Society of Zoologists had appealed in vain to McKinley to appoint a trained man commis¬ sioner of fisheries, Wilson not only promised to do so, but named the man they recom¬ mended. He has also followed expert advice in choosing the chief chemist of the Agricultural Department and the chief of the Bureau of Mines; and has entrusted to the National Academy the important work of establishing a national research council. The fact that the National Academy of Sci¬ ences has lagged behind the similar academies of Europe is traceable to various causes. One lies in the huge extent of our country, making difficult the frequent assembling of scientists at Washington, as they easily gather at Lon¬ don, Paris and Berlin. Our scientists are usually connected with universities scattered over the whole land, while in Europe the most important seats of learning are often situated at the capitals. But a main cause is clearly the lack of government support. The academy has had to rely for its work on money given by Bache, Agassiz, C. B. Comstock, Wolcott Gibbs, Apthorp Gould, Sir John Murray, and others, totalling only about $200,000 — part of this to be devoted to prizes. It has had no home, and its building fund would disgrace any vigorous college fraternity. It has not received the number of commissions for the government — to be executed with government funds — that it might very well have had; and in some years has been almost inactive. It was once given such tasks as to suggest a means for restoring the Declaration of Independence, to canvass the various materials for cent coins, to show how to prevent counterfeiting, to offer a tariff classification of wools, to study glucose manufacture: tasks that would now be handed over to the government’s own scientific bu¬ reaus. Only recently has it seemed that it may soon assume its proper place as a chief federal agency in many lines of research. The Royal Society of Britain and the French Academy of Sciences are great institutions that this country can not at present equal. For two centuries they have been the centers of progress in research. The first had its pe¬ riod of weak governmental support, when it was too poor to publish Newton’s “ Principia,” but it now has $20,000 a year and special grants, its own quarters, and the building formerly known as its workshop, now as the Royal Institution. Here have worked Fara¬ day, Davy, Young, Tyndall, Dewar, Sir Joseph Thomson and others, many as brilliant in the lecture room as in research. It has sup¬ plied money and instruments to scientific ex¬ peditions all over the world, has assisted the self-governing dominions and India, and has performed such special tasks as that allotted the Sleeping Sickness Commission. The French Institute, set firmly on its feet by Col¬ bert and Napoleon — the latter was a member — has had names as great, and at one period sur¬ passed the best days of the Royal Society, with Laplace, La Grange, Becquerel, Fourier, Regnault, Gay-Lussac, Berthollet, Cuvier, Lamarck and Saint-Hilaire on its rolls. Our National Academy would do well if some day it rivalled that of Berlin, with its large new building, ample funds and tradition of con¬ sistently maintained research into Greek and Latin inscriptions, the Prussian law, and the history of the fixed stars; or if it became as important to America as the Stockholm Acad¬ emy, which distributes the Nobel prizes, is to Sweden, or that at Petrograd to Russia. It must be given more of such work as it has had in reporting on a national board of health, on a plan for treating the national forests, on the survey of the territories, ox on Philippine ex¬ ploration. And it must somehow find funds to enable it to carry on extended researches in one field for years, and to undertake publish¬ ing, as do the European bodies. If the National Academy were often con¬ sulted by the president about scientific ap¬ pointments, we should only be following a 314 SCIENCE [N. S. Yol. XLIV. No. 1131 precedent long established in France. When¬ ever a professorship falls vacant there in one of the national universities, or the director¬ ship of an observatory, or a similar post, the Academy of Sciences is asked to recommend a first and second choice to the proper officer — as the minister of public instruction. Our executives will never surrender a wide lati¬ tude of choice, but President Wilson has set a good example. So, too, his action in asking the academy to study the slides at Panama, and to form a body which should bring all the research agencies of the country into a posi¬ tion to cooperate with each other and the gov¬ ernment in time of need, indicates a praise¬ worthy intention to heighten the prestige of the academy. — New York Evening Post. SCIENTIFIC BOOKS Meteorites, Their Structure, Composition and Terrestrial Relations. By Oliver Cummings Farrington, Ph.D., Curator of Geology, Field Museum, Chicago. Published by the author. The mystery attendant upon the fall of a stone-like or metallic body upon our earth from the “ realms of space ” early attracted the attention of students of natural phenomena and aroused the curiosity and perhaps super¬ stition of the uneducated. Singularly enough, however, the literature upon so fascinating a subject has, so far as the English-reading lay¬ man is concerned, for a long time been very unsatisfactory, consisting mainly of brief papers descriptive of individual occurrences, or catalogues of collections. The well-known books of Kirkwood and Lockyer treat the sub¬ ject mainly from an astronomical standpoint. Fletcher’s “ Introduction to the Study of Meteorites,” a British Museum publication, has been by far the most satisfactory treatise, but is scarcely known outside of the libraries of the specialist. In other languages we have Meunier’s handbooks and treatises based on the collections of the Paris Museum, Brezina’s on those of Vienna, and lastly Cohen’s compre¬ hensive u Meteoritenkunde,” a work altogether too detailed and technical for the general reader. The book of Dr. Farrington, here under review, comes, therefore, opportunely into a field where there is plenty of room. In an octavo volume of 225 pages is given as fully as space will permit, a summation of present knowledge regarding Meteorites, their struc¬ ture, composition and terrestrial relations. The leading chapters deal with the phenomena and time of falls, the size and form of indi¬ vidual meteorites, their structural features, chemical and mineralogical composition, origin and classification, with a final chapter on the principal public collections. From this last it appears that the collections of the British Museum, those of Vienna and Paris abroad, and of the Field Museum in Chicago, com¬ prise each representatives of some 600 out of the known 634 falls and finds, the rapid growth of the last named collection being due to the acquisition of the Ward-Coonley collection in 1912. The national collections at Wash¬ ington, numbered, as shown by a recent “ Handbook and Descriptive Catalogue,” 412 falls and finds (since increased to some 432), including the recently acquired “ Shepard Collection.” This wide distribution of the material from individual falls is worthy of more than passing notice. Prior to the eight¬ eenth century, it seems such objects were rarely preserved in museums, or if so pre¬ served, were hidden away, the custodians fear¬ ing to make themselves ridiculous by even acquiescing in their supposed ultra-terrestrial origin, and it was not until the publication of the works of Chladni in 1794 and 1819 that their accumulation for study began upon a truly scientific basis. The earliest known undoubted meteorites still preserved are those of Elbogen, Bohemia, and Ensisheim, Upper Alsace, Germany, dating back to 1400 and 1492. These have been broken up and scattered throughout pub¬ lic and private museums the world over, Wulfing’s catalogue showing that fragments of the Ensisheim stone are to be found in 66 different collections. It is sometimes ques¬ tionable if the almost fanatic desire on the part of private collectors to secure fragments, however small, has not retarded rather than helped the cause, since it has not merely re- September 1, 1916] SCIENCE 315 suited in hopelessly scattering the material, but has enabled dealers to enforce prices in many cases absurdly high and actually pro¬ hibitive so far as acquisition of material for analysis and study is concerned. The writer can speak feelingly on this point. To illus¬ trate: A recent catalogue of a Philadelphia dealer advertises a perfectly commonplace type of meteoric stone at $5.00 a gram, the only possible excuse being that there was not much of it, and in falling it passed through the roof of a barn! Even higher prices have been recorded as paid by those whose chief aim appears to have been numbers and a new fall to add to their lists. The largest single indi¬ vidual meteorites in any collection in the world are those of Cape York, Greenland, and Willamette, Oregon, in the American Museum of New York. From a consideration of the dates of all known falls it appears that such are most fre¬ quent in the months of May and June, the pe¬ riodic star showers of August and November notwithstanding. Further it appears that of the 273 falls concerning which satisfactory datum is found, 184 occurred between the hours of noon and midnight, and 89 from midnight to noon. Some interesting facts are brought out in the chapter on distribution, it being shown, apparently, that falls are most numerous in mountainous regions, as those of the southern Appalachians in our own country, or the Alps and Himalayas in Europe and Asia. The sug¬ gestion that this may be due to superior gravi¬ metric attraction can not, however, for a mo¬ ment be accepted; moreover, the reviewer can but feel that something is wrong in the prem¬ ises, since but two falls can be credited to Switzerland, with its Alps, while the flat plains of Kansas have thus far yielded seventeen. It is of further interest to note that of the total of 634 known meteorites, 256 have been found in Europe and 117 in the United States, or more than two thirds the whole number from less than one eighth of the land surface; and still further, that of the 328 from the eastern hemisphere, 299 are stone and but 79 iron, while of the 256 from the western hemisphere, but 74 are stone and 182 iron. Whether these seeming anomalies have any meaning or are due merely to accident of find, the future must decide. In the discussion of the origin of meteorites the author gives adherence to the theory that they are portions of a shattered planet or planetoid, and is apparently favorably in-t dined to the views of Chamberlin — to a prob¬ able source of disruption by differential attrac¬ tion produced by the passage of a small body within Roche’s limit of a larger one. In the chapter on terrestrial relations, comparison in chemical composition is made between the average composition of four meteorites, the acidity of which is above normal, and the aver¬ age composition of terrestrial rocks. The rea¬ sons for the selection of but these four meteor¬ ites are not quite acceptable to the reviewer, but, incidentally it may be remarked that, in consideration of the question of the origin of the earth through an accumulation of mete¬ oric matter, one is not necessarily led to the consideration of one so fluid as to become homogeneous throughout; indeed, Chamberlin recognizes the possibility of a relatively cold earth. In this case certainly the portions now available for study should conform within rea¬ sonable limits to that of the ingathered matter. That they do not conform to that now being ingathered, the reviewer has shown elsewhere. Is it not better to account for this on the very reasonable supposition that the materials now being ingathered do not represent in composi¬ tion those which fell during the later pe¬ riods of earth history, rather than ignore the extremely basic character of most meteorites and use for comparison only the four acidic types selected? The book, to cut the review short, shows a thorough knowledge of the results achieved by other workers, and forms a very welcome addi¬ tion to existing literature. It is well illus¬ trated by half-tone figures of form and struc¬ ture, those of microstructure being reproduc¬ tions from Tschermak’s well-known “ Mikro- skopische Beschaffenheit der Meteoriten.” Geo. P. Merrill U. S. National Museum 316 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1131 Theory of Errors and Least Squares. A Text¬ book for College Students and Research Workers. By LeRoy D. Weld, M.S. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1916. 8vo. Pp. xii -j- 190. The two pages of “ Preface ” of this book made a very unfavorable impression on the reviewer. It would take too much space to point out the expressions that seemed catchy but meaningless or non-committal. It gave the impression that possibly the author had not caught the fundamental purpose and na¬ ture of the method of computation discussed in the volume. The idea of having the theory for its amateurish “ satisfaction ” and of getting it “ in an evening or so and then put it into immediate practise ” did not at all har¬ monize with the reviewer’s knowledge that only a fairly experienced observer has much real use for the method of least squares in his computations. As a text-book for “ undergraduates,” unless they are classed with the “ casual readers,” it presupposes a half-year at least of training in the calculus. Compare pages 54, 57, 60, 67, 71, 90 and others. Any student of the desirable amount of inquisitiveness would like to know under what conditions and to what extent he may play such tricks of the calculus as he sees, e. g., following equation ( h ) on page 181; and it would take considerable advanced calculus to make it all clear to him. As a book for “ handy reference ” it would be vastly more useful by having a carefully pre¬ pared, detailed index. This need is partially met by “ Appendix P. Collection of Impor¬ tant Definitions, Theorems, Rules and For¬ mulas for Convenient Reference,” pp. 185 sq. Throughout, references are made to Article, Equation (number), or even to Chapter, with¬ out adding the page, which would facilitate the use of the book, since only page numbers ap¬ pear on the tops of the pages. It would help much to have the number of the page on which each formula originally appears given as well as the number of the formula on pp. 188-190, and elsewhere. Happily, the “ Preface ” is the poorest part of the whole book and that may be omitted by the reader. On pages 17 and 28 the author states clearly the “ special office of the method of least squares,” yet he nowhere emphasizes the fact that he is dealing with a method of computation. He does not make use of the splendid opportunity of forcing and fixing upon the attention of the reader the facts that the method does not improve the quality of poor or careless observations, and that only the beginning student carries readings as of grams out to six or seven decimal places (see any reference to grams, e. g., p. 155). It fur¬ ther would not be difficult and much worth while to point out that in the formula y = ce~,l2x 2 (24), p. 56, the exponent must be an abstract number so that 1/h and x must be measures in the same unit. The types of readers for whom the book is intended are the very ones that should have these matters in¬ delibly impressed upon them. Although it is sometimes stated that illustrations are from students’ work, it is passing strange that the author should have let such matters escape his notice. Barring two cases of questionable English, pp. 65, 170, that only a purist might notice, the book is quite free of errors of speech and of typography. The treatment is remarkably clear and well-ordered. The topics are nicely correlated. Especial attention should be called to Chapters IV. and VIII., and to Art. 27 of the former chapter in particular. Lucid is not too strong to describe some portions of the book. On the whole, readers who want only a general idea of what the theory is about can scarcely find a more concise and clear presenta¬ tion for that purpose. The numerous, excel¬ lent, well-chosen exercises at the end of each chapter will, if solved, greatly enhance the permanent value of the book. The adverse criticism is herein placed first so that the reader may finish the review with the desire to get and read the book, and find it as interesting and profitable as the reviewer has found it. Charles C. Grove ARISTOTLE’S ECHENEIS NOT A SUCKING-FISH In the course of a rather extensive series of researches on the shark-sucker, it has been September 1, 1916] SCIENCE 317 found necessary to trace this fish back to Aristotle, the Father of Natural History, with the interesting result that it has become very evident that Aristotle’s Echeneis was not a sucking-fish at all. The first reference in question is in the “Natural History of Animals,” Book II., 14; 505 b, 19-22; and, as rendered in Professor D’Arcy W. Thompson’s scholarly translation (Oxford, 1910), it reads: Of fishes whose habitat is in the vicinity of rocks, there is a tiny one, which some call the Echeneis or shipholder. . . . Some people assert that it has feet, but this is not the case: it appears, however, to be furnished with feet from the fact that its fins resemble these organs. A fair acquaintanceship with the sucking- fish and a somewhat extensive reading of the literature fail utterly to substantiate these statements. It is true that, blindly following Aristotle, a number of the medieval writers on natural history, or more properly pseudo-nat¬ ural history, speak of the Echeneis as given to laying fast hold on to rocks at the approach of storms and staying there until the return of fair weather. St. Ambrose in his “ Hexa- meron,” written in the fourth century a.d., seems to have been the first to set forth this story of the Echeneis as a rock-holder and weather prophet. However, this is plainly an echo of Aristotle and there is no ground what¬ ever, so far as I know, for any such belief, or for thinking that it dwells among rocks. Further, it is not a “tiny fish.” Adult Echeneises run in size from 15 to 36 inches, and adult Eemoras from 10 to 15 inches in length. It might be well just here to state that Remora is not only the smaller of the sucking- fishes, but is generally of a dark uniform brown color. Echeneis, on the other hand, is not only much larger, but is of a slaty-brown or black color, and is easily recognized by the broad black stripe edged with white extending from the angle of the mouth back through the eye along the mid-lateral line to the base of the caudal fin. Both fishes have on the top of the head and on the back-of-the-neck region a haustellum or sucker made up of the modified spinous dorsal fin. This sucker consists of a circumferential rampart of soft tissue form¬ ing an ellipse divided into compartments by numerous crosswise partitions and having a single lengthwise partition running from end to end in the longest diameter of the ellipse, which is also the median dorsal line of the fish. This sucker is under muscular control, and when applied flat to an object and then raised a partial vacuum is created and the sucking-fish clings fast. Last of all, no sucking-fish has fins even distantly approaching the form of feet, the pectoral and pelvic fins being of the ordinary teleostean type and showing no special modi¬ fication whatever. Many authors have thought that in this last sentence Aristotle was de¬ scribing an Antennariid fish, of which the Sargassum fish, Pterophryne liistrio, not un¬ common in our waters, is a good example. Such fish have the pectoral fins modified to form organs not superficially unlike a hand. However, in endeavoring to identify Aristotle’s fish we must take into consideration his whole description. His fish I believe to have been a goby, for the following reasons : gobies are “ tiny fish which live among rocks,” and which have their pelvic fins united to form a cup¬ like adhesive organ, which is placed on the thorax, in order that they may adhere to the rocks among which they live. In another place, however, Aristotle does refer to a fish which in my judgment is an Echeneis, or sucking-fish, though he does not he writes : In the seas between Cyrene and Egypt there is a fish that attends on the dolphin, which is called the “dolphin’s louse.” This fish gets exceeding fat from enjoying an abundance of food while the dolphin is out in pursuit of its prey. This fish Professor Thompson identifies with the pilot-fish, Naucraies ductor, which is repre¬ sented in our Atlantic coastal waters by the very beautiful little Carangid fish, Seriola zonata. This “ dolphin’s louse,” however, I identify as the sucking-fish. The first evidence to be presented is found in the context. This last reference to Aristotle comes in a section given over to a consideration of various suck¬ ing parasitic insects, lice, ticks, fleas, etc., and 318 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1131 ends with a description of those crustaceans parasitic on fishes to which the name “ sea lice ” is given. This internal evidence cer¬ tainly lends itself to the view that the dolphin’s louse was a sucking fish. In working up the literature, two references of marked interest just here have been found. Hasselquist, the friend and pupil of Linnaeus, in his “ Reise nach Palasstina ” (published in 1762) refers to an Echeneis neucrates (an old spelling of naucrates ) collected at Alexandria and records that the Arabic fishermen there called it Charnel el Ferrhun. This term Dr. Frank R. Blake, of the Johns Hopkins Uni¬ versity, very kindly translates for me as the “ louse of the terrible one ” — i. e., a shark. Another like name is to be found in the writings of another eastern traveller, Forskal, likewise a pupil of Linnaeus. He collected on a shark at Djidda, a town situated about half way down toward Aden on the eastern shore of the Red Sea, an Echeneis neucrates which the natives there called Kami el Kersh, and which he translates the “ louse of the shark.” Dr. Blake kindly writes me that this term is more properly to be rendered “ the louse of the fish of prey” (which Forskal tells us was a C archarias shark). From all of which we see that in the east, where habits and customs and even names change slowly, the sucking- fish was still called “ the louse ” some 2,000 years after Aristotle. We now come to the most interesting point of all in this discussion, which is that if one reads Aristotle closely he will be convinced that the Father of Natural History never saw the shark-sucker. Aristotle’s descriptions of other fishes are very clear, evidencing keen powers of observation, and it is not to be thought that, having ever seen and examined the sucking-fish, he could have failed to give an explicit description of the sucking disk. Note also that his words are “ . . . which some call the Echeneis or ship-holder.” He is quoting from some one else and in the judg¬ ment of the present writer never saw the Echeneis. E. W. Gudger State Normal College, Greensboro, N. C. SPECIAL ARTICLES ANTAGONISM AND WEBER’S LAW When toxic substances act as antidotes to each other this action is called antagonism. It is usually found that when antagonistic substances are mixed in various combinations there is one proportion which is more favorable than others. If this favorable proportion be maintained it is well known that considerable variation in the concentration of the antago¬ nistic substances is permissible for many plants. It has been pointed out by the writer1 that while variations in concentration affect the form of the antagonism curve they do not in general affect the proportions which are most favorable for life processes. It is therefore evident that if we wish to preserve the favorable character of a mixture when the concentration of any antagonistic substance is increased we must at the same time increase the concentration of the others in the same proportion. The law of direct proportionality found in such cases is in real¬ ity Weber’s law, as Loeb2 has pointed out in discussing his experiments on animals. In regard to the significance of this Loeb says : Since this law underlies many phenomena of stimulation it appears possible that changes in the concentration of antagonistic ions or salts are the means by which these stimulations are brought about, as suggested by my ion-protein theory and by the investigations of Lasareff. In view of the importance of these relations it seems desirable to ascertain, if possible, what mechanism exists which makes one proportion better than others and preserves this pre¬ eminence in spite of variations in concentra¬ tion. The writer has formulated a theory3 involv¬ ing precisely this kind of mechanism. Ac¬ cording to this theory the electrical resistance and the permeability of protoplasm are deter¬ mined by a substance M which is formed and decomposed by the reactions A — » M B Under normal circumstances M is formed as 1 Botanical Gazette, 58, 367, 1914. 2 Proc. Nat. Acad. Sciences, 1: 439, 1915. s Proc. Am. Phil. Soc., 55, 1916. September 1, 1916] SCIENCE 319 fast as it is decomposed and its concentration remains constant. But under unfavorable con¬ ditions the decomposition of M proceeds faster than its formation; this results in injury and, if carried far enough, in death. The processes which produce this result in such solutions as mixtures of NaCl and CaCl, are checked by a salt compound4 of the type Na2XCaCl4 formed by the reversible reaction 2NaCl + X + CaCL Na.XCaCb, in which X is a constituent of the protoplasm. The amount of this salt compound formed in each mixture of NaCl ~f- CaCl2 can be cal¬ culated by the formula K _ _ C°ncNai>XCaCl4 _ _ (ConcNaa)2(ConCCaCl2)(Concx) In pure NaCl the amount of Na2XCaCl4 wil^ be zero, but if increasing amounts of CaCL, be added the amount of Na2XCaCl4 will increase to a maximum and then decline until it again reaches zero in pure CaCL,. Let us assume that the maximum amount of Na,XCaCl4 is found when the molecular pro¬ portions5 are 95.24 XaCL+4.76 CaCl2. It is evident that we can get this same amount in a different mixture (e. g., 50 NaCl + 50 CaCL) by increasing the absolute concentrations of NaCl or CaCl2. We should therefore get an equally favorable result in both cases : but this is contrary to the results of experiment. If the phenomena of antagonism really in¬ volve a salt compound like Na2XCaCl4 it is evident that some mechanism must exist which insures that an increase in the total concentration of salts will have little effect as compared with that produced by a change in their relative proportions. It is easy to see that such a mechanism must . exist if the formation of Na2XCaCl4 takes 4 The actual proportion of Na and Ca in this compound may be supposed to differ according to the proportion of these substances in the most favorable mixture. In place of Na and Ca we may have other antagonistic salts, and more than two may enter into the compound. s These are the proportions found in an in¬ vestigation described in Proc. Am. Phil. Soc., 55, 1916. place at a surface. In a surface substances usually exist in a different concentration from that which they have elsewhere in the solu¬ tion. If NaCl and CaCl2 migrate into the surface, so as to become more concentrated there than in the rest of the solution, their concentration in the surface must increase, as their concentration in the solution increases, up to the point where the surface is saturated. Beyond this point an increase in their con¬ centration in the solution produces no effect on their concentration in the surface. When this stage has been reached the formation of Na2XCaCl4, if it takes place in the surface, will not be affected by an increase in the con¬ centration of the salts in the solution. It will, however, be affected by changes in the relative proportions of the salts. The number of mol¬ ecules in a unit of surface will remain nearly constant, but if the proportion of NaCl in the solution be increased some of the CaCL in the surface will be displaced by NaCl.6 Below the saturation point the relative pro¬ portions of the salts will be of less importance than their total concentration : this is the case at low concentrations in the region of the so-called “ nutritive effects.” It is evident that if we adopt this theory we can see why the most favorable proportion must remain approximately the same in spite of variations in concentration. We thus ar¬ rive at a satisfactory explanation of Weber’s law. It is evident that Weber’s law will not apply when the concentration is below the saturation point. On the other hand at high concen¬ trations effects of osmotic pressure, coagula¬ tion, etc., may exert a disturbing influence. Thus far we have discussed effects in which the criterion of antagonism is electrical re¬ sistance or permeability. But it has been shown by the writer that electrical resistance and permeability are very accurate and sensi- « It may easily happen that NaCl and CaCL do not migrate equally into the surface. If we as¬ sume that 10 times as much CaCL enters the sur¬ face as NaCl we shall find the maximum amount of Na2XCaCh in 95.24 NaCl + 4.76 CaCL. (Cf. Proc. Am. Phil. Soc., 55, 1916.) 320 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1131 tive indicators of vitality. It therefore seems highly probable that the theory here presented may be applied in those cases where other cri¬ teria of antagonism (such as. motion, growth and length of life) are employed. It will be seen that action in a saturated surface is the essence of this explanation. It is evident that so long as this essential fea¬ ture is preserved it makes little difference what theory of antagonism we adopt. If the antagonistic substances act in a saturated surface antagonism must be governed by Weber’s law. Summary. — The fact that Weber’s law gov¬ erns antagonism is explained by a dynamical theory formulated by the writer. This theory assumes that injury and death result from processes which are inhibited by salt compounds formed by the union of salts with the protoplasm. If these compounds are formed in a surface the amounts will (above a certain limit) be independent of variations in concentration and will depend only on the proportions of the antagonistic salts. From this it results that Weber’s law must govern the phenomena of antagonism. No matter what theory of antagonism we adopt, it is evident that if the antagonistic sub¬ stances act in a saturated surface antagonism must be governed by Weber’s law. W. J. V. OSTERHOUT Laboratory of Plant Physiology, Harvard University DO FUNGI LIVE AND PRODUCE MYCELIUM IN THE SOIL? The recent investigations on soil micro¬ organisms have revealed the fact that fungi are found in soils in very large numbers some¬ times reaching as high as- 1,000,000 per gram of soil. These numbers are found by diluting the soil and then plating out only a small por¬ tion of a gram. The colonies developing on the plates represent the spores or pieces of mycelium found in the soil. But this does not tell us about the actual active life of the fungi in the soil. However large the numbers that are found, it remains to investigate whether those organisms existed in the soil only in the form of spores, which were brought in by some outside agency, or are a result of active life in the soil in the form of mycelium which may or may not result in the formation of spores in the soil. The question is not how many numbers and types of fungi can be found in the soil, but what organisms lead an active life in the soil. To what depth are these organisms found to produce mycelium in the soil ? And finally, do all or at least most of the organisms isolated from the soil actually pro¬ duce mycelium in the soil? At the suggestion of Dr. Charles Thom, of the Bureau of Chemistry in Washington, a direct isolation of fungi producing mycelium in the soil was attempted. Soil samples taken at different depths, under absolutely sterile conditions, were brought into the laboratory; lumps of soil, about 1 cm. in diameter, were transferred with sterile forceps into sterile plates containing cooled sterile Czapek’s solu¬ tion agar. The lump was placed carefully in the center of the dish, which was immediately covered and allowed to incubate for 24 hours at 20-22° C. After this period mycelium was found to radiate out of the lump of soil into the medium. This mycelium was now trans¬ ferred with a sterile platinum loop to sterile slants of Czapek’s agar, care being taken to select the tips of the hyphse so as not to bring the loop in too close contact with the soil. The agar slants containing the transferred portions of mycelium were allowed to incubate till the organisms had developed well and were ready for study. The organisms thus isolated were not always pure. They had to be often sepa¬ rated from one another; this was accomplished by establishing pedigree cultures of the organ¬ isms.1 The organisms thus isolated are believed to come from the mycelium that is actually found in the soil. The period allowed for the incuba¬ tion of the soil in the petri dish was not long enough for spores in the soil to germinate and produce such a mass of mycelium ; this is espe- i The methods of isolation and establishment of pedigree cultures, as well as the details of the work, formulae for media used and identification of organisms will be published later. September 1, 1916] SCIENCE 321 cially true, since the medium used for incuba¬ tion (Czapek’s agar) is very unfavorable for the development and growth of the Mucorales, the group of organisms which had most repre¬ sentatives among the fungi isolated by the method previously described. Organisms Found M G 9 X) t-4 a 0 Orchard Soi o 'C <3 & Mar. c o, < May | June July Aug. | Sept. 4* O o •AON 6 o Q _ •£ cj £ © ■je S os San Francisco, Cal . 12 50 12 0 0 0 0 0 0 13 0 13 8 Fresno, Cal.... 3 14 16 14 16 5 3 0 11 8 5 5 37 Boston, Mass... 2 1 4 4 14 17 23 22 11 2 2 1 180 New York, N. Y . 1 1 3 9 14 18 25 19 9 3 0 0 284 Chicago, Ill.... 2 1 6 8 15 16 17 16 12 4 2 0 400 Santa F6, N. Mex . 0 1 3 4 9 15 29 24 12 3 0 0 732 Tampa, Fla.... 1 2 3 3 10 17 24 22 14 3 0 1 944 At San Francisco, atmospheric instability does not often occur in summer. Fresno has its maximum early probably because the air is too dry in mid-summer. The other stations have the greatest number in summer. Boston, New Fork and Chicago all have an abundance of moisture. The greater number of thunder¬ storms in Chicago for the year, and particu¬ larly in spring, as compared with New York and Boston, is due to its continental position and exposure to rapid temperature changes. The interior location favors more rapid warm¬ ing in spring than is the case in the east. Even New York appears markedly more con¬ tinental than Boston. It is noteworthy that there are more thunderstorms in May than in September: May is moister; and the upper air is colder. The great thunderstorm activity at Santa Fe is favored by the mountain loca¬ tion (altitude 7,013 feet) east of the Rio Grande. In June, July and August there is, on the average, a thunderstorm every other day. Thunderstorms are less than half as fre¬ quent at the drier, lower, places such as El Paso. Tampa has more thunderstorms than any other weather bureau station in the United States. In the three summer months, thun¬ derstorms occur on about two days out of three. The summer on-shore winds supply abundant moisture and the intense sunlight at this low latitude effectively overheats the lower air. Thus the joint distribution of atmos¬ pheric instability and moisture dominate thunderstorm frequency. Parts of Professor Ward’s abstract are quoted here: “ As essential characteristics of American climate, thunderstorms have a broad human interest. From the viewpoint of climatology, the distribution of thunderstorms is of more interest than their mechanism. The part played by their rains in watering our crops is of greater importance than the size of the raindrops. The damage done by their light¬ ning5 and hail6 concerns us more than the cause of the lightning flash or than the origin of the hailstorms. The thunderstorms of the eastern United States are among the most characteristic of American climatic phenom¬ ena. In size, intensity and frequency of oc¬ currence they are unique. “ In relation to man’s activities, it is of sig¬ nificance that most thunderstorms occur at a time of year and at the hours when outdoor activities are at their height. “ Thunderstorms bring us much that is of benefit. To them we owe much, in parts of our country even most, of our spring and summer rainfall. Without these beneficent thunderstorms our great staple crops east of the Rocky Mountains would never reach ma¬ turity. One good thunderstorm over a con¬ siderable area at a critical crop stage is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to American farmers. Our stock markets time and again s See note on ‘ ‘ Thunder and Lightning, ’ ’ Sci¬ ence, N. S., Vol. XLII., 1915, p. 252. e See note on ‘ ‘ Hail, ’ ’ below. 356 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1132 show the favorable reaction of such conditions upon the prices of cereals and also of railroad and other stocks. Thundershowers break our summer droughts, cleanse our dusty air, re¬ fresh our parched earth, replenish our failing streams and brooks, bring us cool evenings and nights after sultry and oppressive days.” HAIL Hail consists of particles of ice from the size of peas to that of oranges or larger which fall from the clouds. True hail, which is usually a summer phenomenon, and is charac¬ terized generally by a central core of cloudy ice surrounded by one or more layers of clear ice, should not be confused with the small ice pellets of winter. Hail rarely occurs without a thunderstorm, of which hail may be said to be a violent manifestation. Thus the distri¬ bution of hail is limited, and patchy, falling sometimes on parallel strips of land in the same thunderstorm. As hail is an accompaniment of thunderstorms, it occurs in the warm south¬ east quadrant of a cyclone, or associated with the over- and under-running winds on a wind- shift line. For example, the passage of a wind-shift line over the region from Illinois to Maryland, June 20 to 22, 1915, was ac¬ companied locally by very large hail : “ tea¬ cups ” in Illinois and “ baseballs ” in Mary¬ land.7 The annual and diurnal periods of hail occurrence are much the same as those of thunderstorms, although more marked. Thus, in the United States, the month with most hail is May, and the time of day, mid-after¬ noon ; while least hail falls in winter and in the early morning. In distribution over the earth, there is least hail in the polar regions where the air seldom has sufficient moisture or is sufficiently unstable to satisfy hail require¬ ments. On the other hand, near the equator at sea-level hail rarely occurs because the freezing level is too high and the lower air too warm to permit hailstones to reach the earth’s i See 0. L. Fassig, Monthly Weather Rev., Sep¬ tember, 1915, pp. 446-448; and “Climatological Data for the United States by Sections,” Yol. 2, June, 1915, Illinois, Indiana, West Virginia and Maryland sections. surface. Hail may fall on the ocean with the passage of a wind-shift line. Its greatest development comes in the subtropical deserts: there the most frightful hailstorms occur — storms in which men and beasts not killed out¬ right may be frozen to death under the hail. The annual and diurnal periods and the lo¬ cal distribution just mentioned are easily ex¬ plained as follows : the moister and the warmer the lower air, and the colder the upper air, the faster and the farther will the warm air rise; and the greater is the opportunity for hail formation. The moisture comes from the lower air, the cold from the expansion of this air on rising. For instance, a mass of air at 30° C. and with a relative humidity of 50 per cent, will reach 0° at 4.8 kilometers, and — 20° at 7.9 kilometers’ altitude, mixing being disre¬ garded. Hail clouds frequently tower 8 or 10 kilometers above the earth’s surface. Appar¬ ently, hail originates when snow crystals be¬ gin to form among raindrops, which are usually carried up into the level where the temperature is below freezing. A snow-flake and an undercooled drop freeze together into the opaque ice that forms the core of a hail¬ stone. As this ice particle falls through the layer of undercooled raindrops, which may be 3 to 4 kilometers thick, a layer of ice is added. Then it may be caught in one of the tomadic whirls, which evidently occur within thunder¬ storms, and carried aloft. On being released, perhaps near the top of the cloud, it may ac¬ cumulate another layer of ice on the way down. This cycle may be repeated many times. Finally, when too heavy to be held in the uprushing currents, or when the whirl col¬ lapses, the hail, congealing moisture on its cold surface as it falls, may descend to earth. For example, some of the larger hailstones, 3 to 4 inches in diameter, falling in Annapolis, June 22, 1915, had 20 to 25 layers of ice. The hail was of diverse shapes.8 That hail must return to the upper part of the cloud after having grown to a considerable size is evident from the temperatures of — 5 to — 15° C. ob¬ served in hailstones. Hail does not occur in spite of hot weather, but because of the heat.9 s See Fassig, ibid. September 8, 1916] SCIENCE 357 Hail damage is both local and occasional. In some countries, particularly in France, re¬ liance is placed in cannon, rockets or lightning rods to protect crops from hail. Professor Angot, head of the French Meteorological Service, stigmatized these as useless. For ex¬ ample, “ the Observatoire de Bordeaux, situated in Floirac . . . was . . . provided with a ‘ niag- ara ’ (lightning rod) September 22, 1912. The commune of Floirac was devastated by hail on August 15, 1887 ; but for the succeeding 25 years it had been immune. Again in 1912, two disastrous falls of hail occurred at Floirac, one on July 5, before the installation of the * niagara,’ the second on October 20, when a heavy shower of very large hard hailstones fell upon the ‘ niagara ’ itself during a pe¬ riod of 2£ minutes.”10 Hail insurance, how- eve^, is the usual mode of protection. In¬ surance companies are without adequate means for fixing the premiums because the average occurrence of hail can hardly be mapped without an excessive number of sta¬ tions and a very long period of observations. Hail damage is at times extreme. For in¬ stance, in South Carolina, July 6 to 7, 1914, crop losses estimated at $955,000 were sus¬ tained over an area of about 50,000 acres of crop land. The damage was done mostly by immense quantities of hailstones the size of ordinary marbles.11 Hail at times destroys live stock also. Thus in Illinois on June 20, 1915, 50 shoats, some sheep and cattle were re¬ ported to have been killed by hail. The skulls and backs of some of the hogs were said to have been broken.12 In cities, skylights, win¬ dows and greenhouses sustain the most dam¬ age. Plate glass even 1 to 2 centimeters thick may be shattered. Horses frequently and peo¬ ple occasionally are injured. » The material for the summary above, except as specified in foot-notes 7 and 8, was taken from J. von Hann’s ‘ ‘ Lehrbuch der Meteorologie, ’ ’ Leipzig, 1915, pp. 708-725. 10 See translation, Monthly Weather Rev., March, 1914, p. 166. 11 ‘ ‘ Climatological Data: South Carolina Sect- tion, ” Yol. 1, July, 1914, p. 56. 12 “ Climatological Data: Illinois Section,” Vol. 2, June, 1915, p. 43. Damage by other features of thunderstorms such as the squall and lightning, is, in general, much greater than the occasional hail destruc¬ tion. Nevertheless, hail can destroy crops as completely as a tornado or a flood. R. H. SCOTT, 1833-1916 One of the pioneers in synoptic meteorology, Dr. R. H. Scott, died in England, June 18. He was well known as the chief of staff of the Meteorological Office from the formation of the Royal Society’s Meteorological Committee in 1867 until his retirement on a pension in 1900. He was also secretary of the Interna¬ tional Meteorological Committee from its com¬ mencement in 1874, until 1900. In 1861, Fitzroy had begun the issue of forecasts and storm warnings, based on information collected daily by telegraph and charted on maps. The issue of forecasts and storm warnings was suppressed; but at the request of the board of trade the issue of storm warnings was at once revived. The telegraphic service was de¬ veloped, and the first result of Scott’s work appeared in 1876 in a little book, entitled “ Weather Charts and Storm Warnings.” The issue of forecasts was recommenced on April 1, 1879, and has continued ever since. This was followed in 1883 by Scott’s “ Elementary Meteorology,” which took foremost place as a text-book of meteorology. From that time on¬ ward Scott devoted his attention mainly to the administration of the office and to the work of the Meteorological Society.13 ALEKSANDR IVANOVICH VOEIKOV, 1842-1916 Voeikov (Woeikow), the eminent meteorol¬ ogist and geographer, died in Petrograd, Jan¬ uary 28 (February 10), 1916. He was born in Moscow, and while still young traveled widely in Europe, Asia and the two Americas. In 1884 he published his great work, “ The Cli¬ mates of the World” (German translation, 1887). The following year he was appointed professor of physical geography at the Univer- 13 From W. N. Shaw, Nature, London, Yol. XCYII., 1916, p. 365. A history of British weather forecasting and an account of the or¬ ganization and work of the Meteorological Office in London is published in the Monthly Weather Rev., September, 1915, pp. 449-452. 358 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1132 sity of St. Petersburg, and later, director of the meteorological observatory there. His meteorological work which was very compre¬ hensive centered most, perhaps, on the rela¬ tions between the temperatures of air, ground, oceans and lakes. In 1904, Yoeikov published “ Meteorologia,” a handbook of 719 pages in Russian, and at present the leading meteoro¬ logical text in that language. As a geog¬ rapher, he is noted particularly for his publi¬ cations on the role of the Pacific Ocean in the world’s affairs, an article on the regeneration of Russia, and a French work “ Le Turkestan russe.” 14 NOTES Prince Boris Borisovitch Galitzine died at Petrograd, after a short illness, on May 4 (17), of this year, at the age of 54 years. For the past three years he was director of the meteorological service of the Russian Empire. He is best known for his distinguished work in seismology.15 Sir William Ramsay, “ the father of the new physical chemistry,” and England’s fore¬ most chemist, died July 24, 1916. His contri¬ bution to meteorology, conjointly with Lord Rayleigh, was the discovery of the four noble atmospheric gases: argon, neon, krypton and xenon. Nitrogen derived from air was found to be denser than that obtained from other sources. • By heating atmospheric nitrogen re¬ peatedly with metallic magnesium Ramsay ob¬ tained a denser and denser gas which proved to be quite different from nitrogen. At the same time, Lord Rayleigh was able to separate nitrogen from possible impurities by repeating with modern apparatus an experiment devised by Cavendish. These two investigators con¬ tinuing jointly discovered argon, first of a new class of elements. Incidental experimenting with liquid air led to the discovery of three other elements of this same type — neon, kryp¬ ton and xenon.16 See Monthly Weather Rev., May, 1916, pp. 288-289. 15 See Nature, London, Yol. XCVII., 1916, p. 424. is Scientific American, August 5, 1916, p. 117. Early this year Dr. Th. Hesselberg became director of L’Institut meteorologique de Nor- vege, Kristiania. German meteorological magazines dated February, 1915, seem to have been the last ones received in this country. Charles F. Brooks Yale University SPECIAL ARTICLES THE BROMINE CONTENT OF PUGET SOUND NEREOCYSTIS (GIANT KELP) It seems strange indeed that scarcely any mention is made in the American technical literature of the presence of bromine in the seaweeds of the Pacific coast, especially those seaweeds which have been termed “ kelp.” Available analytical data on the quantities of bromine from the above source is negligible. The writer considers this to be due to one or more of several possible reasons. Perhaps, if bromine has been previously detected, it was not considered to be present in quantities large enough to be of importance. The content of bromine must vary considerably in amount in the various varieties and species of seaweeds. Either it does not occur in certain species or varieties, or the same variety from different localities contains it in widely different propor¬ tions. Again, the difficulty met with in deter¬ mining bromine quantitatively in the presence of an excess of the other haloid salts is a con¬ tending factor in the production of analytical data upon this subject. A personal experience, which attracted my attention to the bromine content of seaweed, may prove interesting at this point. Some two years ago, while teaching chemistry in the College of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Wash., it was my privilege to often walk along the beach at The Narrows, especially during the time of low tide. The Narrows is situated about four miles west of the city of Tacoma, and borders the mainland on the west and a strip of beach, known as Day Island, on the east. The chan¬ nel of the sound is less than a half-mile wide September 8, 1916] SCIENCE 359 at this place and hence receives the full wash of the Sound’s waters from each tide. The numerous quantities of igneous rocks in the channel and the rapidly moving water makes this location an ideal “ field ” for the growing of Nereocystis luetkeana. At low tide the beach is strewn with seaweed along with a few other, but smaller, varieties. The stems and leaves are covered with a slimy coating from one sixteenth to one eighth of an inch in depth, and composed of algae and other microorganisms. This covering acts as a protective coating to the seaweed while it lies exposed to the sun’s radiations during low tide. Many of the leaves, twelve to twenty feet long and sixteen to twenty inches in width, develop light yellow spots with a filmy texture some¬ times covering large portions of the leaves. The chlorophyl disappears entirely from these spots and does not apparently reappear as such upon submergence during the incoming tide. Upon close examination it is found that the slimy covering mentioned above has dried com¬ pletely over the bleached spots, and in many instances there is none of the dried film pres¬ ent, suggesting that the slimy covering had been removed mechanically by wave motion, etc. One would be at a loss to explain this dis¬ coloration of green coloring-matter in the sea¬ weeds was it not for the strong odor of bromine in the vicinity where this bleaching was in progress, especially after the sun had radiated upon the beached plants for an hour or more. The “ stench ” of the fumes as being due to bromine is unmistakable to those who are at all familiar with the element. The presence of the bromine in the air about these localities must be due to the action of photo-chemical or microorganic processes upon the combined bromine and other halogens present in the seaweed. The liberation of small amounts of the halogens in the presence of the chlorophyl undoubtedly causes its discoloration. In order that it might be determined whether or not the bromine existed in combination within the seaweed, several large Nereocystis (stems and leaves intact) were secured, washed, dried and ashed. The ashes gave a strong test for both bromine and iodine. From the qualitative test one would expect the quantity of bromine to be equal to, if not greater than, the iodine content in the same ash. The ashes from Nereocystis secured at different times were kept on hand and given to the students for analytical determinations, viz., sodium, potassium, chlorine, bromine and iodine. Two large Nereocystis luetkeana yielded upon quantitative examination the following substances expressed in per cent, of dry weight of material: K2O, Per I, Per Br. Per Cent. Cent. Cent. No. 1 . 22.3 0.30 0.19 No. 2 . 24.7 0.23 0.11 Though not going into detail as to the meth¬ ods used in analysis (a detailed analysis will be reported in one of the chemical journals) I might say that standard procedures were fol¬ lowed. It appears that the bromine should be both recoverable and merchantable in view of the present prices of this commodity. Harper F. Zoller Kansas State Agricultural College, Manhattan, Kans. THE NORTH CAROLINA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE THE NORTH CAROLINA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE The North Carolina Academy of Science met in annual session at the Agricultural and Mechanical College, Raleigh, on Friday and Saturday, April 28 and 29, 1916. The executive committee had a meeting on Friday afternoon, and after this there was a session for the reading of papers. At night President D. H. Hill, of the college, delivered an address of welcome and then President A. S. Wheeler, of the academy, gave his presidential ad¬ dress, “The Critical Dyestuff Situation,” with a demonstration of materials. Next Professor E. W. Gudger read a paper entitled, ‘ ‘ The Remora or Echeneis ; A Living Fish-hook,” illustrated with specimens and photographs. 360 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1132 On Saturday morning at 9 the annual business meeting of the academy was held. The secretary- treasurer made his report, which showed the fi¬ nances of the academy to be in good condition with a comfortable balance in savings bank. The vari¬ ous stated committees made their reports. An in¬ vitation to hold the 1917 meeting at the Univer¬ sity of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill, was ac¬ cepted. Twenty-three new members were elected and two former members reinstated, bringing the total membership up to 88. The following otfieers were elected for 1916-17. President — F. P. Venable, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Vice-president — H. C. Beardslee, Asheville School for Boys, Asheville. Secretary-treasurer — E. W. Gudger, State Nor¬ mal College, Greensboro. Additional members executive committee — J. E. Smith, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; E. 0. Randolph, Elon College; Bert Cunningham, City High School, Durham. At the close of the business session a joint meeting was held of the academy and of the North Carolina Section of the American Chemical So¬ ciety, at which papers of interest to both bodies were read. Following these the chemists and the academy held separate meetings to complete the reading of papers on their respective programs. The academy adjourned at 1:30 p.m. The total attendance was 43 out of a membership of 86. There were 23 papers on the program, of which only 3 were read by title. Including the presi¬ dential address, which will be published in the current number of the Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society, the following papers were presented: Observed Changes in the Land Vertebrate Fauna of North Carolina: C. S. Brimley. Notes the known changes in the abundance and distribution of certain birds, mammals and rep¬ tiles in North Carolina. The full paper is pub¬ lished in the current number of the Mitchell Jour¬ nal. Two Baleigh Amblystomas : C. S. Brimley. Compares briefly the species of Amblystoma oc¬ curring at Raleigh, A. opacum and A. punctatum. The data for these is given in full in the pro¬ ceedings published in the Mitchell Journal. Aristotle’s Echeneis not a Sucking-Fish : E. W. Gudger. The identity of this fish was discussed and data presented to show that it was a goby, while evi¬ dence was adduced that the “ dolphin’s louse, ’ ’ elsewhere referred to by Aristotle in his History of Animals, was a sucking-fish. The Echeneis or Femora; a Living Fish-hook: E. W. Gudger. The tendency of this fish to adhere to turtles, sharks or any large fish by means of its cephalic sucking disk, is made use of in many parts of the world to render easy the catching of fish. A thin cord is tied around the “small” of the tail of the fish and it is set free in the water. Finding a turtle or fish, the fisherman-fish clamps itself fast to it, and both are hauled in by the fisherman. This use of the living fish-hook was traced back to 1494, when Columbus (the first European to see it so used) witnessed its exploits on the south side of Cuba on his second voyage. The paper was illus¬ trated by numerous photographs of illustrations in old books, showing this use of the fish. The completed paper will be published later. Some Interesting Mushrooms : W. C. Coker. Several species new or rare in North Carolina were shown, with photographs and paintings. Naucoria sp. A species of this genus, not re¬ corded from this state, has appeared in manured soil in the arboretum of the university for several years. It is of good size and very resistant to decay, and was tested and found harmless, and if the bitter gills are removed makes a very pleasant dish. As it appears very early in the season, dur¬ ing April, and before other species of any size are out, it is a valuable addition to our list of edibles. The species seems nearest N. hamadryas, but differs from it in some respects. Clavaria spiculispora Atkinson. A painting of this species was shown. It was described from our collections of Chapel Hill plants. It is remarkable for the very deep brown color (deepest of any other American Clavaria), and the very long spicules on the spores. We have since found it in the moun¬ tains near Black Mountain. It is not known ex¬ cept from this state. Amanita chlor.inosma Pk. Photographs and paintings were shown to illustrate the great range in size and color of this species. White, greenish, salmon, reddish and ashy-brown forms occur. All the forms have a distinct odor of chlorine. Nyctalis asterophora Fr. A photo was shown of this plant growing on Bussula nigricans. It is very peculiar in having another mushroom for its host, and in the degenerated gills. The functional spores are not borne on the gills as usual, but on the cap as a fine powder, and are very large and irregular. September 8, 1916] SCIENCE 361 Venereal Infections in Animals: G. A. Roberts. Observations, investigations and reports indi¬ cate very wide-spread venereal infections in this country and abroad among domestic animals, horses, cattle, sheep, swine, etc. Such infections have been known to exist in the human family for a long time. Few people have recognized the extent and manifold results of these infections. The most extensive investigations and the greatest losses, direct and indirect, in animals have been among dairy cattle and breeding herds. The specific organism responsible for the infec¬ tions in cattle has all but universally been accepted as the Bacillus abortus (Bang). Many cases of in¬ fection with the B. abortus are too mild to pro¬ duce clinical symptoms. The results observed in many such infections, however, are: abortions, in¬ cluding premature births, still births and births of weaklings; metritis (inflammation of the uterus); and sterilities, temporary and permanent. Retained “after-birth” is quite common in cattle when expulsion of the fetus occurs during the latter half of pregnancy, owing to the peculiar attachment between the fetal membrane and the uterus at the time. Nymphomania is not uncommon in cows and mares. The relation of this organism to certain udder diseases and the granular venereal disease of cat¬ tle, to some forms of calf scours and infant diar¬ rheal troubles, has not been determined, but is suspicious of a close relationship. Besistance and Immunity in Plants: F. A. Wolf. This paper contains a brief summary of the facts which have been correlated with resistance and immunity in plants in attempts to explain the underlying causes. Attention is called to several investigations dealing with morphological differ¬ ences between susceptible and immune varieties. Consideration is also given to the influence of min¬ eral nutrients in the soil upon resistance. The dis¬ cussion also includes those causes which reside within the protoplasm of the host plants such as differences in acidity, tannin content, etc., of sus¬ ceptible and immune varieties. It is believed that too little attention has heretofore been given to the inherent characters of the parasitic organism which determine the virulence of the parasite. Some Methods of Making Lantern Slides: Z. P. Metcalf. The need of some form of projection in science teaching and the general utility of lantern slides was emphasized. Two methods of making lantern slides were discussed and examples of various kinds of lantern slides were shown. Trees and Shrubs of Chapel Hill: H. R. Totten. There are seventy-two species of native trees found in the Chapel Hill neighborhood. In this number there are fourteen oaks: Quercus alba L., Q. stellata Wang., Q. lyrata Walt., Q. Michauxii Nutt., Q. prinus L., Q. ruba L., Q. palustris Muench., Q. velutina Lam., Q. falcata Michx., Q. pagodaefolia (Ell.) Ashe, Q. marilandica Muench., Q. nigra L., Q. phellos L. A hybrid, probably be¬ tween Q. phellos L. and Q. falcata Michx., is also found. This is the only station for the Pin Oak ( Q . palustris ) in North Carolina. There are seven hickories: Hicoria ovata (Mill.) Britton, H. caro- lina-septentrionalis Ashe, H. microcarp a (Nutt.) Britton, H. glabra (Mill.) Britton, H. pallida Ashe, H. alba (L.) Britton, and II. cordiformis (Wang.) Britton. There are sixty native shrubs. A few of the most interesting are: Nestronia umbellata Raf., Hydrangea arborescens L., Euonymus atropur- pureus Jacq., Ascyrum stans Michx., Rhododen¬ dron catawbiense Michx., Fothergilla major Lodd., Robinia nanna (Ell.) Spach., Gaultheria procum- bens L., Gaylussacia baccata var. glaucocarpa (Robinson) Mackenzie, and Symplocos tinctoria (L.) L ’Her. On the Sexuality of the Filament of Spirogyra: Bert Cunningham. If zygotes occur in both filaments as the result of scalariform conjugation, the filament is said to be bisexual. This condition is called cross conju¬ gation. All cases reported thus far have been considered as abnormalities on account of their rareness. The writer collected a species in cross conjugation in April, 1915. It has been tenta¬ tively identified as S. inflata. Professor G. S. West verifies this classification. This shows that bisexuality of the filament does occur in the genus. Bisexuality is due to retarded reduction. In scalariform conjugation reduction occurs in the zygote with the loss of three nuclei, while in lat¬ eral and cross conjugation, reduction takes place in the filament and no nuclei are lost. The essen¬ tial difference between lateral and cross conjuga¬ tion is that the cells may continue to divide after reduction in the latter, while they do not in the former. In this respect the filament of Spirogyra which cross conjugates is homologous with the sporophyte of higher plants. The Biorites of the Chapel Hill Stock: John E. Smith. 362 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1132 The specimens described here were obtained along Bolin’s Creek. Some were taken near the inner margin of the zone and some near the creek at the foot of Clover Hill. The primary minerals as shown by the microscope are oligoclase, horn¬ blende, quartz, magnetite and apatite named in order of their abundance. The apatite occurs as inclusions. The oligoclase contains innumerable, minute inclusions occupying most of the area of the crystals except in the narrow marginal zone which are entirely free from them. The parallel striations are in general very narrow and very close together and in some of the zones are in¬ visible. The order of crystallization is as follows: apatite, magnetite, hornblende, oligoclase and quartz. The secondary minerals are epidote, and a small quantity of albite. They are derived from the oligoclase, magnetite and hornblende by hy¬ dration. The quartz decreases in amount outward from the center of the stock. The lime in the water supply of Chapel Hill is produced from this feld¬ spar. The soils derived from the rocks of this zone constitute the Iredell series and contain little or no potash. Physiography of the Isle of Palms ( S . C.) : E. Oscar Randolph. The Isle of Palms, situated eight miles to the northeast of Charleston, and connected with that city by a trolley line, has an area of approxi¬ mately 4,000 acres. This sea-captured land is about six and one fourth miles in length, and one and one fourth miles in maximum width, tapering to a decided point at the southwestern end. Physiographically this area is interesting and in¬ structive. In shape it approximates a ham; and by local fishermen it is called ‘ ‘ the ham. ’ ’ Prom the mainland the island is separated by a narrow inlet that is wide and deep enough to convey local freight-, pleasure- and fishing-vessels. This back beach is subjected to no unusual geo¬ logical agencies except tidal work. The front beach is subjected to wave, tidal, wind and lit¬ toral current agencies. As a result, frequent shore¬ line configurations are effected. The writer made a number of instructive observations relative to immediate changes of epicontinental shelving be¬ tween the points of high and low tide respectively. Two well-defined sand dune ridges traverse the island lengthwise. Physiographically, incipient, migratory, temporary and fixed dunes are in evi¬ dence. Among the flora are found sand arresters and dune fixers. The front beach is continuously attacked by wind and wave action; the interdune area is likewise undergoing change under the in¬ fluence of wind-trough currents and animal life. The age and stability of the fixed dunes, ranging in height from twenty-five to forty feet, is real¬ ized in their supporting luxuriant palm trees. Alternation and Parthenogenesis in Padina: James J. Wolfe. At the meeting of this academy in 1913, the writer made a preliminary report on this work. It had then been carried only to the point of dem¬ onstrating that tetraspores invariably produce male and female plants. The entire series has now been completed, showing with equal certainty that fertilized eggs produce only tetrasporic plants — thus demonstrating ‘ ‘ alternation of gen¬ erations” in Padina. In view of the fact that Padina grows well only in localities where it normally occurs, in the ex¬ periments dealing with parthenogenesis, clean oyster shells were attached alongside those bearing unfertilized eggs to serve as controls. The results of both series were in essential respects sufficiently similar to show that all plants recovered were in both cases derived from chance reproductive bod¬ ies. Thus, it is fairly conclusively shown that un¬ fertilized eggs, though they germinate quite freely parthenogenetically, never produce mature plants. No abstracts have been received for the follow¬ ing papers: “ Friday Noon,” by George W. Lay. ‘ ‘ Zonation in the Chapel Hill Stock,” by Collier Cobb. “ Pussula xerampelina; a Study in Variation,” by H. C. Beardsley. ‘ ‘ Improvements in the Method of Determining the Heating Value of a Gas,” by C. W. Edwards. (By title.) “Magnetic Separation of Minerals,” by Joseph Hyde Pratt. ‘ ‘ Insect Polyembryony, ” by R. W. Leiby. (Lantern.) “An Apparatus to Illustrate the Cohesion of Water — with Reference to the Ascent of Sap,” by F. E. Carruth. (By title.) “Some Recent Feeding Experiments with Cot¬ tonseed Products,” by W. A. Withers and F. E. Carruth. (By title.) “A Study of Some Nitrifying Solutions,” by W. A. Withers, H. L. Cox, F. A. Wolf and E. E. Stanford. (By title.) “A New Industry for North Carolina,” by C. P. Williams. (By invitation.) E. W. Gudger, Secretary SCIENCE Friday, September 15, 1916 CONTENTS The Life and Work of Carl Ludwig: Pro¬ fessor Warren P. Lombard . 363 Animal Life as an Asset of National Parks: Joseph Grinnell and Tracy I. Storer. 375 The Revival of Interest in Bird Anatomy at the United States National Museum: Dr. R. W. Shufeldt . 380 Scientific Notes and News . 382 University and Educational News . 384 Discussion and Correspondence: — President Wilson’s Scientific Appointments: Dr. Barton Warren Evermann. Fireflies Flashing in Unison: Dr. Edward S. Morse. A Further Note on Polyradiate Cestodes: Winthrop D. Foster . 385 Quotations : — Science and Commerce . 389 Scientific Books: — Parsons on the Study of Color Vision: Pro¬ fessor J. W. Baird . 391 Special Articles: — The Mammalian Erythrocyte — a Biconcave Disc: Dr. Leslie B. Arey. The Penetra¬ tion of Balanced Solutions and the Theory of Antagonism: Dr. W. J. V. Osterhout. The Determination of Relative Humidity: Dr. Eugene C. Howe . 392 Societies and Academies : — The Astronomical Society of the Pacific . . 398 MSS. Intended for publication and books, etc., intended for review should be sent to Professor J. McKean Cattell, Garrison- On-Hudscn, N. Y. THE LIFE AND WORK OF CARL LUDWIG1 We are gathered together as teachers and investigators to commemorate the life of a teacher of teachers and an inspirer of investigators. We represent many phases of academic activities, most of which are far removed from the special branch of sci¬ ence to which Ludwig devoted his life. Therefore, only a greatly condensed ac¬ count of his physiological discoveries will be given, and most of this paper will be de¬ voted to his life, and an attempt to bring out from the testimony of his old pupils and friends, the traits of character which gave him his remarkable power as a scien¬ tist, and enabled him to win the reverence and, I may say, the love, of all those who had the good fortune to work with him as students and colleagues. Carl Frederick Wilhelm Ludwig was born in Witzenhausen, a little town on the banks of the Weser, not far from Cassel, in the electorate of Hesse, December 29, 1816. His father, an officer in the Na¬ poleonic wars, had been compelled by wounds to give up a military career, and being in favor with the elector, was ap¬ pointed Rentmeister in Hanau. Ludwig came from a race of fighters, and a deep scar on his upper lip gave evidence of his participation in student duels. He was proud of his descent, and I recall an amus¬ ing reference which he made to the fact that the Hessians had played a part in the early history of our land. He was the second of six children, who i Read before the Research Club of the Univer¬ sity of Michigan, at the ‘ 1 Memorial Meeting, ’ ’ April 19, 1916, by Warren P. Lombard. 364 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1133 were carefully trained at home by a wise and affectionate mother. At the close of his school days at the Gymnasium in Hanau, he was sent to the University of Marburg, where his student days were stormy. Indeed, as a result of conflicts with the disciplinary authorities, some say because of political activities, he was forced to leave for a time. He studied at Er¬ langen, and spent one year at the surgical school at Bamburg, finally returning to Marburg, where he took his doctor’s degree in 1839. Continuing his studies, he was appointed, in 1841, second prosector of anatomy under Ludwig Fick. The follow¬ ing year he was formally admitted to the faculty of the university. Ludwig has often been incorrectly num¬ bered one of the pupils of Johannes Muller, but Tigerstedt states that he was a finished physiologist when he first visited Berlin, and that the one of the older scientists who exerted the greatest influence on Ludwig was Ernst Heinrich Weber. Even in his old age Ludwig spoke with the greatest ad¬ miration of his predecessor in Leipzig, and could not say enough of the tremendous importance of the part played by Weber in the development of science. In 1846 he was appointed ausserordent- lich professor of comparative anatomy at Marburg, and in 1849 professor of anatomy and physiology at Zurich. It was in this year that he married Christine Endemann, who with loving care watched over him, guarding with affectionate solicitude his somewhat frail health, making possible his life-long devotion to science. In 1855 Ludwig was called to Vienna as professor of physiology and zoology at the academy for army physicians — the Josephi- num — and in 1865 he succeeded Ernst Heinrich Weber in Leipzig, receiving the title of professor of physiology and di¬ rector of the physiological institute, which was about to be constructed. A list of the honors which have been con¬ ferred upon a man is of interest as an indi¬ cation of the way he was regarded by his contemporaries. Ludwig ’s titles in the reg¬ ister of the University of Leipzig read as follows: Ehrendoctor der Philosophic der Universitat Leipzig, Koniglich sachsischer Geheimer Rath, Comthur I Klasse des Konigl. sachsischen Albrechtsordens mit dem Stern, Comthur 2. Klasse des Konigl. sachsischen Verdienstordens, Ritter des Konigl. preussischen Ordens pour le merite unde des Konigl. bayerischen Maximilian- ordens fur Wissenschaft und Kunst, In- liaber der Copley Medal of the London Royal Society, Commandeur I Klasse des Konigl. schwedischen Nordsternordens, und Ehrenburger der Stadt Leipzig (this last honor being given on the occasion of the celebration of his fiftieth Doctor’s ju¬ bilee). In addition he was a member of the Akademien der Wissenschaften in Ber¬ lin, Wien, Miinchen, Paris, Petersburg, Rome, Turin, Stockholm, Upsala, et cetera. The period when Ludwig was entering upon his physiological work was one of unrest in medical as well as political thought. Modern biological conceptions can be said to date from that time. The greatest physiologists of the day in Ger¬ many, Johannes Muller and Liebig, while recognizing that living beings are influ¬ enced by the physical and chemical forces which govern inorganic things, assumed the existence of some mysterious force within the bodies of animals and men, which caused life processes to take a differ¬ ent course from those occurring in inani¬ mate objects. Only death released the atoms from this mysterious influence and permitted them to act as they did outside of living organisms. This vitalistic doctrine was combated and for a time at least overthrown by the scientific work of the pupils of Johannes September 15, 1916] SCIENCE 365 Muller, Helmholtz, Du Bois-Reymond and Briicke and by Ludwig. Helmholtz, recognizing the limitations set by the existing chemical and physical knowledge, devoted himself only to those branches of science which seemed capable of exact chemical and physical explana¬ tion; Du Bois-Reymond contented himself with the study of the narrow field of elec¬ trical phenomena of living organisms, and did more than any one else to show that physiological problems are capable of being handled with the same precision as the purely physical; Ludwig, with character¬ istic fearlessness and enthusiasm, attacked problem after problem, striving to find out how many of the subtle processes of life were susceptible of a mechanical explana¬ tion. Ludwig ’s ‘ ‘ Lehrbuch der Physiologie des Menschen,” the first edition of which came out from 1852-1856, and the second, from 1858-1861, was dedicated to his friends, Briicke, in Vienna, Du Bois-Reymond, in Berlin, and Helmholtz, in Bonn. The writer’s point of view was diametrically opposed to that of his predecessors. Throughout the book the explanation for vital processes is sought in pure mechan¬ ics, in the widest sense. He wrote in the introduction : The problem of scientific physiology is to de¬ termine the functions of the animal body and de¬ duce them as a necessity from its elementary con¬ ditions. Whenever the body of an animal is subdivided to its ultimate parts, one always finally arrives at a limited number of chemical atoms, and upon phenomena which are explainable on the assump¬ tion of a light ether and electricity. One draws the conclusion in harmony with this observation, that all forms of activity arising in the animal body must be a result of the simple attractions and repulsions which would be observed on the coming together of those elementary objects. This conclusion would be unassailable, if it were possible to show with mathematical accuracy, that the elementary conditions were so arranged in the animal body with respect to direction, time and quantity, that all of the phenomena of living and dead organisms must necessarily flow from their interaction. This conception, as is •well known, is not the traditional; it is the one among the newer, which, as especially opposed to the vitalistic, has been named the physical. The view, aside from all de¬ tails, finds its justification in the irrefutable de¬ mand of logic, that a cause shall underlie every result, and further in the soundest rule of every experimental science, that one draws only on ab¬ solutely necessary grounds of explanation. Du Bois-Reymond toward the end of the year 1848 said: The belief in a vital force, like the other dogmas, depends less on scientific conviction than the need of a soul to certain organizations; that is why this belief, like that of the dogmas, can not be rooted out. The slowness with which the new view was accepted is demonstrated by the fact stated by Kronecker, that Claude Bernard, only towards the end of his life, 1876, made the definite statement: Que les conditions de manifestations de la vie sont purement physico-chemique et ne different par sous ce rapport des conditions de tous les autres phenomenes de la nature. In 1895 Mosso wrote from Italy : After a short truce during which vitalism ap¬ peared to be abandoned, we see it born again under another form. Literature and art bear wit¬ ness to the reaction which produces itself, and on all sides one detects the breath of mysticism which invades the mind. The school of the neo-vitalists has already conquered the pulpit, and many fear that it will stifle the spirit of true science, as it has done in the Catholic universities. Tigerstedt, one of Ludwig’s favorite pu¬ pils, who has become one of the best known of the physiologists of tmr time, and who, although a Finn, was unanimously chosen as president of the International Congress of Physiologists, which was to have met in Paris this autumn, gives perhaps the best expression of the attitude of the present- day physiologists : 366 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1133 In the newest physiology there is noticeable an undercurrent which offers as its conception with always less reservation that not even the simplest life processes, as for example respiratory gas ex¬ change and lymph formation, can be explained wholly on a physico-chemical basis, but that they chiefly depend on vital processes in the cells. . . . But this new vitalism distinguishes itself in a very important point from the old. It does not assume the existence of a peculiar, mystic vital force, and does not break away from the funda¬ mental view, which the last fifty years have made the unalterable possession of physiology, with the truth that the principle of the conservation of energy applies to living as well as to dead nature. This being so, it is of relatively secondary im¬ portance whether the complicated processes, which take place in living beings, can or can not be ex¬ plained by the physics and chemistry of our time. In any case they follow definite laws, and are not called out by a whimsical power, which can at the one instant be indefinitely strong and at the next nul. So if we say that this or that process is at¬ tributable to cell activity, that signifies nothing else than that our present physical and chemical knowledge is still insufficient to completely ex¬ plain these processes, and that the right explana¬ tion will possibly only be found if the forces work¬ ing within the cell lie more clearly in the sight of the experimenter. And if it were true that many theories which Ludwig expressed had lost some of the likelihood which they formerly seemed to have, what has that to do with their importance for our science? In all natural science we meet the observation that theories have only a limited life, that one theory after a shorter or a longer time must give place to another, which can indicate more completely or better than its predecessor the character of the phenomena which it should explain. A theory is then good, and has an importance in the develop¬ ment of science, if it is of such a kind that it leads to new investigations, based on direct ob¬ servation of nature, through which science wins in breadth and depth. If through it such facts shall be discovered as are not in harmony with the theory, which they have, nevertheless, to thank for their discovery, then the theory falls. But it falls with honor, for it has led to the discovery of new truths, and has constructed an important link in the development of science. Whatever the fate of Ludwig’s theoretical views, we can surely say that they have greatly enriched science, and so bear the stamp that is the sign of good theories. It is interesting to read the estimation of Ludwig ’s character and his methods of work by another great investigator, Wil¬ helm His, the great Leipzig anatomist : Ludwig’s weapons of research were an uncom¬ mon sharpness of analysis of living processes under observation, an always clear formulation of the question, and an absolute reliability of the method of attack. It was of great importance for his career that he was a schooled anatomist and controlled microscopical technique to a remarkable degree. From his anatomical knowledge came his consummate and careful technique as an experi¬ menter on living animals, in which only Magendie and Claude Bernard are to be compared with him. Moreover, he had at his command a shrewd intui¬ tion, without which the clearest thinker is often powerless in the investigation of living processes. Nature does not always allow herself to be con¬ quered by logic, her ways are frequently hidden, and she reveals herself only to him who has sharp¬ ened his sight for insignificant traces, by persistent, faithful observation. Ludwig had to a high degree a love for personal observation, and a successful preparation or a striking experiment was for him an esthetic pleasure. He placed direct perception, in the study of living nature, far above working with abstract conceptions. As has been said, when Ludwig was ap¬ pointed to the chair of physiology in Leip¬ zig his first task was the planning of a physiological institute. This institute was the seat of Ludwig’s labors for nearly thirty years; it saw the development of many of the greatest physiologists of the past five decades; it was the birthplace of discoveries which have been of inestimable value to medical thought; and the remark¬ able success of the ideals and methods which he, as director, put into practise, caused it to become the model for many others. The plan is a witness of his breadth of view, and the recognition that the prob¬ lems of physiology can be solved only through a knowledge of the structure of the parts involved, and a study of both the physical and chemical changes occurring within them, and that under ideal condi¬ tions, all of these forms of work should go September 15, 1916] SCIENCE 367 on side by side. The building had the form of a capital E. The main portion was arranged and equipped for the study of physiological processes from the physical side, one wing was devoted to histological work, the other, to physiological chemis¬ try. The lecture room, closely connected to the main part of the building, occupied the space between the wings. Above the laboratories, but completely separated from them, were the dwelling rooms of the pro¬ fessor and his family. Ludwig reserved a well-lighted corner room for his private office. The door which communicated with the main laboratory W’as, however, very rarely closed, and his room was the passageway to the small ad¬ joining room which contained the library, to which those working with him had ac¬ cess at all times. The books, largely jour¬ nals, were free to the use of all, and could be even taken home, the only restriction being that the borrower should enter the book and his name. His says that Ludwig’s customary greet¬ ing, when His entered his chamber was, “Was giebtes neues?” The news for which he thirsted was not the gossip of the day, but suggestion for a new scientific problem, a new method of attack, the re¬ cital of some successful piece of research work. When the London Royal Society pre¬ sented the Copley medal to Ludwig, it was given not so much because of the important investigations which had appeared under his name, as because of the vast number of researches which he had conducted with the aid of his pupils, but in which his name failed to appear, and the still greater number, which were the result of the in¬ spiration which those who had worked with him carried away, often to distant lands, and in their turn imparted to others. Ludwig was truly remarkable for his ability to utilize the work of the young and inexperienced. A great school of physiol¬ ogy developed under him at Leipzig, with an activity with which only Liebig’s chem¬ ical laboratory in Giessen could be com¬ pared. As many as nine or ten men, from almost as many different countries, might be found working in his institute at the same time, and this international circle lived, as Kronecker said, under the influ¬ ence of the refined, kindly knower of men, in perfect harmony.2 Why was Ludwig’s laboratory always full when the other German physiological laboratories had only one or two workers? The instant one entered it, he felt that it was a place where things worth doing were being done. Ludwig’s enthusiasm per¬ vaded it, and it was an intense pleasure to work in the stimulating atmosphere. I can recall Ludwig’s joyous shout, as he called all who could leave their work to come and witness some physiological process reveal¬ ing itself in its true light for the first time, or some unusually suggestive histological or anatomical preparation. And then came one of those delightful talks, leading us forward to the border land of science, and giving us glimpses into that fascina¬ ting, mysterious land — the unknown. I must admit that at such times, Ludwig’s active mind sometimes, leaping over lines of thought which were new to us, often out- 2 The following Americans were pupils of Lud¬ wig: Gerau, of New York, 1845-46; Bowditch, of Boston, the first and best known of American physiologists, for many years professor at the Harvard Medical School, 1869-71; Minot, of Bos¬ ton, one of the foremost of American embryolo¬ gists, also many years professor at the Harvard Medical School, 1873-74; Abel, now professor of pharmacology at Johns Hopkins and formerly filling the chair in this university, who has a very high reputation, 1884; Mall, one of our graduates, now professor at Johns Hopkins, and probably the strongest anatomist in this country, 1885; Lee, professor of physiology at the medical department of Columbia, New York, who has done excellent work, 1886. 368 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1133 stripped his listeners. I thought that, in my own case, it was my incomplete knowl¬ edge of the language that was at fault, but I remember that von Frey, who was then docent in physiology, said that frequently he could not follow Ludwig. Another thing that drew men from dis¬ tant lands to his laboratory was the fact that it was well known that he never made use of his students for his own immediate glory, and that the researches which he in¬ spired, and even those in which he did the most difficult part of the experimentation, were at all times treated as the personal investigations of those who worked with him, and were published under their names. As evidence of his unheard-of self-denial, Tigerstedt offers his own case. Having ■carried through a piece of work at Lud¬ wig’s suggestion, he sent him the manu¬ script from Stockholm for his criticism. The only correction which he made was to strike out the words, “Stetiger Beihiilfe vom Ilerrn professor Ludwig.” It has often been said that Ludwig was absolutely unselfish in the lavish way in which he gave his ideas to others. He had so many ideas that he could well afford to be generous; he loved his science and re¬ joiced in the scientific achievements of his pupils; he was, moreover, worldly wise, in the best sense. Oh, if we draw a circle premature, Heedless of far gain, Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure Bad is our bargain. The wonderful richness of the uninter¬ rupted series of papers, published from his laboratory during the 56 years of his ac¬ tivity, was only made possible by his skil¬ ful division, of labor, and his capacity to estimate the abilities and tastes of those who worked with him. Each man had his own clearly defined problem, and the prob¬ lems were as distinct as the men. It was remarkable how many different forms of research he could supervise at the same time and keep them all clearly in mind. When I was working with him there were Wooldrich, wTho was studying the effect of stimulating special parts of the heart of the dog; Stolnikow, the rate of flow of the blood ; Tigerstedt, the latent period of muscle ; von Frey and Grubler, metabolism of isolated muscle when at rest and in ac¬ tion; Bohr, the way gases enter and leave the blood in the lung; myself, the method of spread of reflex processes in the spinal cord ; and Miss Smith, who was working on a histological subject with Gaule, and others, working under Dreclisel, on prob¬ lems in physiological chemistry, among whom was Abel, now professor of pharma¬ cology at Johns Hopkins. You might be interested to know his daily routine. Every morning he visited the tables of the different men and dis¬ cussed with them the next step to be taken, often appointing the hour when he would take part in the research with them (and the appointment was always punctually kept) ; or he would take them into his pri¬ vate room and critically discuss the meth¬ ods employed, making suggestions as to the direction in which new and more effective methods could be sought, carefully go over the curves and other data already obtained and the inferences to be drawn from them. This was not done offhand, for each night when he left the laboratory he carried to his rooms above, records and protocols of investigations in progress, for careful study. An hour or more was devoted to the preparation of his lectures, which were given at four o’clock and were richly il¬ lustrated with experiments. In the prepa¬ ration of the experiments he was assisted by the mechanic of the laboratory, Salfa- moser, who had come with him from Vienna to Leipzig. No account of Ludwig and September 15, 1916] SCIENCE 369 his laboratory would be complete without mention of Salfamoser. He had worked with Ludwig so long that he was thoroughly familiar with the routine of the laboratory and even the most complicated experi¬ mental methods. He was the first in¬ structor of many a pupil in the technique of the operations which he had to perform, as well as the use of the apparatus. When Ludwig himself took part in operative ex¬ periments, Salfamoser often acted as his assistant, and, not infrequently, to the dis¬ gust of Ludwig, as his adviser. I can re¬ call seeing Ludwig draw himself up and say to Salfamoser, “Who is the professor here, you or I?” “Oh, you are Herr Pro¬ fessor; nevertheless, I am right.” Salfa¬ moser was devoted to Ludwig, and Ludwig, fully recognizing his faithfulness and his ability, depended on him as one depends on his hands. Ludwig’s lectures were addressed to the most advanced of his students, and were attended by all of those working in the laboratory. The beginner had a hard time, and almost all of the ordinary students at¬ tended the course twice before presenting themselves for examination. Ludwig en¬ tered into his lectures with the same earn¬ estness and vigor that characterized all of his activities. I attended, if I recall rightly, his forty-seventh course, and I never saw him enter the lecture-room that he did not change color. He did not know what it was to be blase. After his lecture he frequently went for a walk unless he had to attend the examina¬ tion of some student, a task which he loathed. There was no work done in the laboratory Saturday afternoon, when it was left to the mercy of the scrubwomen; and no work was done on Sunday. His intense interest in the problems that he was studying was infectious; his en¬ thusiasm imparted itself to his pupils, and aroused all of their ingenuity and their best powers of observation and thought. Ludwig’s untiring energy in the hunt, in¬ spired the pupil with an unknown con¬ stancy of effort, the problem possessed him day and night, and when he began to dream of it the light began to dawn. My own case must have found its coun¬ terpart in that of many others. I entered his laboratory knowing physiology only as I had learned it in the lecture-room. He assigned my problem, started me upon the method which at the outset seemed the most promising, and followed each advance with close attention. When I reported that I had found something new, he would ask me to show my records and prove to him that I had really found what I supposed. Even when the facts reported had long been known, no cold water was thrown on my enthusiasm, and I was al¬ lowed to have the supreme pleasure of having made, as I truly had, a discovery. And so he led me on, often helping me with the experiments themselves, and when, at the end of a year and a half, I had brought my results together and written the first draft of my paper in English, he put it into German, practically rewriting it. I shall never forget my feeling of embarrass¬ ment, as I said to him that I felt that I had no right to let the paper appear under my name, for I had been only his hands; that it was really his work and not mine. “It is all right,” he said, “it has been your work. ’ ’ Then he added, ‘ ‘ But if you never do anything else, it will be thought that you did not do this.” Ludwig did not know how to fail : once started on a trail he would follow it for years. He once said tome, “Never let na¬ ture get the better of you; if you do, she will take advantage of you next time.” He would never permit slovenly work. I remember one day he asked me to make 370 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1133 an iron hook which we needed. I bent one which I thought would do, but without criticizing it directly, he proceeded, while discussing the work, to painstakingly re¬ bend it, until it exactly fitted our need. I carried that hook in my pocket for years, and although I finally lost it, the lesson has clung. He taught his students independence. On one occasion when I offered to help him tie a ligature in a difficult place, he said with a merry smile, “No, no; if I let you help me now, you will want me to come and help you the next time you have a knot to tie.” Kronecker said of him : He understood how to instil his ideas so that those working under him often thought them their own. But he wished to bring out his own charac¬ teristic methods of expression when it came to the publication of the work, and every expert was able to recognize in the papers coming from the Leip¬ zig institute the hidden thoughtful exposition of the master. Yon Frey admirably described his char¬ acteristics when he wrote, The steadfastness with which Ludwig clung to the complete control of the direction of the work, might suggest a form of military discipline in the laboratory. This certainly did not apply to the personal relations which existed. Nevertheless, such a comparison is not without value for an understanding of the exceptional results of his teaching. Among other qualities Ludwig pos¬ sessed those which could be described as marked military virtues: boldness of design, tenacious perseverance in execution, presence of mind and high personal courage, an unusual talent for or¬ ganization bound up with a knowledge of men, which knew how to put every force in its right place, strict discipline, frankness and heartiness in personal relations, indefatigableness in work, to¬ gether with exemplary orderliness and punctuality. With the love which our master inspired, there developed in the laboratory an esprit de corps, so that to have worked with him was a password that gave free entrance to the laboratory and the friendship of every other who had been his pupil. Ludwig’s old students, in token of their esteem, on the occasion of his twenty-fifth anniversary as ordentlicher professor, pre¬ sented him with a Festschrift. In this was a list of his pupils up to that time, which numbered 142. In the twenty years that followed, a hundred others worked with him. Many of Ludwig’s researches were purely anatomical, or the physiological problems were handled chiefly on an ana¬ tomical basis. One thinks of the structure of the heart and its relation to its change of form, and of his attempts to bring the structure and course of the blood vessels in various organs into the explanation of their function. The excellent methods of injection of blood vessels developed in his laboratory, made it possible for him to study the circulation in many organs as it had never been done before, e. g., in the eye, ear drum, liver, lymph glands, corpora cavernosa, intestines, muscle, ear-labyrinth, larynx, skin. Especially worthy of men¬ tion is the natural injection of the lymph spaces, by means of which Schweiger- Seidel and Ludwig studied the lymphatics of the pleura, the central tendon of the diaphragm, the retina and the liver. As far as is known, his first physiolog¬ ical research was his habilitationsschrift, “Beitrage zur Mechanismus der Harnse- cretion, ” published in Marburg, 1842, when he was twenty-five years old. In this work on secretion by the kidney, he de¬ veloped the first physical theory of secre¬ tion of a gland. He deduced the method of the secretion of the urine from the struc¬ ture of the kidney, and the physical forces which he thought must necessarily control them. This work made him desire to know more concerning the action of physical forces on the passage of fluids through animal mem¬ branes, and led to important researches on September 15, 1916] SCIENCE 371 diffusion and osmosis. The exactness of the results were recognized by Ostwald. He never lost interest in the original problem and a number of his students were assigned various phases of it during the succeeding years. An evidence of his open- mindedness is the fact that he was not dis¬ turbed by results which seemed to oppose his original view. How Ludwig would have reveled in the clever technique displayed in the models and drawings of the kidney tubules, which have been developed in this laboratory by Dr. Huber. Although emphasizing the important part played by blood pressure in the secre¬ tion of the urine, he proved experimentally that the pressure of the blood does not ex¬ plain the secretion of the saliva, and his epoch-making discoveries with regard to the activities of the salivary glands began a new era in our knowledge of secretion processes. He proved that gland cells, like muscles, are capable of being awakened to activity by nerves, and become the seat of chemical changes, accompanied with the liberation of heat and the giving off of materials differing from those found in the blood. Not less important were Ludwig’s inves¬ tigations of the interchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide gas between the blood and the tissues, and the blood and the air in the lungs. The blood-gas-pump devised by Ludwig and Setchenow in 1859, a new ap¬ plication of the Torricelli vacuum, proved the key to unlock many difficult problems. There followed many investigations by his pupils Schoffer, Holmgren, Preyer, Alex¬ ander Schmidt, giving the first measure¬ ments of the tension of the gases of the blood, and by Worm-Muller and Donders on the conditions which determine the ten¬ sion. Ludwig opened up still another line of work, the chemical changes occurring within special organs, when he found that it was possible to separate organs from the gen¬ eral circulation, and to study their metab¬ olism by keeping them alive by artificially circulating defibrinated blood through them ; e. g., the heart of the frog was thus kept alive and acting for many days, and the effect of temperature, foods and drugs upon its activity were examined. His studies into the formation of lymph, and the cause of its movement in the lym¬ phatics, were of great value. According to Ludwig the plasma of the blood filters through the walls of the blood vessels, and so food materials are supplied to the vari¬ ous tissues. It is also the pressure of the blood which is the principal cause of the movement of the lymph stream. Where this is not sufficient, as in the case of the large cavities of the body, there are special pumping arrangements provided: in the abdomen and in the pleural cavities it is the respiratory movements of the diaphragm and of the chest walls which are respon¬ sible for the flow. The conditions which determine the cir¬ culation of the blood always aroused his keenest interest, and it was because of his desire to grasp their significance that he was led to what has proved the most fruit¬ ful of his discoveries, the graphic method of recording physiological movements. In 1846, while still in Marburg, he studied the relation which exists between the move¬ ments of respiration and the pressure of the blood. He connected a U-shaped manom¬ eter tube partly filled with mercury, with an artery, but the moyements of the column of mercury were so rapid and complex that the eye failed to retain them. It was then that he conceived the idea of recording the changes in pressure, and devised the kymographion. Let me quote his own words in his paper, “Beitragen zur Kent- 372 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1133 niss des Einflusses der Respirationsbeweg- ungen auf den Bint lauf in Arteriensys- tems,” published in Muller’s Archiv, 1847. “To obtain reliable figures under all cir¬ cumstances by means of it (referring to Poiseulle’s mercury manometer), and at the same time, time determinations for the duration and course of the different pres¬ sures, one places a rod-like float on the mercury, puts on the upper end a writing- point, and lets it draw the variations in pressure on a surface, which moves by the pointer with a constant velocity. In this way one obtains curves, the height of which is a measure of the blood pressure, and the width an indication of the time.” Ludwig recorded the movements of the respiration and the oscillations of the blood pressure on the same paper simulta¬ neously, and thus obtained curves which made possible an accurate comparison of the two series of events. Although the graphic method was known at the beginning of the century to meteorol¬ ogists and physicists (especially through the work of Thomas Young), it had been neglected and was carried again into phys¬ ics and meteorology after the discovery of the kymographion. It has become, with its many modifications, an indispensable aid to the physiologist, pharmacologist, pathol¬ ogist, clinician, and to experimental biol¬ ogists and botanists. His pupil Angelo Mosso, the celebrated Italian physiologist, showed me the original tracing when I visited his laboratory in Turin. There is inscribed upon it the date, December 12, 1846, and notes concerning the experiment. It was the first time that the heart and respiration had spoken in their own lan¬ guage, and Ludwig in presenting it to Mosso wrote on the back — “I give to my friend Mosso for his collection, this first stammering of the heart and of the chest.” This was followed by researches into the structure and changes in form of the beat¬ ing heart, which served to explain the true significance of the apex beat. He also did much to increase our knowledge of the cause of the first sound of the heart. All of these studies on the mechanics of the cir¬ culation naturally led Ludwig to a consid¬ eration of the means by which it is regu¬ lated, and so to a study of the nerves which act on the circulatory system. The Weber brothers had discovered the effect of the vagus nerve to inhibit the heart. Schmiederberg, under Ludwig’s guidance, 1866, discovered the accelerator nerve of the heart of the frog and of the dog, and in 1883, Wooldrich found centrif¬ ugal fibers to the heart of the dog, which altered the blood pressure without chang¬ ing the rate of the beat. Bowditch, the best known of American physiologists, Luciani and Stienon, studied the effects of electrical excitations on the heart muscle, and ascertained a number of facts of theo¬ retical importance to heart and muscle physiology. Henle had observed the muscles in the ■walls of the blood vessels and Claude Ber¬ nard the existence of nerves which cause the constriction of certain blood vessels. It was left for Ludwig and Thiery to point out, 1863, the importance of these nerves in maintaining the tonus of the blood vessels, and consequently the blood pres¬ sure. Cutting the spinal cord was found to cause a fall, and exciting it a rise of blood pressure, without any change in the rate of the heart. They saw the vessels of the abdomen contract, and thought that the nerves ran in the splanchnic, a fact which Ludwig and Cyon proved in 1866. More¬ over, during these latter experiments a nerve was found which ran from the heart to the medulla, the depressor nerve, which acts reflexly from the heart to dilate the blood vessels, and which protects the heart September 15, 1916] SCIENCE 373 from too great arterial blood pressure. Later, Ludwig and his pupils established more definitely the seat of the vaso-motor centers, and showed that the veins as well as the arteries of the portal system are under the control of nerves. Mall, now at Johns Hopkins, who worked with Ludwig in 1885, established this last fact. It was Ludwig who started Mosso on the development of the plethysmographic method, by which the volume changes of organs under the influence of the altera¬ tions of the blood supply have been studied by many investigators, e. g., Edmunds has found it of great value in work which he has been doing in the past years. Ludwig’s cleverness in inventing instru¬ ments required for his investigations is to be seen in the Stromuhr, by the use of which he was able to succeed where others had failed, and to measure the rate of the flow of the blood stream. By means of this he measured the rate of the output from the heart under varying conditions, and the amount of blood flowing through special organs when at rest and in action. He was always deeply interested in re¬ flex processes, and many experiments were carried on in his laboratory on the paths taken by nervous impulses along the white matter of the cord, summation processes, and the effect of local excitations and poisons. In addition, he caused many re¬ searches to be made on the special senses, sight, hearing and taste. Investigations of a chemical nature were also made at his instigation, and von Frey has pointed out the difficulties which he must have encountered in directing such work, lying as it did outside of the fields with wdiich he was most conversant. From the time that Ludwig and Alexander Schmidt found that easily oxidizable sub¬ stances pass from the tissues into the blood, many such intermediate products were dis¬ covered in the chemical side of the labora¬ tory, and their distribution through the body followed. Cloetta discovered the presence of inosit, uric acid, etc., in the animal body ; calcium and phosphoric acid in the blood were measured; the lessening of glycogen in the “uberlebender” liver was noted; and the origin of jaundice studied. The method by which fats are absorbed, the streaming of fat in the lymphatics, the constitution and the fate of the fats enter¬ ing the blood, all received attention. The digestion and absorption of proteins and sugars, and the changes which they undergo after entering the body were investigated, the structure of albuminous bodies being made the subject of special study by Drechsel. An interesting discovery was made while the method of absorption of the digestion products of protein was being studied, namely, that albumoses if introduced di¬ rectly into the blood act as poisons and deprive the blood of its power to coagulate. This observation gave a new impulse to the study of coagulation, and of the formed elements of the blood. I am conscious of the incompleteness of this hasty summary of the work of Ludwig and his pupils. Ludwig, himself, was deeply impressed with what had been accomplished, and the wide field of knowledge which had been opened up to man. I remember that he said the last time that I saw him, “What a pity that one must die just as it begins to be so interesting.” I can not close this paper without a few words concerning Ludwig’s private life. He was no lover of forms and ceremonies, and counted of little worth the honors con¬ ferred by the so-called “great.” I chanced to be present when a student called in dress coat and white gloves at the formal noon hour, as was the custom, to ask his 374 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1133 permission to enrole in his course of lec¬ tures. When the student addressed him as Herr geheimer Rath, Ludwig straightened up and corrected him, “Ich bin Professor.” In spite of his simple, genial manner, he had an innate dignity which always in¬ spired respect. I can not imagine any one taking a liberty with him, certainly not a second time, for he could be cuttingly severe when he chose. He was not only thoughtful and consid¬ erate of others, but his tender heart made him, although of necessity a vivisector, al¬ ways careful to avoid the infliction of un¬ necessary pain. He saw to it that all ex¬ perimentation on animals in his laboratory was performed in such a way that the suf¬ fering incurred should be the least possible. He was president of the Leipzig Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for twenty years, and did much to develop in the community a recognition of man’s duty towards the animals dependent on him. The fact that he held this position for so long, shows how thoroughly this side of his character was recognized by his fellow citizens. In his young days he wTas an active po- lemiker, and in that connection could use right hard words, but one never noticed in his controversies anything that pointed to an overestimation of self; the contest was simply the expression of his inner convic¬ tion that the way that the new physiology had chosen was the right way, and that one must vigorously fight the methods of dilet- tanteism, which, without regarding the true content of the question at hand, would escape the difficulties, to reach results which at first glance were striking. Every new advance which promised to open the doors of nature’s secrets, regard¬ less of where and by whom they were made, was greeted not merely with warmth, but with enthusiasm. M. Chauveau, when pres¬ ident of the Societe de Biologie of Paris, referring at one of its meetings to the loss which science had suffered in Ludwig’s death, said, “Ludwig, du rest, etait anime du sentiments de 1 ’equite porte au plus haut degre; il n’a jamais menage l’expression de son admiration a ceux de nos compatriotes qui en etaient dignes.” Ludwig ’s interests were not merely scien¬ tific. He possessed a remarkable fund of information on the greatest variety of sub¬ jects, and whether he spoke of music, art, industrial and political conditions in other lands, of science or philosophy, his point of view was always original and suggestive. He had a keen sense of humor, and in the midst of a conversation of grave interest he would introduce an amusing story which would illustrate the point under considera¬ tion without breaking the thread of thought. An admirable storyteller, he rarely told a story for the story’s sake; gifted beyond most men as a speaker, he was a good lis¬ tener; in short he had the ability, pos¬ sessed by so few, of leading a conversation so as to bring out the best from others. Much of his powder over his pupils was based upon his unaffected regard for them as individuals. He entered into their lives as only a friend can do, and continued his interest in them and their work long after they had left the institute. He wrote a charming letter, and found the time to answer his old pupils when, working under unsympathetic conditions, they turned to him for advice and new inspiration. I hold' in my hand a photograph which I value greatly, and which bears a characteristic inscription : ‘ ‘ Could I but spring and swim like the third in our league, I would soon croak ‘Good morning’ to you and your dear wife in New York. Oh they were good days. Your former teacher.” They were good days. In February, 1895, two months before he September 15, 1916] SCIENCE 375 died, when he was seventy-eight years old, Professor Ludwig wrote to me to say that he would take into his laboratory a young American whom I had recommended. Beginning the letter with a charming, fanciful sketch of the way my new house must look and the wish that he might be there with us, he ran into a soberer vein and wrote : Destiny lias conferred on us professors the favor of helping the responsive heart of youth to find the right path. In the seemingly insignificant vocation of the schoolmaster there is enclosed a high, blessed calling. I know no higher. In its fulfilment, you will be the happier the more you yourself grow in knowledge and power of thought, the more you endeavor to be suited to the pro¬ fession. How glad I am of your present and fu¬ ture happiness. Ludwig died in his seventy-ninth year, in Leipzig, April 27, 1895. His wife wrote us : Our daughter had come to us to help care for her father, and we were both by him day and night. Seven weeks he lay sick, but his mind was always clear. Only a few days before his death his thoughts were busied with a paper which he wished to write on his dead friend Helmholtz. On the last evening he still asked us about many things in which he was interested, then complained of great fatigue and so softly slept. The hastily called physician could only tell us that a sudden heart failure had quickly and painlessly ended his life. No better words can be spoken at the end of an account of Ludwig’s life, than those which he used at the close of his Gedachtnissrede for Ernst Heinrich Weber : Now that he has departed from us, he has left us a rich heritage, but inestimable good has sunk into the grave with him. The one on whom his soulful eyes rested, who listened to the flow of his thoughtful words, who felt the pressure of his hand, will always long for him. Yet not only the friend, each one who in life and in science came in contact with his power, will mourn the death of a man, in whom were mingled in complete har¬ mony, a spirit as clear as his and a nature of such richness. Warren P. Lombard University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. ANIMAL LIFE AS AN ASSET OF NATIONAL PARKS1 The argument most frequently urged in favor of national parks is that they provide on a large scale for the protection of forest areas, and thereby ensure the transmission of a max¬ imum water supply from the wooded tracts to the needy lands below. Attention has also been called to their value as refuges for wild life — particularly where the animals to be con¬ served are useful for game or food. The strict protection they afford enables the birds and mammals within their boundaries to reproduce at a maximum rate, and the surplus thus cre¬ ated, spreading outwards into adjacent unpro¬ tected areas, helps to make up for the deple¬ tion caused there by excessive hunting. The points mentioned above are fairly obvious. But national parks have other less generally recognized advantages, and among these we consider their potential uses as places for rec¬ reation and for the study of natural history, especially worthy of notice. We will here lay particular emphasis on their recreative value because this phase seems to have hitherto been treated only in a cursory way, and with an air of hesitancy, as if it were hardly deserving of practical consideration. The term recreation is currently applied to any temporary change of occupation that calls vigorously into play latent or seldom used fac¬ ulties of the mind and body. It is the purpose of this change to restore to the human organs the normal balance which special or artificial conditions of life disturb. As physiologists have long recognized, the interdependence of the various bodily functions is such that the neglect of one is bound to have its effect on the others, and complete health can only be attained when every function is given its ade¬ quate share of exercise. In view of this fact i Contribution from the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology of the University of California. 376 SCIENCE [N. S. VOL. XLIV. No. 1133 and of the general character of urban life at present, it would seem that the type of recrea¬ tion most urgently needed by the majority of people to-day is to be found in the open coun¬ try. The relatively abrupt changes coincident with modern civilization have seriously inter¬ fered with the fine adjustments acquired by the human body in the course of long ages; and the modern business man, who may be re¬ garded as the final and typical product of these changes, can now obtain rest in its fullest sense only by resorting for several weeks in the year to the open country or mountains. There he may find entire relief from the nerve-racking drive of city life, and be brought once more into contact with primitive conditions. There he may have an oppor¬ tunity of reawakening his dormant faculties and of “ resetting ” his physical “ tone,” by effecting a readjustment of physiological inter¬ relations. One of the greatest needs of city dwelling people is to develop objective inter¬ ests ; “ to get out of themselves,” as the phrase goes; and a frequently effectual means to this end is a keen interest in outdoor things, en¬ couraging, as it must, a healthy manner of living, an unconfined habit of observation, and a mood unaffected by the nervous ten¬ sion so peculiar to town life. If this be true, it follows that the best recre¬ ative elements in nature are those which most infallibly tend to revive our atrophied facul¬ ties and instincts. Among them the following are important. First: either perfect quiet, or an absence of all save primitive and natural sounds, such as those caused by the wind in the trees, by running or falling water, or by singing birds. Second : landscapes that relieve the eyes from close work by offering distant views, quiet harmonies of color, and a quies¬ cent atmosphere, varied by occasional touches of movement in such objects as running or falling water, scurrying squirrels, or birds in flight. Third : accessible mountains, which encourage climbing and allow the visitor to combine the exhilaration of overcoming ob¬ stacles with the physical exercise attending the woodsman’s mode of travel. Fourth: nat¬ ural phenomena that make a purely intellec¬ tual or esthetic appeal, as do the conflicts be¬ tween the great insentient forces of nature, the processes of geological upbuilding and de¬ struction, the intimate inter-relations of plants and animals, and the contentions for mastery that are forever recurring through¬ out the whole realm of living things. We be¬ lieve the last, the mental appeal, to be the ele¬ ment of greatest recreative value in nature, but the other three are only of slightly less im¬ portance. The question may now be raised : “ Can na¬ tional parks meet these requirements any more fully than other uncultivated areas?” With the country in its present half developed state the objection has a certain degree of force. In this era one is inclined to think of the unpro¬ tected wilds as the silent, virginal and un¬ spoiled regions of the earth, and to regard na¬ tional parks as comparatively well-peopled areas where plants and animals are subjected to artificial restrictions. To a limited extent, and for the moment, this impression is a true one. But the objection will have less force in the course of a few years, and none whatever if by that time the full recreative possibilities of the parks have been realized. For the com¬ mercial exploitation of nature that is now going on so rapidly elsewhere, is daily making the conditions we have described harder to seek, and is confining them more and more closely to the park areas, where the administrators should be taking measures to propagate and conserve them. By this we do not mean that the parks should in any way be conventional¬ ized or transformed. On the contrary, it is their chief function to prevent just that dis¬ figurement of the face of nature by industrial machinery which is being carried on at such a disastrous rate in other localities. We mean rather that the ideal recreative conditions now to be found in them should be preserved, that all factors disturbing to these conditions should be excluded, and that the artificial ele¬ ments required for the practical work of ad¬ ministration ' should be disguised or beautified past offense. Let us, however, take up these points in greater precision and detail. The first neces- September 15, 1916] SCIENCE 377 sity in adapting the parks for recreative pur¬ poses is to preserve natural conditions. In this respect a national and a city park are wholly different. A city park is of necessity artificial, in the beginning at least when the landscape is planned and laid out; but a na¬ tional park is at its inception entirely natural, and is generally thereafter kept fairly immune from human interference. Herein lies the fea¬ ture of supreme value in national parks: they furnish samples of the earth as it was before the advent of the white man. Accordingly, they should be left in their pristine condition as far as is compatible with the convenience of visitors. All necessary roads, trails, hotels and camps should be rendered inconspicuous, or, better still, invisible from the natural points of vantage in the parks. Another reason for re¬ taining primitive conditions is that natural scenery unmarred by man is one of the finest known sources of esthetic pleasure. Any at¬ tempt to modify the appearance of a national park by laying out straight roads, constructing artificial lakes, trimming trees, clearing brush, draining marshes, or other such devices, is in the worst of bad taste. As has already been intimated, the animal life of the parks is among their best recreative assets. The birds and mammals, large and small, the butterflies and the numerous other insects, even the reptiles and amphibians, are of interest to the visitor. As a stimulant to the senses of far sight and far hearing, facul¬ ties largely or altogether neglected in the pres¬ ent scheme of civilization, they are of no less consequence than the scenery, the solitude and the trails. To the natural charm of the land¬ scape they add the witchery of movement. As soon as the general surroundings lose their novelty for the observer, any moving object in the landscape will catch his eye and fix his at¬ tention. People will walk miles and climb thousands of feet to secure a good view of fall¬ ing water, and this desire for movement is even more completely satisfied by the sight of animals in motion. The moving deer, passing within range of the stage-coach, rouses excla¬ mations of surprise and delight. Eagles and pigeons in flight overhead readily claim the traveler’s notice, and the smaller birds often mingle the fascination of sprightly movement with that of bright color and pleasing song. Considering the predilections of the average visitor, we should perhaps regard these last as the most indispensable creatures in the parks. The interest of moving objects depends upon a number of elements other than movement, among which their color, and especially their size, is important. The chipmunk is more at¬ tractive than the ground squirrel, primarily because its movements are more rapid, and secondly because of its more brightly colored markings. But when movement and color are equal the average observer’s selection seems to have a quantitative basis, though the rarity of the object, and its romantic or other associa¬ tions affect the equation. A bear or a deer will elicit more interest than a smaller mam¬ mal, even though the latter be of a rarer spe¬ cies. There are exceptional cases where an animal’s extreme rarity will make it of excep¬ tional interest in spite of its inferior size, but in general the larger species are the more rare, as they are the first to disappear before human invasion. They have therefore a double claim to consideration, and measures should be taken to prevent their numbers from diminishing. After the visitor’s initial curiosity has been aroused and his powers of observation developed, he may be trusted to give a closer study to the smaller species. To realize the greatest profit, therefore, from the plant and animal life of the parks, their original balance should be maintained. No trees, whether living or dead, should be cut down, beyond those needed for building roads, or for practical elimination of danger from fire. The use of wood for fuel in power stations, or even for cooking and heating in hotels and camps, is made unnecessary by the abundant supply of water power everywhere available, and this may be utilized without marring the scenery in the slightest. Dead trees are in many respects as useful as living, and should be just as rigorously protected. The brilliant-hued woodpeckers that render such effective service in ridding the living trees of destructive insects depend in part on 378 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1133 dead trees for a livelihood. In these they find food during the colder months of the year, when the insects elsewhere are in great scar¬ city. Here, too, they excavate their nesting holes. Some of the squirrels and chipmunks also seek shelter in dead or partially dead trees. Even down timber is an essential factor in up¬ holding the balance of animal life, for fallen and decaying logs provide homes for wild rats and mice of various kinds, and these in their turn support many carnivorous birds and mammals, such as hawks, owls, foxes and martens. Ho more undergrowth should be destroyed than is absolutely necessary. To many birds and mammals thickets are protective havens into which their enemies find it difficult to penetrate. Moreover, the majority of the chap- parral plants are berry-producers and give sus¬ tenance to wild pigeons, mountain quail, robins and thrushes, and to chipmunks and squirrels — this, too, at the most critical time of the year, when other kinds of food are scarce or altogether wanting. The removal of such plant growth will inevitably decrease the native ani¬ mal life. If any change is to be made at all, it would, indeed, seem preferable to increase the number of indigenous berry-producing plants, especially in the vicinity of camps and buildings. This would compensate for the shrubbery lost in constructing roads and buildings, and would also serve to attract berry-eating species to the points where they might be seen by the largest number of people. It goes almost without saying that the ad¬ ministration should strictly prohibit the hunt¬ ing and trapping of any wild animals within the park limits. A justifiable exception may be made when specimens are required for sci¬ entific purposes by authorized representatives of public institutions, and it should be re¬ marked in this connection that without a sci¬ entific investigation of the animal life in the parks, and an extensive collection of speci¬ mens, no thorough understanding of the con¬ ditions or of the practical problems they in¬ volve is possible. But the visiting public should be warned against injuring, and even against teasing or annoying any of the mam¬ mals, against destroying lizards and snakes (except the rattlesnake), and against disturb¬ ing the nests of birds, or their young. In the last instance a very slight disturbance will often lead to subsequent destruction. The principle underlying these suggestions is ap¬ parent. The native complement of animal life must everywhere be scrupulously guarded, particularly along the most traveled roads and paths, where the animals are likely to be ob¬ served by the greatest number of visitors. It is there that each individual animal is of highest intrinsic value from an esthetic view¬ point. As a rule predaceous animals should be left unmolested and allowed to retain their primi¬ tive relation to the rest of the fauna, even though this may entail a considerable annual levy on the animals forming their prey. We, as naturalists, are convinced that the normal rate of reproduction among the wild non-pre- daceous species, such as mice and squirrels, has adjusted itself to meet a certain annual draft on their population by carnivorous enemies. Another point worth emphasizing is that many of the predatory animals, like the marten, the fisher, the fox and the golden eagle, are them¬ selves exceedingly interesting members of the fauna, and as their number is already kept within proper limits by the available food supply, nothing is to be gained by reducing it still further. Here again may be recognized the special and intimate relations everywhere existing among the various plants and ani¬ mals. The rule that predaceous animals be safe¬ guarded admits of occasional exceptions, ac¬ cording to season, place and circumstance. Coyotes and bob-cats, especially the latter, when they are numerous, are likely to kill a great many grouse, quail, rabbits and squir¬ rels. Cooper and sharp-shinned hawks, and, to a lesser extent, blue jays, are proven menaces to small birds, and it might be advisable to re¬ duce them in the neighborhood of camps and much-traveled roads. Caution, however, should be exercised in doing so, and no step taken to diminish the numbers of any of these predators, except on the best of grounds. September 15, 1916] SCIENCE 379 We would urge the rigid exclusion of do¬ mestic cats and dogs from national parks. Cats are the relentless enemies of small birds; they are forever on the alert, and in ninety- nine cases out of a hundred can not be trusted, however well fed they may have been at home, to let birds alone. The fact that they readily go wild, that is, quickly revert to a feral state, makes it all the more important that they be kept out of unsettled regions. To admit them would mean adding one more predator to the original fauna, and this would tend to disturb the original balance, by making the mainte¬ nance of a normal bird population difficult or impossible. Equal vigilance should be used to exclude all non-native species from the parks, even though they be non-predaceous. In the finely adjusted balance already established between the native animal life and the food supply, there is no room for the interpolation of an additional species. If pheasants be intro¬ duced, and allowed to become established in the wild, the native quail and grouse will in¬ evitably suffer from competition with them at the season of minimum food supply, and will be numerically reduced in consequence. The same is true of elk in competition with the na¬ tive deer, and of many imported small birds in rivalry with the native varieties. In the latter connection we need only mention the well known instance of the English sparrow. Cattle and sheep are also of importance as ele¬ ments hostile to natural conditions, but their destructiveness has already been emphasized by foresters. Thus far we have laid chief stress on the importance of the national parks to recreation, and have shown the necessity, in adapting them for this purpose, of retaining the orig¬ inal balance in plant and animal life. But the same necessity attaches to their adaptation for another end, hardly less important than recreation, namely, research in natural his¬ tory. As the settlement of the country pro¬ gresses and the original aspect of nature is al¬ tered, the national parks will probably be the only areas remaining unspoiled for scientific study, and this is of the more significance when we consider -how far the scientific meth¬ ods of investigating nature then obtaining will be in advance of those now applied to the same study. As a final requirement, we would urge that pro¬ vision be made in every large national park for a trained resident naturalist who, as a member of the park staff, would look after the interests of the animal life of the region and aid in ma¬ king it known to the public. His main duty would be to familiarize himself through inten¬ sive study with the natural conditions and interrelations of the park fauna, and to make practical recommendations for their mainte¬ nance. Plans to decrease the number of any of the predatory species would be carried out only with his sanction and under his direction. He would be able to establish and supervise local feeding places for birds and mammals during the tourist season, and could do this without in any serious degree altering natural conditions. His acquaintance with the local fauna would enable him to communicate mat¬ ters of interest to the public in popularly styled illustrated leaflets and newspaper ar¬ ticles, on sign posts, and by lectures and dem¬ onstrations at central camps. He would help awaken people to a livelier interest in wild life, and to a healthy and intelligent curiosity about things of nature. Our experience has persuaded us that the average camper in the mountains is hungry for information about the animal life he encounters. A few sugges¬ tions are usually sufficient to make him eager to acquire his natural history at first-hand, with the result that the recreative value of his few days or weeks in the open is greatly en¬ hanced. We have attempted in these columns to em¬ phasize the value of national parks as places for recreation and for scientific research, two of their uses that have been rather commonly overlooked, and to show the importance in both connections of the animal life they con¬ tain. If the reasons and instances we have adduced are valid, there is surely ample war¬ rant for saying that the animals in the parks should be given more care and attention than 380 SCIENCE [N. S. Yol. XLIY. No. 1133 they are now receiving, and that they should be conserved and utilized to a fuller extent. Joseph Grinnell, Tracy I. Storer University of California THE REVIVAL OF INTEREST IN BIRD ANATOMY AT THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM Very well do I remember when the founda¬ tion was laid for a department of comparative anatomy at the United States National Mu¬ seum. It took place some time along in the early eighties, when Professor Baird’s splendid regime was at its height and zoological work was at its best at the Smithsonian Institution. My early papers on the osteology of birds had appeared in Hayden’s Twelfth Annual of the U. S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, and, owing to a fulfilment of a promise made by the then surgeon-general of the army, I found myself in the position of curator of the department of comparative anatomy at the old Army Medical Museum on Tenth Street in Washington. Naturally, I de¬ sired to follow up my work on the osteology of birds and upon vertebrate anatomy generally. This impulse led me to obtain Professor Baird’s permission to examine what the col¬ lections at the National Museum contained in the way of material for descriptive purposes, and to look into the matter of the possibility of publishing researches along such lines. Professor Baird was a man who took an in¬ tense personal interest in the labor of all his curators, and it was his habit every day, when he could afford the time to do so, to make a round of the institution for the purpose of en¬ couraging them in their investigations and to learn whether there was anything, in any par¬ ticular case, that a curator needed to push his investigations forward. He no sooner noticed my interest in bird anatomy than he opened up the way to make it count for science, and for the advancement of work in that particular field. He immediately established a base for such operations by founding a new position for those not on the regular museum staff, but who were devoting a large share of their time to scientific investigation, with the view of publishing the results of their studies. The late distinguished Dr. Theodore Nicholas Gill and myself were the first two zoologists ap¬ pointed by Professor Baird to become co-work¬ ers under him as “ associates in zoology ” on the staff of the institution. Shortly after this event, I undertook to examine the collection there of such material as illustrated the morphology of birds. The alcoholic collection contained many specimens of great value; but what interested me most at that time was the collection of bird skeletons. This consisted of a very remarkable, not to say heterogene¬ ous, lot of avian skeletons, none of which were scientifically prepared. Many were roughed out; a large array of them had been cleaned up by the “ sand fleas ” of the seas that wash our Alaskan possessions, and, finally, not a few of them were sterna of birds saved by bird collectors all over the country while skinning specimens for their collections. To show how valuable some parts of the material were, I may say that, in one little pasteboard box, I found the original chicken skulls used by Charles Darwin in Volume One of his “ Animals and Plants Under Domestication ” (Figs. 34, 35 and 36), they evidently having been presented to the Smithsonian either by himself or by Mr. Tegetmeier. (How long they had been in that little box I do not know; at this writing they have been placed in a special case in one of the exhibition halls of the new National Museum!) A great mass of these skeletons had been collected by our northern explorers, as Dali, Elliott, Bean, Nelson, Turner and others, and were in a fairly good condition. All this ma¬ terial was in “ original packages,” that is, in any old receptacle the collector could lay his hands upon in the field — chiefly empty cigar- boxes, all sorts of pasteboard boxes, boxes that had held ammunition for collectors, etc. All had been stored away and was covered with the dust of time. However, I gave the lot a pre¬ liminary going over, and Professor Baird promptly assigned to my department — the de¬ partment of comparative anatomy — an old September 15, 1916] SCIENCE 381 lady with a feather duster, requesting me to make known to him anything else I might re¬ quire. My assistant immediately started in with the duster, and the material was brought to light. A request of mine for an assorted lot of cardboard boxes was favorably consid¬ ered early in my work; in due course the col¬ lection of bird skeletons was boxed , the speci¬ mens labeled, and the whole made accessible for the use of students. At this stage of the proceedings a board appointed by the government found me un¬ fitted for promotion (Doctor Coues was also at work in the Smithsonian Institution), and I was ordered to Mew Orleans. Dr. Lucas suc¬ ceeded me; and through his splendid energy and genius, the department of comparative anatomy was placed on a sound basis, with a wealth of material of all kinds, elegantly ex¬ hibited and cased. Indeed it was, at the close of his regime, the envy and admiration of all the scientific institutions in the world that knew anything about the department. After Dr. Lucas’s connection with the National Mu¬ seum was severed, and I had been, upon second thought of the government, found fitted for promotion and duly ordered west, the depart¬ ment of comparative anatomy seemed to slowly dwindle away, finally being split up among the various divisions of the National Museum. Eventually the bird alcoholics and skeletons drifted into Professor Ridgway’s di¬ vision, and, through no fault of his, a long period of statu quo ante lucasum set in. During my seven years’ study of crime and human psychology and morphology in New York City I wrote but few papers on the osteology of birds, and these were based prin¬ cipally on material sent me by the Bureau of Science at Manila and the Zoological Society of London. Then, when I returned to Wash¬ ington to live, my work in vertebrate anatomy was more actively taken up, as I had deter¬ mined it should be before the sojourn in New York was decided upon. At the end of four or five years or more, when my published me¬ moirs in that field began to run up into the 'dozens, and the figures illustrating them into many hundreds, I found that I was deeply in¬ debted to the United States National Museum for the loan, at different times, of a great number of bird skeletons used in that partic¬ ular field of my work. The assistance ren¬ dered me by that institution has proved in¬ valuable, and the aid given by Professor Ridg- way, and by Dr. Richmond and his assistants, has been and is most thoroughly appreciated. For a year or more past I have observed, without commenting upon the fact, that there has been a slow but steady improvement upon the former condition of things in the section containing the boxed collection of bird skele¬ tons. Notwithstanding his arduous duties as assistant curator of the division of birds, Dr. Richmond has made a requisition for a series of cases to contain the collection, and these are now in use in a fairly convenient place in the department. A “ cleaning up ” gradually followed, and a raking together of all the bird skeletons that were in various rooms in the museum. These were placed in trays, to be eventually cleaned and boxed. But what was to be done with them? Professor Ridgway, deep in completing his great work on “ The Birds of North and Middle America,” could not, even had he wished to do so, think of giv¬ ing the matter a moment’s attention, and Dr. Richmond has as much as he can possibly handle by attending to the affairs of one of the most important departments of the mu¬ seum — the division of birds, with its enormous collection of bird skins, with its library and correspondence, and with other duties too nu¬ merous to mention. At this juncture, through fortunate circum¬ stances, Mr. Alex. Wetmore, of the Biological Survey, became interested in the matter, and through a mutual cooperation of all con¬ cerned, he arranged to put the collection of bird skeletons into the various cases supplied « for them, and to settle the material in place as best he could, after his duties at the survey were over for the day. This has been accom¬ plished as far as could be expected under the circumstances, and Mr. Wetmore has em¬ phasized the interest he has taken in the new order of things by publishing a number of 382 SCIENCE [N. S. VOL. XLIY. No. 1133 brief though important contributions to bird anatomy. The interest of the veteran ornithologist, Mr. Oberholser, has also been aroused, and therefore it is likely that additional good re¬ sults will be forthcoming. Thus matters seem to stand at the present time, and there is hardly any room for doubt but what an added interest is being taken in this most important branch of biology. If it be genuine and progressive, American science is to be heartily congratulated; should it lead to the appointment of a curator of the depart¬ ment of bird anatomy — of one who under¬ stands the aims and needs of such a depart¬ ment and who has the energy to make it in time what it should be, I feel sure that there are congratulations in waiting when such a happy sequel materializes. Personally, I have always regretted that the division of comparative anatomy of the U. S. National Museum was dissolved, as this was a prima facie evidence of a stage of decadence setting in, in a very vital part of the scientific organism. It should be put on foot again in full force, and brought up to the standard where it properly belongs. We are terribly wasteful in such matters; the absence of a division of comparative anatomy in the United States Na¬ tional Museum can only be equaled by the present and corresponding deficiency in the matter of a prosectorial department connected with the National Zoological Park at Wash¬ ington, where animals frequently die and no attempt is made whatever to examine and re¬ port upon their anatomy. America is coming to the front in many things now besides in what the dollar means, and it should be the aim of science to look well to it that this field is brought properly into line. R. W. Shufeldt Washington, D. C. SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS Dr. Percival Lowell and Professor P. Schlesinger have been elected honorary fellows of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Professor S. W. Williston, of the depart¬ ment of geology and paleontology of the Uni¬ versity of Chicago, has been appointed director of the Walker Museum. Professor J. G. Sanders has resigned as state entomologist of Wisconsin to become economic zoologist of Pennsylvania. His work at Harrisburg begins on September 16, 1916. Dr. S. B. Fracker has been appointed acting state entomologist of Wisconsin by the com¬ missioner of agriculture, and will have charge of the work of the state entomologist’s office until a successor to Professor Sanders is ap¬ pointed. C. H. Hadley, Jr., of the department of entomology of Cornell University, has been ap¬ pointed extension entomologist at the Penn¬ sylvania State College. Dr. Robert Armstrong- Jones has retired from the post of medical superintendent of the London County Lunatic Asylum. A special pension has been awarded to him on the recom¬ mendation of the Asylums Committee of the London County Council. Dr. Linsly R. Williams, deputy commis¬ sioner of the New York State department of health, has been appointed by Governor Whit¬ man to conduct an investigation into the pro¬ posed building of a garbage disposal plant for New York City on Staten Island. The Mississippi Valley Conference on tuberculosis will be held at Louisville, Ky., from October 4 to 6, under the presidency of Walter D. Thurber, of Chicago. Mr. Wellington Jones, of the department of geography, University of Chicago, is travel¬ ing in eastern Asia in preparation for the giving of courses in the geography of Asia. The faculty of medicine of the University of Toronto, which suffered from the enlisting of professors for service in connection with the University Base Hospital, will be strengthened by the return of Dr. John J. MacKenzie, pro¬ fessor of pathology and bacteriology, and Dr. Benjamin P. Watson, professor of obstetrics and gynecology. During July the botanical laboratory of the Purdue Experiment Station at Lafayette, Ind., had the services of Dr. Frank D. Kern and Professor C. R. Orton, of the Pennsylvania September 15, 1916] SCIENCE 383 State College; Dr. F. D. Fromme, of the Vir¬ ginia Polytechnic Institute, and Mr. C. A. Ludwig, research student of the University of Michigan, all former members of the labora¬ tory staff. They came to assist in the prepara¬ tion of the remaining parts of the Uredinales for the “ North American Flora.” Professor Lawrence Martin, of the Uni¬ versity of Wisconsin, assisted by Mr. F. T. Thwaites, had a class of 22 men doing field work in geology and geography in the Devil’s Lake region (Wis.), during the month of Au¬ gust. We learn from the J ournal of the American Medical Association that the International Health Board has taken up the consideration of the subject of malaria under the phases of geographic distribution and district of in¬ fection. Two sets of experiments to test the practicability of malaria control are being carried out; one, the detection of the carriers and freeing them of the parasites, and the other a combination of control measures. The first experiment is being carried out in Boli¬ var County, Miss., under the administration of the Mississippi Department of Health, with Dr. Walter S. Leathers, University, as admin¬ istering director and Dr. Charles C. Bass, New Orleans, as scientific director. The field force and microscopists have received their technical training in the laboratory of Tulane Univer¬ sity. The second series of experiments is be¬ ing carried out in Arkansas in cooperation with the United States Public Health Service, under the charge of Surgeon Rudolph H. von Ezdorf. The annual New England forestry confer¬ ence under the auspices of the Society for the Protection of Forests and the New Hampshire State Forestry Commission, was held at the Crawford House, last week. At the formal opening of the conference addresses were made by William L. Hall, chief purchasing agent of the government under the Weeks’ Act, and by William P. Wharton, of Groton. At the general sessions Professor Filibert Roth, di¬ rector of the forest school in the University of Michigan, presented a paper showing how an owner of a wood-lot may estimate the value of his woods. There were addresses by Arthur A. Shurtleff, of Boston; Dr. B. E. Fernow, president of the Society of American Forest¬ ers, and dean of the forestry school of the University of Toronto, and by Professor James A. Tourney, director of the Yale Forest School. Officers of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education elected at the an¬ nual meeting are: President, G. R. Chatburn, University of Nebraska; First Vice-president, Hollis Godfrey, Drexel Institute; Second Vice- president, W. M. Thornton, University of Vir¬ ginia; Secretary, F. L. Bishop, University of Pittsburgh; Treasurer, W. O. Wiley, New York, N. Y. ; Members of the Council to serve for three years, E. J. McCaustland, University of Missouri; F. G. Higbee, State University of Iowa; R. W. Gay, Mississippi College; T. E. French, the Ohio State University; A. H. Blanchard, Columbia University; A. A. Pot¬ ter, Kansas State Agricultural College; Wm. H. Browne, Jr., North Carolina College. Dr. Charles R. Bardeen, professor of anat¬ omy and dean of the medical school of the University of Wisconsin, delivered an address on August 31 before the graduate school of medical sciences of the University of Illinois on “ Study of the Anatomy of the Heart in the Living by the Use of the Roentgen Ray.” The United States Civil Service Commis¬ sion announces an examination for scientific assistant, for men only, on October 4, to fill vacancies in the positions of scientific assist¬ ant and field assistant at $900 to $1,400 per annum in the Bureau of Fisheries, Depart¬ ment of Commerce. The Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, London, will be closed until September 30, when it will reopen with a loan exhibition illus¬ trating the folk-lore of ' London, including medical charms, amulets and other objects found to have been used by the superstitious in connection with the cure and prevention of disease. Through: a gift from Sir Charles Parsons the British National Physical Laboratory has 384 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1133 made arrangements, at the request of the Rontgen Society, for the examination of mate¬ rials employed for the protection of X-ray workers. We learn from the British Medical Journal that the late Miss Mary Hamilton, of Glas¬ gow, left £165,000 to Scottish institutions, in¬ cluding £30,000 to the Western Infirmary, Glasgow, for a Hamilton ward and £7,500 for ordinary purposes; £10,000 to the Glasgow Royal Infirmary for ordinary purposes; £7,500 each to the Glasgow Hospital for Sick Chil¬ dren and the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary; £7,500 to the Victoria Infirmary, Glasgow; £5,000 to the Royal Edinburgh Hospital for Incurables; and £1,000 each to the Glasgow Ophthalmic Institution, Glasgow Hospital for Diseases of the Ear, Hose and Throat, and the Glasgow Eye Infirmary. It is stated in Nature that at the meeting of the City of London Court of Common Council, on July 20, it was resolved: (1) That in view of the great advantages which would accrue to British commerce in foreign markets by the use of the decimal system of coinage and weights and measures, in the opinion of this court it is desirable that steps should be taken to ensure its immediate introduction, so that it may be already in operation at the conclusion of the war; (2) that in view of the fact that England and the Allies are entering into arrangements for concerted action with regard to future trade matters, it would be of immense value if one language could be recog¬ nized as the commercial language, and taught in all schools, here and abroad. By so doing, English, French, Russian, Esperanto or any other language decided on would form the basis of communication on business matters throughout the world. At the fifty-third meeting of the American Chemical Society, to be held in Mew York City during the last week of September, the division of biological chemistry will hold, on Wednesday morning, September 27, a joint session with the division of physical and in¬ organic chemistry to discuss theoretical col¬ loid chemistry. On Thursday morning a joint session with the division of industrial chem¬ ists and chemical engineers will be held to dis¬ cuss the practical applications of colloid chem¬ istry. On Friday and Saturday mornings the division of biological chemistry will meet for the presentation and discussion of the papers of its regular program. Papers on colloidal chemistry are as follows: D. B. Lake, “Irreversible Absorption of Dyes. ” A. B. Macallum, “Surface Tension of Proto¬ plasm. ’ ’ G. H. A. Clowes, “Phase Relations in Biological Systems. ’ ’ W. D. Bancroft, “Displacement of Equilibrium of Catalytic Agents. ’ ’ E. E. Farnan, ‘ ‘ Stabilization. ’ ’ E. L. Mack, ‘ 1 Showerproofing. ’ ’ J. M. Ball, ‘ 1 The Photographic Developer. ’ ' Irving Langmuir, “Structure of Liquids with Particular Reference to Surface Tension. ” T. R. Briggs, “Electrical Endosmose.” Charles Baskerville, “Refining of Oils.” C. J. Fink, “Relation between Chemical Com¬ position and Electrical Resistance.” T. R. Briggs, “Paints.” L. A. Keane, “Yellow Bricks.” D. Spence, “Vulcanization of Rubber.” A. W. Davison, “Adsorption of Chromium Hide Powder. ’ ’ A. W. Fisher, “Adsorption of Sulphuric Acid by Hide Powder.” Clifford Richardson, ‘ ‘ Asphalt. ’ ’ L. A. Keane, “Plaster of Paris.” Jerome Alexander, “Selective Adsorption and Differential Diffusion. ’ ’ H. W. Gillett, “Emulsion and Suspensions with Molten Metals.” C. L. Parsons, ‘ ‘ The Purification of Kaolin. ’ ’ W. D. Bancroft, “Fritting and Fusing.” UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS The University of Chicago has received a fund to create the Edith Barnard Memorial Fellowship in Chemistry. Miss Barnard, who was instructor in the department of chemis¬ try when she died, had received three degrees in science from the university, that of bachelor of science in 1903, that of master of science in 1905, and that of doctor of philosophy in 1907 ; and she had been connected with the department for ten years. September 15, 1916] SCIENCE 385 Berea College announces a gift of $10,000 from the late James Talcott, of New York City, received shortly before his death. This gift was part of a total pledge for $40,000 for the erection of a girls’ dormitory, which will be ready for occupancy on January 1. Tile New York School of Dental Hygiene has become allied with the new Columbia Uni¬ versity School of Dentistry and the College of Physicians and Surgeons. The school will open on September 27, classes being held in the Vanderbilt Clinic. Irving H. Blake, A.M. (Brown, ’12), in¬ structor in the Oregon Agricultural College, has been appointed instructor in the depart¬ ment of zoology, Syracuse University. Mr. Charles Colby, recently of the Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, Tenn., has become instructor in geography at the Uni¬ versity of Chicago. At the University of Chicago, Anton Julius Carlson, of the department of physiology, and Charles Manning Child, of the department of zoology, have been promoted to professorships. Lee Irving Knight, of the department of botany, has been promoted to an assistant pro¬ fessorship. New appointments are: Ernest Watson Burgess, of Ohio State University, to be assistant professor in the department of sociology and anthropology; Professor Jean Piccard, of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, to be assistant professor in the department of chemistry, and Dr.' W. B. Sharpe and William E. Cary, to be instructors in the department of hygiene and bacteriology. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE PRESIDENT WILSON’S SCIENTIFIC APPOINT¬ MENTS The two articles in Science of August 25, 1916, on “ Scientific Appointments under the Government ” and “ President Wilson’s Scien¬ tific Appointments ” are interesting and sug¬ gestive, but not entirely convincing. They do not fully cover the question; the writers were apparently not familiar with a number of facts which have a very important bearing upon the point at issue. In fairness to all concerned it is necessary to call attention to a few scien¬ tific appointments made by the Wilson admin¬ istration about which the writers failed to en¬ lighten the readers of Science and The Scien¬ tific Monthly. In the first place, it has been generally understood (and even claimed by some of the parties interested) that the original adminis¬ tration slate contemplated the appointment of E. Lester Jones to the position of commis¬ sioner of fisheries. That this slate was broken is much to the credit of the American Society of Naturalists and the American Society of Zoologists. But what followed? The presi¬ dent immediately appointed Mr. Jones deputy commissioner of fisheries. That position, in many respects, even more important to science than that of the commissionership itself, and which should have been filled only upon the recommendation of the commissioner, was at once filled by the appointment of Mr. Jones. The commissioner of fisheries was not even consulted. He was completely ignored by the president and the secretary of commerce not only in this case but in other important ap¬ pointments in the bureau of fisheries, a few of which may be mentioned. One of the first was the appointment, without even consulting the commissioner of fisheries, of a young man as private secretary to the commissioner. It would seem that the chief of an important bureau should be permitted to select his own private secretary, the position being so distinc¬ tively personal and confidential. The young man appointed was, it is understood, from the home town of John H. Rothermel, at that time a congressman from Pennsylvania and chairman of a committee of the House that had been for some years conducting certain fur-seal hearings. The young man was neither a stenographer nor a typewriter (it was said he was a plumber). It was said at the time (and there is every reason to believe it was true) that he was appointed as a spy to keep Rothermel and Henry W. Elliott informed as to the commissioner’s relations to fur-seal matters, in which Rothermel at that time was very active — so active, indeed, that at the next 386 SCIENCE [N. S. Yol. XLIY. No. 1133 election, he was unable to explain certain charged irregularities and his constituents de¬ clined to return him to congress. Another flagrant violation of the principles of the civil service and a total disregard of fit¬ ness was the appointment of one H. O. Smith, of Palestine, Illinois, as chief Alaska salmon agent. This appointment was made without consulting the commissioner of fisheries or the chief of the Alaska fisheries service, and after the secretary of commerce had assured the commissioner of fisheries that he would pro¬ mote to the position the assistant Alaska sal¬ mon agent, Mr. Ward T. Bower, a thoroughly competent and experienced man. H. O. Smith openly claimed that his appointment was made at the instance of Senator James Hamilton Lewis, of Illinois. The duties of the Alaska salmon agent, like those of a deputy commissioner of fisheries, are highly technical, and require special knowledge and experience of the fisheries. Neither Mr. Jones nor Mr. Smith possessed even elementary knowledge of fishes or fisher¬ ies; it was apparent that neither could tell a salmon from a sucker. Each of them made at least one tour of inspection of the Alaska fisheries, bringing discredit upon the bureau wherever they went, so lacking were they in knowledge or appreciation of the problems of the fisheries. The voluminous and profusely illustrated report by the deputy commissioner will probably never be excelled in the number of inaccuracies, absurd statements, fairy stor¬ ies and erroneous conclusions it contains. One other case may be mentioned, one with which the National Academy of Sciences is concerned. In the spring of 1914 the admin¬ istration decided to send a special commission of zoologists to the seal islands of Alaska. The secretary of commerce, when a member of congress, had voted for a bill which pro¬ hibits all commercial killing of fur seals for five years in spite of the fact that every zool¬ ogist in America, England, Russia and Japan who had studied our fur-seal herd advised against such a course. Having taken a position favoring the sus¬ pension of commercial killing the secretary might very properly decline to reverse his opinion until he had secured further informa¬ tion. The administration thought this infor¬ mation could be secured by sending a special commission to the islands. To assist in select¬ ing the members of the commission the presi¬ dent asked the National Academy of Sciences, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and the secretary of agriculture each to nomi¬ nate one member of the commission. This was done. The National Academy of Sciences nominated a very able and distinguished zool¬ ogist, Dr. George H. Parker, of Harvard Uni¬ versity. The commission went to the seal is¬ lands in the summer of 1914, made a study of the seal herd and, upon their return to Wash¬ ington, submitted a very comprehensive re¬ port, in which, evidently to the surprise of the secretary of commerce, every important thing for which Clark, Jordan, Evermann, Stej- neger, Lucas, Osborn, Townsend, Merriam, Lembkey and others familiar with fur-seal matters had contended, was sustained. The report contained a number of recom¬ mendations, the most important of which was the immediate repeal of the law which pro¬ hibits commercial killing of seals, and for which Mr. Redfield had voted and which he had said, as late as October 13, 1913, was “ a sound and wise one.” Dr. Parker and his associates submitted their report to the commissioner of fisheries on January 23, 1915, by whom it was promptly transmitted to Secretary Redfield on J anuary 25. Although the report contained recom¬ mendations of vital importance to the fur-seal herd, which if acted upon promptly would save hundreds of thousands of dollars to the government as well as save the seal herd from irreparable injury, Mr. Redfield pigeonholed the report for more than three weeks and did not transmit it to congress until Eebruary 17, only a few days before congress adjourned. And, very strangely, and to the great disap¬ pointment of the commission, Mr. Redfield studiously refrained from calling attention to any of the recommendations of the commis¬ sion; nor did he make any recommendation himself that congress should take any action September 15, 1916] SCIENCE 387 on the recommendations of the commission. In fact, it is understood that it was Mr. Red- field’s desire that congress should not take any action. He wholly ignored, and wished con¬ gress to ignore, the recommendations of the commission named by the Rational Academy of Sciences, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and the secretary of agriculture. It would be proper for the Rational Academy of Sciences, the official adviser of the govern¬ ment on scientific matters, to ask the president wffiat action, if any, has been taken on the recommendations of the board which it as¬ sisted in naming; and if called upon again for expert advice, the academy would do well to inquire whether any attention would be paid to its advice when given. The statement in The Scientific Monthly article that E. Lester Jones “has proved to be an efficient executive ” was probably made without intimate knowledge of the facts. It is well known in the bureau of fisheries that just the reverse was true, as was clearly shown by the very extravagant and unbusiness-like administration of Alaska fishery matters of which Mr. Jones took entire charge. Two or three illustrations may be given. It is under¬ stood that the sending of supplies to the seal islands under Mr. Jones’s management cost the government several thousand dollars more than it had cost before, and yet the natives suffered severely for want of food. A certain important scientific investigation of the Alaska salmon, begun in 1910 and which required at least six years to reach conclusive results, was stopped in 1914, thus breaking the continuity of the investigation, with the result that the whole thing must be done over again if the results are to be of any value. If these illustrations of inefficiency are not enough, inquiry might be made regarding the boat Roosevelt purchased by Mr. Jones for the Alaska service. But if the appointment of a politician to the head of a scientific bureau is justified because the appointee proves to be a good executive, then President McKinley’s appointment of Mr. Bowers as Commissioner of Fisheries is fully justified, as Mr. Bowers proved to be an excellent executive, who gave the bureau of fisheries a thoroughly business-like adminis¬ tration, during which more real productive scientific work was done than ever before by the bureau. Barton Warren Evermann FIREFLIES FLASHING IN UNISON In Science of February 4, 1916, page 169, I recorded for the first time an observation made fifty years ago of a large number of fireflies flashing in perfect unison. I have been on the lookout ever since that time for a confirma¬ tion of my observations, consulting every book on entomology and watching the fireflies ever since for the recurrence of this phenom¬ enon without success. In Nature for December 9, 1915, is recorded a paper by W. G. Blair, Esq., entitled “ Luminous Insects ” in which reference is made to the remarkable synchron¬ ism of the flashes in certain species of Euro¬ pean fireflies. A somewhat extended extract is given from Mr. Blair’s address. A copy of this paper was sent to my friend Professor E. B. Poulton, of Oxford, and in return he has sent me a proof sheet from a book he is editing entitled “A Raturalist in Borneo” by R. Shelford, who died a few years ago, a former assistant of Professor Poulton. I am taking the liberty of presenting an extract from this advanced page: On the opposite bank was a small tree growing close to the water’s edge, which was covered with thousands of fire-flies, small beetles of the family Lampyridae ; and I observed that the light emitted by these little creatures pulsated in a regular synchronous rhythm, so that at one mo¬ ment the tree would be one blaze of light, whilst at another the light would be dim and uncertain. This concerted action of thousands of insects is very remarkable and not easy of explanation. Another instance of it was mentioned by Cox; certain ants that are found very frequently pro¬ ceeding in columns along the floor of the jungle, when alarmed, knock their heads against the leaves or dead sticks which they happen to be traversing; every member of a community makes the necessary movement at the same time, and as the movements are rapid a distinct loud rattling sound is heard. In this case the action is prob¬ ably a danger-signal, and we can understand — theoretically at any rate — how it was brought 388 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1133 about. But the value to the species of the rhythmic-light pulsation of the fire-flies is not obvious, and as it is doubtful if the emission of phosphorescent light is under the control of the insect, or is merely a simple automatic process of metabolism, its synchronism is a most puzzling fact. Dr. Hermon C. Bumpus wrote me that some years ago in riding from Falmouth to Woods Hole his attention was arrested by noticing in a field along the road a large number of fire¬ flies flashing synchronously. Edward S. Morse A FURTHER NOTE ON POLYRAD I ATE CESTODES The issue of Science for February 4, 1916, N. S., Vol. 43, No. 1101, page 170, contains a note by Professor Barker referring to my article on “ Polyradiate Cestodes ” published in the Journal of Parasitology , September, 1915, calling attention to the omission of his previously reported cases of triradiate speci¬ mens of Tcenia pisiformis and T. serialis, and to my error in considering that the case of triradiate T. pisiformis which I reported was the first on record. This is a valid criticism and it is regrettable that Professor Barker’s paper should have been overlooked. None of the other criticisms made by Professor Barker, however, seems justifiable. In the first place, in regard to the specific identification of the parasite, it has been my experience in the course of several years, dur¬ ing which time a large number of specimens of dog tapeworms have been examined, that Tcenia pisiformis may be readily determined upon the basis of the gravid segments alone. As to the other criticisms made by Professor Barker, although I attach much less impor¬ tance to the results of the feeding experiments which I carried out than Professor Barker ap¬ parently supposes (for the reason that the re¬ sults of a single experiment of that kind are of no great value as a rule, except when supple¬ mented by the results of other experiments) it seems proper to discuss briefly certain points in my paper which appear to have been mis¬ interpreted by Professor Barker. With reference to using, in feeding experi¬ ments, material which had been in formalin for a few days, it was noted in my article that the use of such material on several other occasions had always resulted in the infestation of the experiment animals. In fact it has been found by repeated experience by myself and others in this laboratory, that the ova of T. pisiforis are extremely resistant to the action of for¬ malin. Rabbits fed segments of T. pisiformis which have been kept a few days in a solution of formalin, not infrequently die shortly after¬ wards and on postmortem examination show a massive invasion of the liver with the early larval stage of the parasite. It is a well-known fact that in the case of several species of parasites, the ova of which are characterized by a relatively thick egg shell, the eggs are affected but little if at all by formalin solutions. Ascarid eggs for ex¬ ample may be kept alive for months or even years, in formalin. Morris1 when examining some human feces which contained many eggs of Ascaris lumbricoides and which had been preserved in a 2 per cent, solution of formalin for two years, found that some of the eggs contained actively motile embryos. Four months later there was an apparent increase in the number of eggs containing embryos. In my own experience it has been found that a formalin solution is a very satisfactory medium in which to incubate ascarid eggs, as it pre¬ vents the growth of molds, bacteria, etc., with¬ out interfering with the development of the embryos. Various other substances commonly destructive to protoplasm have been found not to interfere with the development of ascarid eggs. Leuckart2 notes that the eggs of Ascaris mystax may reach complete development in alcohol, chromic acid and turpentine, while Bataillon3 has had ova of Ascaris megalo- cephala showing living embryos after having been for six months in Flemming’s solution. The latter also finds that the embryos in the eggs remain intact and active in 50 per cent, alco- 1 Johns Hoplcins Hospital Bulletin, Yol. 22, August, 1911, pp. 299-300. 2 “Die mensehlichen Parasiten, ” Yol. 2, 1 Lief., 1867, p. 212. 3 Arch. Bntwickelungsmech., Yol. 2, 1901, p. 149. September 15, 1916] SCIENCE 389 hoi, in a 33% per cent, solution of acetic acid and in a 20 per cent, sulphuric acid solution. Concerning Professor Barker’s suggestion in regard to the uncertainty as to the previous natural infection of the rabbit used, it should be noted that in the article in the Journal of Parasitology I stated that it could not be positively demonstrated that the rabbit was un¬ infested at the time it was fed. Attention, however, was called to the fact that spontane¬ ous infestation among rabbits from the same source was unknown, and it was considered that this was very strong evidence for assum¬ ing that the cysticerci found in the rabbit re¬ sulted from the feeding experiment. How strong this presumptive evidence was will be seen from the following : The records of the Bureau of Animal Indus¬ try Experiment station at Bethesda, Md., show that about 5,000 rabbits have been reared and used for laboratory purposes. By inquiry among the members of the bureau laboratories where these rabbits have been used, it was learned that cysticerci have never been ob¬ served in any case except as the result of ex¬ periments in which tapeworm eggs were fed to the animals. As all these rabbits are reared under practically identical conditions and the greater number of them during and subsequent to the experiments in which they are used, are kept until death under essentially the same conditions as my experiment rabbit, it would seem that the feeding experiment with pro- glottids of a triradiate T. pisiformis was very well safeguarded by checks, and that the results though (as was noted) not conclusive, justified the statements which I made to the effect that the feeding experiment in question tended to show that normal larvae may result from the eggs of triradiate adults, and on the other hand that it failed to demonstrate the develop¬ ment of abnormal larvae from polyradiate adults. In other words, recognizing the inade¬ quacy of a single feeding experiment, I did not draw any definite conclusions from the re¬ sults. I accepted these results merely as indi¬ cating certain probabilities and placed them on record so that they would be available for reference to others who might have opportu¬ nity to undertake feeding experiments with the eggs of polyradiate cestodes. Winthrop D. Foster Zoological Division, Bureau of Animal Industry, U. S. Department of Agriculture QUOTATIONS SCIENCE AND COMMERCE In commenting on the report of the National Physical Laboratory for 1915-16, Nature re¬ calls the serious anxiety caused to those re¬ sponsible for the supply of optical munitions by the shortage of suitable glass at the begin¬ ning of the war, for the industry of optical glass production had tended more and more to become a German monopoly. With the aid of a grant from the Privy Council Committee for Scientific and Industrial Research, a num¬ ber of inquiries were instituted. So far the main work has been directed to the production of satisfactory pots, since one of the principal difficulties in the manufacture of optical glass lies in the choice of suitable material for the pots in which it is made. Similar work on heat-resisting materials, and generally on the behavior of the rare earths and other sub¬ stances at high temperatures, is of great im¬ portance in a large number of industrial proc¬ esses, but for such work a technological labora¬ tory on a large scale is needed, and will, it is hoped, be provided. Other research on chem¬ ical and other glasses has been done during the year by the National Laboratory, as well as by other institutions. The work is of the utmost national and scientific importance, and our scientific contemporary expresses the hope that the committee will spare no effort “ to ensure that it is actively continued and extended, and that in the future no risk shall be run of this fundamentally important industry passing into foreign hands.” The committee is in a good position to achieve the first object, and the acquisition of scientific knowledge and the perfecting of technical methods will make the attainment of the second possible, but it will not do more; commercial organization is necessary, and also probably state action. As an example of what 390 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1133 happens we may say that we had occasion a short time ago to make some inquiries as to a particular kind of glass, and found that though its formula was due to British re¬ search, and though it had been and perhaps is still being made in this country, commer¬ cial control was in the hands of foreigners. The position with regard to the production of fine chemicals and synthetic drugs and the commerce in them is very similar to that in which the authorities of the National Phys¬ ical Laboratory found the manufacture of optical glass. In commenting, in the Journal of August 12, on the resolutions adopted by the Annual Representative Meeting recom¬ mending medical practitioners to avoid using drugs made in Germany or Austria if iden¬ tical substances manufactured by ourselves or by our Allies can be obtained, and instructing the council to bring to the notice of the gov¬ ernment the possibility of guaranteeing pro¬ tection to firms willing to lay down plants to manufacture drugs and chemicals made in Germany before the war, we pointed out that while it was probably the opinion of the major¬ ity of chemical manufacturers that some form of government assistance by tariff or other¬ wise was necessary, yet a considerable degree of cooperation among manufacturers is a more fundamental requisite for the establishment of the manufacture of synthetic drugs on a sound commercial basis. It is probably owing to the resolutions of the Annual Representative Meeting and this com¬ ment on them that Dr. Sidney Barwise, med¬ ical officer for Derbyshire, has sent us a copy of a pamphlet on economics and the war which he published last May. Dr. Barwise refers to the resolution adopted by the Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom “ that the strength and the safety of the empire lie in ability to produce what it requires from its own soil and factories,” and compares it with a famous pronouncement of Alexander Hamil¬ ton during the American War of Independ¬ ence : “ Every nation . . . ought to endeavor to possess within itself all the essentials of na¬ tional supply. These comprise the means of subsistence, habitation, clothing and defence. . . . The possession of these is necessary to the progress of the body politic; to the safety as well as to the welfare of the society. . . . To effect this change, as fast as shall be prudent, merits all the attention and the zeal of our public councils ; it is the next great work to be accomplished.” Far be it from us to enter upon the thorny controversy as to free trade and tariff reform, which excites a degree of bitterness in the ex¬ treme champions on either side difficult for persons of scientific training to understand, but we are entitled to call attention to the effect on the nation’s health and virility of the exodus from country to town, due in part at least to the depression of agriculture and the fact that peasant proprietors in Great Britain are so few as to be negligible in any general view. One result of the fiscal policy of Germany has been to keep the people on the land and to encourage small freeholders; in thirteen years one and a half million acres were thrown into small holdings. A similar fiscal policy in France has had a similar result. Before the passing of the Meline tariff law of 1892 France imported 441 million francs’ worth of agricultural produce; ten years later she was exporting an excess of 152 million francs’ worth, peasant proprietors had in¬ creased and the tide of population was set back from the town to the land. In thirty years the import of cereals into Great Britain more than doubled, while the population in¬ creased by less than a third. In the same issue of Nature as that from which we have already quoted there is a note on a recent re¬ port by Mr. T. H. Middleton, assistant secre¬ tary of the Board of Agriculture. He shows that it is not an empty boast to say that on each hundred acres of cultivated land Ger¬ many feeds seventy people, while Britain can only feed forty-five. According to this re¬ port, the two chief factors in the recent re¬ markable development of German agriculture are a settled economic policy and a well- thought-out system of agricultural education; coupled with these is the belief of the German farmer that he was essential to the community and that his land should not be allowed to go September 15, 1916] SCIENCE 391 out of cultivation. Mr. Middleton states that the chief immediate cause of the increased productivity of German soil is the increase in use of artificial manures; twice as much nitro¬ gen, one third more phosphate, and five times as much potash are used in Germany as on an equal area of our cultivated land. The reason Mr. Middleton gives for this failure of the British farmer is want of education, but he thinks that this defect in our educational sys¬ tem is being remedied. There are, however, undoubtedly other causes, which might more quickly be removed, for the depression which has affected British agriculture during the last seventy and especially the last thirty or forty years. — British Medical Journal. SCIENTIFIC BOOKS An Introduction to the Study of Color Vision. By J. Herbert Parsons, D.Sc., P.R.C.S., Ophthalmic Surgeon, University College Hospital; Surgeon, Boyal London Ophthal¬ mic Hospital. Cambridge, University Press. 1915. 308 pp. Dr. Parsons has undertaken to present the facts and the theories of color vision in such form as shall be intelligible to the general reader. He states in his preface: The vast literature on color vision consists al¬ most entirely of papers written in support of some particular theory. It is peculiarly difficult to obtain a general and unbiased view of the sub¬ ject. I have here endeavored to separate the best established facts of color vision from the theories, and have then discussed the chief theories in the light of these facts. Accordingly he has divided his book into three parts. The first part (pp. 1-157) is de¬ voted to a statement of the facts of normal color vision; the second part (pp. 158-192) deals with the facts of color-blindness ; and the remaining portion (pp. 193-299) discusses theories of color vision. The author’s statement of the facts of nor¬ mal color vision is prefaced by a brief sum¬ mary of such phenomena of physical optics and such a description of the structure and function of the visual organ as shall serve as a basis for his subsequent discussion. This is followed by a description of the color vision of the light-adapted eye and of the dark-adapted eye, together with a summary of the temporal and spatial effects of retinal stimulation (after-images, contrast, color- zones and the like). His chapter on the evo¬ lution of the color-sense presents evidence de¬ rived from the color vision of the lower ani¬ mals, from the color vision of primitive peo¬ ples, and from the color vision of infants. The description of color-blindness summarizes the findings obtained in various investigations of certain typical deviations from normal color vision. The chapters on theories of color vision are prefaced by an historical sketch of the development of color theories, and this is followed by a summary statement of the most widely accepted theories. Dr. Parsons has attempted a difficult task in his endeavor to present a readable summary of the exceedingly voluminous and exceed¬ ingly controversial literature of color vision; and his book bears evidence of painstaking effort and keen insight. The author has exer¬ cised sound judgment in selecting and pre¬ senting his material; and for the most part he has maintained an admirably non-partisan attitude throughout — except, perhaps, in deal¬ ing with the duplicity theory where his approval is more complete than the facts seem to the re¬ viewer to warrant. The features in Dr. Par¬ sons’s book which are most likely to excite criti¬ cism are the author’s tendency toward an un¬ critical statement of the findings of the vari¬ ous investigators, and his failure to recapitu¬ late his mass of summaries and to give the reader a brief statement of the present status of the various problems. There is perhaps no field of investigation in which the refinement of apparatus and of technique has made greater progress within the past decade or two than in the field of color vision; it follows, therefore, that many of the earlier investiga¬ tions now possess no more than historical value. It seems to the reviewer to be doubtful wisdom to lump together the findings of good, bad and indifferent investigations, and to pre¬ sent them to the reader without any attempt at critical evaluation. In several instances the 392 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1133 author has employed a loose form of state¬ ment — for instance, he speaks of “ physiolog¬ ical sensations” (p. 162), and he employs the term color throughout in an' equivocal and confusing fashion, sometimes referring to color-stimulus and sometimes to color-sensa¬ tion; a few inaccuracies of statement are also to be found, of which perhapq the most serious is the assertion that the extreme peripheral region of the retina is totally color-blind (p. 71; p. 258). Although the book will be of doubtful service to elementary students, it may safely be recommended to more advanced workers as a supplement to the earlier and more critical summaries by Mrs. Ladd-Frank- lin and others in Baldwin’s “ Dictionary,” and by Rivers in Schafer’s “ Text-Book of Physi¬ ology.” J. W. Baird Clark University SPECIAL ARTICLES THE MAMMALIAN ERYTHROCYTE— A BICON¬ CAVE DISC1 The existence of “ bell ”- or “ cup ’’-shaped red corpuscles in mammalian blood has been recorded frequently since the early observa¬ tions of Leeuwenhoek (1719). 2 The serious proposal that the cup, and not the classic bi¬ concave disc, is to be considered normal is, however, a comparatively recent teaching which has been received with considerable skepticism. Since these concavo-convex cor¬ puscles may be found in drawn blood, in fixed tissues, and even in circulating blood, the issue obviously hinges on the determination of which is the normal and which the derived form — one or the other representing a modification. 1. Examination of Drawn Blood. — It has been claimed (Weidenreich, ’02, 3 et seq. ; Lewis ’04) 4 that drawn blood examined im- 1 Prom the Anatomical Laboratory of the North¬ western University Medical School, Contribution No. 43, July 2, 1916. 2 Leeuwenhoek, A., 1 ‘ Epistolse physiologicse, ’ ’ epistola 44, 1719. 3 Weidenreich, F., Arch. f. mile. Anat., Bd. 61, pp. 459-507, 1902. 4 Lewis, F. T., Jour. Med. Research, Vol. 10 (N. S., 5), pp. 513-517, 1904. mediately on a warm slide is favorable for the demonstration of cups. According to this view, the assumption of the familiar disc-shape depends on an almost instantaneous change due to the evaporation and concentration of plasma before the preparation can be made and examined. That the disc-form is normal has been as¬ serted by Jordan (’15)5 working with blood, diluted with physiological solutions, in cul¬ ture slides, and by Lohner (’10) 6 who em¬ ployed a cabinet of sufficient size to contain a microscope and to permit the free use of his hands, introduced through appropriate open¬ ings. Within this apparatus, heated to 38° C. and saturated with moisture, blood was drawn from the finger and examined. Lohner re¬ ports that the blood corpuscles were “ stets und ausschliesslich ” biconcave discs. In ordinary warm slide- and cover-prepara¬ tions, made as quickly as possible, I have ob¬ served a few cups only, but have never fol¬ lowed the transformation of these into discs as the newer hypothesis suggests. The momen¬ tary exposure to air necessitated in making ordinary preparations may be practically elim¬ inated by utilizing the following method. Superimposed cover glasses, separated by a hair, are fused at one point by heat ; if an edge be now applied to a needle prick in the finger, and the finger squeezed, the issuing blood is drawn in by capillarity. Such preparations, examined quickly, have never yielded evidence for the general existence of the cup-shape. A few cups may usually be found, whereas scores of indubitable discs appear. Since the experiments of Ranvier, in 1875, 7 it has been known that graded temperatures can alter disc-shaped corpuscles to shallow cups, thick-walled cups or even to spheres — e. g., typical cups are found exclusively when blood is warmed to 55° C. (Zoth).8 Is it pos¬ sible that some investigators, who advocate the •5 Jordan, H. E., Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol, and Med., Vol. 12, No. 7, pp. 167-169, 1915. e Lohner, L., Arch. f. gesam. Physiol., Bd. 131, pp. 408-424, -1910. 7 Ranvier, L., ‘ ‘ Traite technique d ’Histologie, ’ ’ 1st ed., Paris, 1875. s Zoth. Vide Lohner, op. cit. September 15, 1916] SCIENCE 393 cup shape, have heated unduly their slides and covers in overzealous attempts to maintain normal (!) conditions? Experimentation in which various “physio¬ logical solutions ” are used for the dilution of blood may ever, though perhaps unjustly, be subjected to criticism. At best these are arti¬ ficial media, the tonicity and colloidal consti¬ tution of which may or may not simulate blood plasma. To preclude such criticism natural serum must be used. Accordingly, I had 20 c.c. of blood drawn from my basilic vein. This was defibrinated by whipping and centrifuged quickly; thus an examining medium was ob¬ tained, identical with blood plasma except for the loss of one of its minor protein constituents — fibrin. By utilizing an electrically heated warm- stage, hollow-centered life slides, cover glasses, as well as the air of the cell itself, may be maintained constantly at body temperature. A drop of serum was placed on a finger, previ¬ ously cleaned with alcohol, and the finger pricked through the drop. The droplet of blood, thus diluted, was touched to a cover and suspended, as a hanging drop in the life cell. Vaseline served to seal the cell, the air in which could be kept saturated with moisture by introducing previously a drop of water and sealing. A few seconds only are required to make such preparations; if a large drop of serum be used the loss by evaporation prior to sealing is inconsiderable, whereas further evap¬ oration in the cell can not occur. A microscopic examination of blood pre¬ pared according to this technique reveals nu¬ merous isolated corpuscles. A favorable place for scrutiny is near the center of the drop. Here sinking corpuscles revolve slowly, show¬ ing alternately their concave faces. Usually a few cups can be found, whereas quantities of discs are seen in every field. This experiment may be varied by filling shallow concave slides with serum into which the drop of diluted blood is introduced. Evaporation is prevented by sealing with a cover and vaseline. Human sera, kindly furnished by three of my colleagues, gave results identical with those already described, both when corpuscles were examined in their own serum and in each of the other sera. Similar tests have also been made with .85 per cent, and .9 per cent, saline, and with Tyrode’s solution. More cogent proof concerning the primary shape of the mammalian erythrocyte, to be derived from the study of drawn blood, I can not imagine. Various dilutions of human serum with dis¬ tilled water were next prepared. When a droplet of blood is mixed with a drop of di¬ luted serum containing ca. 40 per cent, water and examined as before, typical cups are found almost exclusively; in dilutions con¬ taining ca. 65 per cent, water deeply dimpled spheroids appear; perfect spheres result when the water content is ca. 70 per cent. In con¬ centrated serum erythrocytes crenate. It is evident, therefore, that the shape of a cor¬ puscle is, at least in part, a function of the concentration, i. e., the osmotic pressure, of its medium. In progressively hypotonic solu¬ tions corpuscles imbibe increasing amounts of water, ultimately becoming spheres and lak- ing. In hypertonic media, water is given up and crenation results. It is interesting to note that between wide limits these form changes are repeatedly reversible — for example, cre- nated corpuscles may be restored to the disc- or cup-shape and then recrenated. The importance of these dilution phenom¬ ena on the question of the normal shape of erythrocytes seems to me paramount. Since the form of a corpuscle depends on the concen¬ tration of its medium, how can the cup-shape be normal when human serum must be diluted one third to produce this type ? Experimentation with the serum of cats and dogs has given comparable results, both with their own and with human corpuscles. The rat, guinea-pig and rabbit have afforded vari¬ able pictures, which I believe indicate that the rodent’s blood plasma may possess individual variability in its tonicity, thereby rendering this group of animals unfitted for experimen¬ tation of this kind.9 o Details will be given in a later contribution of which present paper constitutes a preliminary note. 394 SCIENCE [N. S. Yol. XLIY. No. 1133 2. Observations on Circulating Blood. — Weidenreich reported having observed cup¬ shaped corpuscles in the mesentery of the rab¬ bit (’02) and in the wing of the dormant bat (’03). 10 Lewis (’04) drew similar conclusions from a study of the guinea-pig’s omentum, whereas Triolo (’05)11 recorded finding com¬ plete spheres in this animal. Jolly (’05 et seq.),12 working on the wing of bats restored from hibernation, and Schafer (’12) 13 on cer¬ tain mammals (sp. ?) maintain that discs oc¬ cur. Jordan (’09) 14 found both types, in ap¬ proximately equal numbers, in the cat. To avoid the pressure on the vessels caused by the ordinary use of a cover glass and an oil immersion objective, I employed Tyrode’s so¬ lution (without a cover glass) as in the water- immersion objective of former days. A Leitz no. 4 dry objective and a no. 12 compensating ocular, with the draw tube set at 190 mm. also gave satisfactory magnification. The omenta of 8 cats and 2 dogs were stud¬ ied for periods of from 1 to 4 hours. The ani¬ mals used were in a state of deep surgical shock, the anesthetic having been stopped 2 to 4 hours previously. Regions of the omen¬ tum where temporary stasis has caused cor¬ puscles to adhere in clumps or agglutinated masses I do not consider favorable. Ordinary circulation is much too rapid to enable one to make accurate observations. It is sometimes possible, however, to find a bifurcation of medium sized vessels in which the rapid flow selects one limb almost exclusively, separate corpuscles, nevertheless, being intermittently “ kicked off ” into the slowly moving plasma of the other limb. Such a situation, where the flow is rapid and normal (to find which has sometimes necessitated an hour or more of diligent search) I regard as most favorable for 10 Weidenreich, F., Ergeb. d. Anat. u. Entwiclcl., Bd. 13, pp. 1-94, 1910. 11 Triolo, Gazz. d. ospitali, Milano, Yol. 26, p. 393, 1905. 12 Jolly, J., Comp. rend. soc. biol., T. 58, pp. pp. 481-483, 1905. is Schafer, E. A., “Quain’s Anatomy, ” Vol. 2, Pt. 1; 11th ed., Longmans, Green & Co., London, 8vo, 11 and 739 pp., 1912. i4 Jordan, H. E., Anat. Anz., Bd. 34, No. 16 u. 17, pp. 406-412, 1909. study.15 Criticisms of pressure from the microscope and of observing capillaries so small that the corpuscles must adjust them¬ selves to their exiguous confines are obviated. Erythrocytes emerging from the main stream in the way indicated were found to be almost exclusively discs; most of these cor¬ puscles are revolving when first seen and it is easy to be certain of their biconcavity. In such situations I have observed, and have shown to my colleagues, hundreds of discs with only an occasional cup- or saucer-form. In anesthetized guinea-pigs and rabbits cups were very common, and in a dog, under ether anesthesia, a great preponderance of cup- shapes were observed. Is the anesthetic re¬ sponsible for the cup-shape? The following experiment is highly suggestive. A hanging drop preparation of human blood, or of the blood of a cat or dog, diluted with serum is made. If a drop of ether or chloroform be introduced into the bottom of the cell, the drop takes on the vapor and the discs are seen to change rapidly first to shallow cups, then to deep cups and spheres. I believe that my observations indicate that the erythrocytes of normal circulating mam¬ malian blood are biconcave discs, the burden of proof resting on those who have used an¬ esthetized animals to show that the anesthetic held in the blood is not responsible for the pre¬ ponderance of cups observed. 3. Action of Fixitives. — l!dany workers have recorded that mammalian tissues, preserved in various standard fixatives, contain cup-shaped erythrocytes. Should great weight, however, be given evidence of this sort? These cor¬ puscles are plastic structures of extreme deli¬ cacy, mere contact with adjacent corpuscles or with obstacles sufficing, when gentle streaming is induced, to cause excessive and varied tem¬ porary distortions. Fixation is essentially a coagulation process and it has been shown that the so-called best fixatives actually diminish the diameter of the corpuscle. If, therefore, the reagent does not act on all sides of an erythrocyte simultaneously is not a buckling of the side first fixed to be expected? Indeed is For making these observations I can particu¬ larly recommend the dog’s omentum. September 15, 1916] SCIENCE 395 a biconcave shape would invite this alteration. It seems plausible that the delicately con¬ structed and highly flexible erythrocyte is more easily subject to distortion, through the action of reagents, than are ordinary tissues for it is not supported by contiguous cells or by intercellular cement. The following experiment of Lohner (’ll),16 which I have corroborated, is interesting from this viewpoint. If a droplet of blood be drawn by capillarity between cover slips,17 fused at one point, discs are observed. If now 1 per cent, osmic acid be drawn in cautiously from one side only, many cups, some wedge-shaped discs, discs, and distorted forms are seen. A limited number of cup-shaped erythro¬ cytes undoubtedly exist in normal blood. Possibly they represent corpuscles, whose structure is such that unequal tensions with respect to the osmotic balance exist; perhaps they are old (or young?) corpuscles. In anemias the presence of many cups have been reported, and in fevers it is said crenation may occur. May it not be that the blood of certain individuals contains “ normally ” excessive numbers of cup-shaped corpuscles? Is it pos¬ sible that this explains why some of our most careful workers have been led to describe this form as normal? The evidence gained from the examination of drawn blood, diluted in human serum, and from the study of circulating blood in non- anesthetized living mammals justifies, I be¬ lieve, the conclusion that the biconcave disc represents the normal shape of the mammalian erythrocyte — the concavo-convex cup being merely an occasional modification. Leslie B. Arey Northwestern University Medical School THE PENETRATION OF BALANCED SOLUTIONS AND THE THEORY OF ANTAGONISM Antagonism has been explained by Loeb and by the writer on the ground that antagonistic substances prevent each other from entering the cell. As the writer has repeatedly pointed 16 Lohner, L., Arch. f. gesam. Physiol., Bd. 140, pp. 92-108, 1911. 1 7 Blood should occupy part of the capillary space only. out,1 this explanation encounters a diffi¬ culty in the fact that antagonistic substances penetrate the cell in a balanced solution (al¬ though the penetration is much slower than in unbalanced solutions). The proof of this has been obtained by the writer by means of the method of plasmolysis- as well as by deter¬ mining electrical resistances3 and it has re¬ cently been confirmed by Brooks4 by means of the method of tissue tension as well as of dif¬ fusion through a disk of living tissue. It is obvious that antagonistic substances must penetrate in a balanced solution since otherwise the cell could not obtain the salts necessary to its existence. As a way out of this difficulty the writer has suggested5 that the slow penetration of salts may produce effects quite different from those produced by rapid penetration, just as the precipitation of colloids may be brought about by the rapid addition of salts while it does not take place when they are added slowly. This difficulty completely disappears if we adopt the standpoint recently advocated by the writer in developing a dynamical theory of antagonism.6 From this point of view we re¬ gard the slow penetration of salts in balanced solutions not as the cause but as the result of antagonism, or rather we may regard both the slow penetration and the increased length of life (or growth, etc.), by which we measure antagonism, as the results of certain life proc¬ esses which are directly acted on by the an¬ tagonistic substances. The essential feature of the explanation lies in the behavior of these life processes rather than in the manner or rate of penetration. It is assumed that these life processes con¬ sist of consecutive reactions of the type A— > M — > B 1 Science, N. S., 34, 189, 1911; 35, 115, 1912; 36, 576, 1912. Plant World, 16, 135, 1913. 2 Science, N. S., 34, 189, 1911. 3 Science, 35, 115, 1912; 36, 576, 1912. Am. Jour, of Botany, 2, 93, 1915. 4 Unpublished results. s Science, N. S., 34, 189, 1911; 35, 115, 1912; 36, 576, 1912. Plant World, 16, 135, 1913. 6 Proc. Am. Phil. Soc., 55, 1916. 396 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1133 in which ]\! is a substance which determines the rate of penetration of salts and the elec¬ trical resistance of the protoplasm. If the antagonistic substances are ISTaCl and CaCl2 it appears that CaCl, accelerates the re¬ action A — > M while both A — > M and M — > B are inhibited by a salt compound formed by the union of FaCl and CaCl2 with a constit¬ uent of the protoplasm. From this standpoint the slow penetration of antagonistic substances should not have un¬ favorable results provided these substances are properly balanced at the start and remain so ( i . e., if their relative proportions are not too much changed by unequal speed of diffusion, precipitation, chemical union, etc.) after they enter the cell. For they must affect the life processes mentioned above in quite the same way in the interior of the cell as at the sur¬ face7 and these life processes will go on in the normal way so long as the antagonistic sub¬ stances within the cell remain properly bal¬ anced. The result will be the preservation of nor- * mal permeability as well as of all other prop¬ erties essential to life. It has been shown by the writer8 that the normal permeability may be regarded as a sensitive and accurate indicator of health and vitality. All factors which disturb it bring about temporary or permanent injury and eventually produce death if the action be suffi¬ ciently prolonged. It is therefore evident that the life processes which preserve normal per¬ meability are of peculiar importance and that the manner in which they are influenced by antagonistic substances is of especial interest. Methods are being developed for the study of these questions and it appears probable that a considerable amount of information can be ob¬ tained in regard to the nature of these proc¬ esses. Summary. — Antagonism has been explained 7 Whatever effects are found at the outer sur¬ face of the cell are doubtless to be found also at many of the internal surfaces such as the sur¬ faces of vacuoles, plastids, microsomes, etc. 8 Plant World, 16, 143, 1913. Science, N. S., 40, 488, 1914. by assuming that antagonistic substances pre¬ vent each other from entering the cell. A difficulty is found in the fact that they slowly penetrate the cell even in a properly balanced solution. This difficulty disappears if we sup¬ pose that the antagonistic substances affect certain life processes which control permea¬ bility. So long as they are present in the right proportions their effect on these proc¬ esses is favorable and their penetration into the cell can do no harm. The preservation of normal permeability may therefore be regarded as the result rather than as the cause of antagonism. W. J. Y. OSTERHOUT Laboratory of Plant Physiology, Harvard University THE DETERMINATION OF RELATIVE HUMIDITY In the present stage of knowledge of what constitutes healthful and comfortable air for the average healthy person, the question of the value and significance of the determination of relative humidity is still decidedly debata¬ ble. It will, therefore, be necessary to continue such determinations in connection with other types of ventilation tests, in order to assign to relative humidity its proper value as a factor in the problem of conditioning air for health and comfort. There is at least one standard procedure for this determination — the use of the sling psychrometer. This instrument is supposed to give reliable results if used in ac¬ cordance with the government directions. One need not spend the fancy price for the instru¬ ment de luxe. Two thermometers, firmly lashed together in such a way that the bulb of one projects beyond that of the other gives perfect satisfaction. The lower bulb is moistened in the usual way and the pair is swung by a strong cord. This method has obvious limitations. It can not be used under many circumstances where the determination of relative humidity is desired, e. g., in crowded places, between skin and clothing, etc. It is ofttimes incon¬ venient and dangerous to use, e. g., in con¬ spicuous places such as churches and libraries, and in cramped quarters such as the berths of September 15, 1916] SCIENCE 397 sleeping cars. Outside the realm of hygiene, it is often unsuitable, for example for deter¬ mining relative humidity among the stems and leaves of seedling plants. by the obvious and simple method of using a motor-driven fan, but also a graphic record of the readings is kept. If a continuous record is not desired, it is a. Dry cell. b. Key. c. Tube leading to water reservoir, d. Motor, e. Dry- bulb thermometer, f. Wet-bulb thermometer, g. Fan. h. Water reservoir. Tc. Direction of air current. To obviate these difficulties, there have been obvious that the fan ventilation of the thermom- put upon the market within the last two or eter bulbs presents no mechanical difficulties three years mechanisms in which not only is and offers some advantages over the sling the ventilation of the wet bulb accomplished method. 398 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1133 In August, 1913,1 I described such a device in which the fan was moved by clock-work. This I used with satisfaction for a year, but replaced it (see figs.) by an apparatus in which the fan was driven by a toy motor. The latter is practically noiseless and has been used in experimental work for two years. Eugene C. Howe Department of Hygiene, Wellesley College SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF THE PACIFIC A meeting of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific was held at San Diego on Thurs¬ day and Friday, August 10 and 11, in conjunc¬ tion with the first meeting of the Pacific Di¬ vision of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In the absence of the president and vice-presidents of the so¬ ciety, the meeting was opened by Dr. E. G. Aitken, chairman of the program committee. Dr. W. S. Adams, of the Mount Wilson Solar Observatory; Dr. W. W. Campbell, of the Lick Observatory, and Professor Charles Burck- halter, of the Cabot Observatory, presided at the three sessions held. The papers at the first session related en¬ tirely to the nebulae, those at the second ses¬ sion principally to spectrographic investiga¬ tions. All of the papers were fully discussed. Abstracts of the papers are given in the Au- gust-October number of the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, hence only the titles are printed here. “Spectrographic Observations of Relative Mo¬ tions within the Planetary Nebulae.” (Illustrated with stereopticon.) By W. W. Campbell and J. H. Moore, Lick Observatory. “The Rotation and Radial Velocity of the Spiral Nebula, N. G. C. 4594.” (Illustrated with stere¬ opticon.) By Francis G. Pease, Mount Wilson Solar Observatory. “Forms of Planetary Nebulae.” (Illustrated with stereopticon.) By H. D. Curtis, Lick Ob¬ servatory. “Color-photographs of Nebulae.” (Illustrated with stereopticon.) “A Simple Method for De- i Amer. Jour, of Pub. Health, III., 8, August, 1913. termining the Color of a Star,” by Frederick H. Seares, Mount Wilson Solar Observatory. “Spectrographic Observations of Nebulae and Star Clusters,” by V. M. Slipher, Lowell Observ¬ atory. ‘ ‘ On the Motion of Nebulous Filaments in N. G. C. 6992; Variable Stars in the Lagoon Nebula, N. G. C. 6523,” by C. O. Lampland, Lowell Observ¬ atory. “Notes on Stellar Clusters,” by Harlow Shap- ley, Mount Wilson Solar Observatory. “A Relation between the Convergence Wave¬ lengths in Spectral Series and the Radii of their Respective Atoms as Computed from Einstein ’s Photo-electric Equation and by other Methods,” by Fernando Sanford, Stanford University. “Recent Stellar Spectroscopic Results.” (Il¬ lustrated with stereopticon.) By Walter S. Adams, Mount Wilson Solar Observatory. ‘ ‘ The Measurement of Close Pairs of Solar Lines,” by Charles E. St. John and L. W. Ware, Mount Wilson Solar Observatory. ‘ ‘ The Suggested Mutual Influence of Fraun¬ hofer Lines,” by Charles E. St. John, Mount Wil¬ son Solar Observatory. ‘ ‘ Observations with High Dispersion of the Line 6708 in Laboratory and Sun-spot Spectra.” (Illustrated with stereopticon.) By Arthur S. King, Mount Wilson Solar Observatory. “Recent Observations of the Diurnal Change of Refraction at Lick Observatory, ” by R. H. Tucker, Lick Observatory. “Preliminary Note on the Determination of the Longitude of the Students’ Observatory by Wire¬ less Signals from Arlington,” by R. T. Crawford, University of California. “John Wintlirop (1714-1779), America’s First Astronomer, and the Science of His Period,” by Frederick E. Brasch, Stanford University. “The Chabot Observatory,” by Charles Burck- halter, Chabot Observatory. “Notes on Certain Double Star Orbits.” (Illus¬ trated with stereopticon.) “Note on Barnard’s Proper Motion Star,” by R. G. Aitken, Lick Ob¬ servatory. “Note on Aethra, ” by Dinsmore Alter, Univer¬ sity of California. “Comet b 1916 (Wolf).” (Illustrated with stereopticon.) By R. T. Crawford and Dinsmore Alter, University of California. “A Luminous Object Seen on May 4, 1916,” by C. D. Perrine, Argentine National Observatory. * ‘ A Luminous Object Suspected to be a Comet, ’ ’ by A. Estelle Glancy, Argentine National Observ¬ atory. SCIENCE Friday, September 22, 1916 CONTENTS The British Association for the Advance¬ ment of Science: — New Archeological Lights on the Origins of Civilization in Europe: Sir Arthur Evans. 399 The Organization of Thought: Professor A. N. Whitehead . 409 Dr. Haldane’s Silliman Lectures . 419 Scientific Notes and News . 420 University and Educational News . 425 Discussion and Correspondence: — Vitalism: President S. E. Mezes. The Animal Diet of Early Man: Dr. M. W. Lyon, Jr . 425 Scientific Boohs: — The Napier Tercentenary Memorial Vol¬ ume : Professor Louis C. Karpinski .... 427 A New Triangulation Signal Lamp: E. G. Eischer . 430 Special Articles: — Linked Mendelian Characters in a New Species of Drosophila: Dr. Chas. W. Metz. Bacterial Blights of Barley and other Cereals: Professor L. E. Jones, A. G. Johnson, C. S. Reddy. Another Use of the Double-plate Method: W. D. Erost and Freda M. Bachmann . 331 Societies and Academies : — The St. Louis Academy of Science: Pro¬ fessor J. M. Greenman . 434 MSS. Intended for publication and books, etc., intended for review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison- On-Hudson, N. Y. NEW ARCHEOLOGICAL LIGHTS ON THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION IN EUROPE1 Et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt When I was asked on behalf of the coun¬ cil of the British Association to occupy the responsible post of president at the meeting in this great city — the third that has taken place here — I was certainly taken by sur¬ prise; the more so as my own subject of re¬ search seemed somewhat removed from what may be described as the central in¬ terests of your body. The turn of archeol¬ ogy, however, I was told, had come round again on the rota of the sciences repre¬ sented; nor could I be indifferent to the fact that the last presidential address on this theme had been delivered by my father at the Toronto meeting of 1897. Still, it was not till after considerable hesitation that I accepted the honor. En¬ gaged as I have been through a series of years in the work of excavation in Crete — a work which involved not only the quarry¬ ing but the building up of wholly new mate¬ rials and has entailed the endeavor to classify the successive phases of a long, con¬ tinuous story — absorbed and fascinated by my own investigation — I am oppressed with the consciousness of having been less able to keep pace with the progress of fellow explorers in other departments or to do sufficient justice to their results. I will not dwell, indeed, on those disabilities that re¬ sult to myself from present calls and the grave preoccupations of the hour, that to a greater or less extent must affect us all. 1 Address of the president of the British Asso¬ ciation for the Advancement of Science, New¬ castle-on- Tyne, 1916. 400 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1134 •But archeology — the research of ancient civilizations — when the very foundations of our own are threatened by the new bar¬ barism! The investigation of the ruins of the past — at the time when hell seems to have been let loose to strew our continent with havoc beyond the dreams of Attila ! “The science of the spade” — at a moment when that science confronts us at every hour with another and a sterner signif¬ icance ! The very suggestion of such a sub¬ ject of discourse might seem replete with cruel irony. And yet, especially as regards the pre¬ historic side of archeology, something may be said for a theme which, in the midst of Armageddon, draws our minds from pres¬ ent anxieties to that still, passionless do¬ main of the past which lies behind the limits even of historic controversies. The science of antiquity as there seen in its pur¬ est form depends, indeed, on evidence and rests on principles indistinguishable from those of the sister science of geology. Its methods are stratigraphic. As in that case the successive deposits and the character¬ istic contents — often of the most frag¬ mentary kind — enable the geologist to re¬ construct the fauna and flora, the climate and physical conditions, of the past ages of the world, and to follow out their gradual transitions or dislocations, so it is with the archeologist in dealing with unwritten his¬ tory. In recent years — not to speak of the revelations of late Quaternary culture on which I shall presently have occasion to dwell — in Egypt, in Babylonia, in ancient Persia, in the central Asian deserts, or, coming nearer home, in the Aegean lands, the patient exploration of early sites, in many cases of huge stratified mounds, the unearthing of buried buildings, the open¬ ing of tombs, and the research of minor relics, has reconstituted the successive stages of whole fabrics of former civiliza¬ tion, the very existence of which wTas formerly unsuspected. Even in later pe¬ riods, archeology, as a dispassionate wit¬ ness, has been continually checking, supple¬ menting and illustrating written history. It has called back to our upper air, as with a magician’s wand, shapes and conditions that seemed to have been irrevocably lost in the night of time. Thus evoked, moreover, the past is often seen to hold a mirror to the future — cor¬ recting wrong impressions — the result of some temporary revolution in the whirligig of time — by the more permanent standard of abiding conditions, and affording in the solid evidence of past well-being the “sub¬ stance of things hoped for.” Nowhere, in¬ deed, has this been more in evidence than in that vexed region between the Danube and the Adriatic, to-day the home of the Serbian race, to the antiquarian explora¬ tion of which many of the earlier years of my own life were devoted. What visions, indeed, do those investiga¬ tions not recall! Imperial cities, once the seats of wide administration and of prolific mints, sunk to neglected villages, vestiges of great engineering works, bridges, aque¬ ducts, or here a main line of ancient high¬ way hardly traceable even as a track across the wilderness ! Or, again, the signs of medieval revival above the Roman ruins — remains of once populous mining centers scattered along the lone hillside, the shells of stately churches with the effigies, bullet- starred now, of royal founders, once cham¬ pions of Christendom against the Paynim — nay, the actual relics of great rulers, law¬ givers, national heroes, still secreted in half- ruined monastic retreats ! Sunt lacrimce rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt: Even the archeologist incurs more human debts, and the evocation of the past carries with it living responsibilities! September 22, 1916] SCIENCE 401 It will be found, moreover, that such in¬ vestigations have at times a very practical bearing on future developments. In con¬ nection with the traces of Roman occupa¬ tion I have recently, indeed, had occasion to point out2 that the section of the great Roman road that connected the valleys of the Po and Save across the lowest pass of the Julians, and formed part of the main ave¬ nue of communication between the western and the eastern provinces of the empire, has only to be restored in railway shape to link together a system of not less value to ourselves and our Allies. For we should thus secure, via the Simplon and northern Italy, a new and shorter overland route to the east, in friendly occupation through¬ out, which is to-day diverted by unnatural conditions past Vienna and Budapest. At a time when Europe is parcelled out by less cosmopolitan interests the evidence of antiq¬ uity here restores the true geographical perspective. Whole provinces of ancient history would lie beyond our ken — often through the mere loss of the works of classical authors — were it not for the results of archeological research. At other times again it has re¬ dressed the balance where certain aspects of the ancient world have been brought into unequal prominence, it may be, by mere accidents of literary style. Even if we take the Greek world, generally so rich in its literary sources, how comparatively little should we know of its brilliant civilization as illustrated by the great civic foundations of Magna Graecia and Sicily if we had to depend on its written sources alone. But the noble monuments of those regions, the results of excavation, the magnificent coin¬ age — a sum of evidence illustrative in turn of public and private life, of art and reli- - 1 ‘ The Adriatic Slavs and the Overland Route to Constantinople,” Geographical Journal, 1916, p. 241 seqq. gion, of politics and of economic conditions — have gone far to supply the lacuna. Look, too, at the history of the Roman Empire — how defective and misleading in many departments are the literary records ! It has been by methodical researches into evidence such as the above — notably in the epigraphic field — that the most trustworthy results have been worked out. Take the case of Roman Britain. Had the lost books of Ammianus relating to Britain been preserved we might have had, in his rugged style, some partial sketch of the province as it existed in the age of its most complete Romanization. As it is, so far as historians are concerned, we are left in almost complete darkness. Here, again, it is through archeological research that light has penetrated, and thanks to the thoroughness and persistence of our own investigators, town sites such as Silchester in Roman Britain have been more com¬ pletely uncovered than those of any other province.3 Nor has any part of Britain supplied more important contributions in this field than the region of the Roman Wall, that great limitary work between the Solway and the mouth of the Tyne that once marked the northernmost European barrier of civilized dominion. Speaking here, on the site of Hadrian’s bridge-head station that formed its eastern key, it would be impossible for me not to pay a passing tribute, however inadequate, to the continuous work of exploration and research carried out by the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle, now for over a hundred years in existence, worthily sec¬ onded by its sister society on the Cumbrian side, and of which the volumes of the re¬ spective Proceedings and Transactions, ArcJvceologia, PE liana, and last but not least the Lapidarium Septentrionale, are 3 See Haverfield, “Roman Britain in 1913,” p. 86. 402 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1134 abiding records. The basis of methodical study was here the survey of the Wall carried out, together with that of its main military approach, the Watling Street, by MacLauchlan, under the auspices of Alger¬ non, fourth Duke of Northumberland. And who, however lightly touching on such a theme, can overlook the services of the late Dr. Collingwood Bruce, the Grand Old Man, not only of the Wall itself, but of all pertaining to border antiquities, dis¬ tinguished as an investigator for his scholar¬ ship and learning, whose lifelong devotion to his subject and contagious enthusiasm made the Roman Wall, as it had never been before, a household word? New points of view have arisen, a stricter method and a greater subdivision of labor have become imperative in this as in other departments of research. We must, there¬ fore, rejoice that local explorers have more and more availed themselves of the co¬ operation, and welcomed the guidance of those equipped with comparative knowledge drawn from other spheres. The British Vallum, it is now realized, must be looked at with perpetual reference to other fron¬ tier lines, such as the Germanic or the Rhsetian lines; local remains of every kind have to be correlated with similar discov¬ eries throughout the length and breadth of the Roman Empire. This attitude in the investigation of the remains of Roman Britain — the promotion of which owes so much to the energy and experience of Professor Haverfield — has in recent years conducted excavation to spe¬ cially valuable results. The work at Cor- bridge, the ancient Corstopitum, begun in 1906, and continued down to the autumn of 1914, has already uncovered throughout a great part of its area the largest urban center — civil as well as military in char¬ acter — on the line of the Wall, and the principal store-base of its stations. Here, together with well-built granaries, work¬ shops, and barracks, and such records of civic life as are supplied by sculptured stones and inscriptions, and the double dis¬ covery of hoards of gold coins, has come to light a spacious and massively con¬ structed stone building, apparently a mili¬ tary storehouse, worthy to rank beside the bridge-piers of the North Tyne, among the most imposing monuments of Roman Bri¬ tain. There is much here, indeed, to carry our thoughts far beyond our insular limits. On this, as on so many other sites along the Wall, the inscriptions and reliefs take us very far afield. We mark the grave-stone of a man of Palmyra, an altar of the Tyrian Hercules — its Phoenician Baal — a dedica¬ tion to a pantheistic goddess of Syrian reli¬ gion and the rayed effigy of the Persian Mithra. So, too, in the neighborhood of Newcastle itself, as elsewhere on the Wall, there was found an altar of Jupiter Doli- chenus, the old Anatolian God of the Double Axe, the male form of the divinity once worshipped in the prehistoric Laby¬ rinth of Crete. Nowhere are we more struck than in this remote extremity of the empire with the heterogeneous religious elements, often drawn from its far eastern borders, that before the days of the final advent of Christianity, Roman dominion had been instrumental in diffusing. The Orontes may be said to have flowed into the Tyne as well as the Tiber. I have no pretension to follow up the various affluents merged in the later course of Greco-Roman civilization, as illustrated by these and similar discoveries throughout the Roman World. My own recent re¬ searches have been particularly concerned with the much more ancient cultural stage — that of prehistoric Crete — which leads up to the Greco-Roman, and which might seem to present the problem of origins at any rate in a less complex shape. The marvel- September 22, 1916] SCIENCE 403 lous Minoan civilization that has there come to light shows that Crete of four thousand years ago must unquestionably be regarded as the birth-place of our European civiliza¬ tion in its higher form. But are we, even then, appreciably nearer to the fountain-head? A new and far more remote vista has opened out in recent years, and it is not too much to say that a wholly new standpoint has been gained from which to survey the early history of the human race. The in¬ vestigations of a brilliant band of prehis¬ toric archeologists, with the aid of repre¬ sentatives of the sister sciences of geology and paleontology, have brought together such a mass of striking materials as to place the evolution of human art and appliances in the last Quaternary period on a far higher level than had even been suspected previously. Following in the footsteps of Lartet and after him Riviere and Piette, Professors Cartailhac, Captain, and Boule, the Abbe Breuil, Dr. Obermeier and their fellow investigators have revolutionized our knowledge of a phase of human culture which goes so far back beyond the limits of any continuous story, that it may well be said to belong to an older world. To the engraved and sculptured wrorks of man in the “Reindeer Period” we have now to add not only such new specialties as are exemplified by the moulded clay figures of life-size bisons in the Tuc d’Au- doubert Cave, or the similar high reliefs of a procession of six horses cut on the over¬ hanging limestone brow of Cap Blanc, but whole galleries of painted designs on the walls of caverns and rock shelters. So astonishing was this last discovery, made first by the Spanish investigator Senor de Sautuola — or rather his little daughter — as long ago as 1878, that it was not till after it had been corroborated by repeated finds on the French side of the Pyrenees — not, indeed, till the beginning of the present century — that the Palaeolithic Age of these rock paintings was generally recognized. In their most developed stage, as illustrated by the bulk of the figures in the Cave of Altamira itself, and in those of Marsoulas in the Haute G-aronne, and of Font de Gaume in the Dordogne, these primeval frescoes display not only a con¬ summate mastery of natural design but an extraordinary technical resource. Apart from the charcoal used in certain outlines, the chief coloring matter was red and yel¬ low ochre, mortars and palettes for the preparation of which have come to light. In single animals the tints are varied from black to dark and ruddy brown or brilliant orange, and so, by fine gradations, to paler nuances, obtained by scraping and wash¬ ing. Outlines and details are brought out by white incised lines, and the artists availed themselves with great skill of the reliefs afforded by convexities of the rock surface. But the greatest marvel of all is that such polychrome masterpieces as the bisons, standing and couchant, or with limbs huddled together, of the Altamira Cave, were executed on the ceilings of inner vaults and galleries where the light of day has never penetrated. Nowhere is there any trace of smoke, and it is clear that great progress in the art of artificial illu¬ mination had already been made. We now know that stone lamps, decorated in one case with the engraved head of an ibex, were already in existence. Such was the level of artistic attainment in southwestern Europe, at a modest esti¬ mate some ten thousand years earlier than the most ancient monuments of Egypt or Chaldgea ! Nor is this an isolated phe¬ nomenon. One by one, characteristics, both spiritual and material, that had been for¬ merly thought to be the special marks of later ages of mankind have been shown to 404 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1134 go back to that earlier world. I myself can never forget the impression produced on me as a privileged spectator of a freshly uncovered interment in one of the Balzi Rossi Caves — an impression subsequently confirmed by other experiences of similar discoveries in these caves, which together first supplied the concordant testimony of an elaborate cult of the dead on the part of Aurignacian Man. Tall skeletons of the highly developed Cro-Magnon type lay be¬ side or above their hearths, and protected by great stones from roving beasts. Flint knives and bone javelins had been placed within reach of their hands, chaplets and necklaces of sea-shells, fish-vertebras, and studs of carved bone had decked their per¬ sons. With these had been set lumps of iron peroxide, the red stains of which ap¬ peared on skulls and bones, so that they might make a fitting show in the under¬ world. Colors, too, to paint his body, Place within his hand, That he glisten, bright and ruddy, In the Spirit-Land! * Nor is it only in this cult of the departed that we trace the dawn of religious prac¬ tises in that older world. At Cogul we may now survey the ritual dance of nine skirted women round a male satyr-like figure of short stature, while at Alpera a gowned sister minis trant holds up what has all the appearance of being a small idol. It can hardly be doubted that the small fe¬ male images of ivory, steatite and crystal¬ line talc from the same Aurignacian stratum as that of the Balzi Rossi interments, in which great prominence is given to the organs of maternity, had some fetichistic intention. So, too, many of the figures of animals engraved and painted on the in¬ most vaults of the caves may well have been due, as M. Salomon Reinach has sug- 4 Schiller, “Nadowessier ’s Todtenlied. ’ ’ gested, to the magical ideas prompted by the desire to obtain a hold on the quarries of the chase that supplied the means of livelihood. In a similar religious connection may be taken the growth of a whole family of signs, in some cases obviously derivatives of fuller pictorial originals, but not infrequently simplified to such a degree that they re¬ semble or actually reproduce letters of the alphabet. Often they occur in groups like regular inscriptions, and it is not surpris¬ ing that in some quarters they should have been regarded as evidence that the art of writing had already been evolved by the men of the Reindeer Age. A symbolic value certainly is to be attributed to these signs, and it must at least be admitted that by the close of the late Quaternary Age considerable advance had been made in hieroglyphic expression. The evidences of more or less continuous civilized development reaching its apogee about the close of the Magdalenian Period have been constantly emerging from recent discoveries. The recurring “tectiform” sign had already clearly pointed to the ex¬ istence of huts or wigwams; the “scuti- form” and other types record appliances yet to be elucidated, and another sign well illustrated on a bone pendant from the Cave of St. Marcel has an unmistakable re¬ semblance to a sledge.5 But the most as¬ tonishing revelation of the cultural level already reached by primeval man has been supplied by the more recently discovered rock paintings of Spain. The area of dis¬ covery has now been extended there from the Province of Santander, where Altamira itself is situated, to the Valley of the Ebro, the Central Sierras, and to the extreme 5 This interpretation suggested by me after in¬ specting the object in 1902 has been approved by the Abb6 Breuil ( Anthropologie , XIII., p. 152) and by Professor Sollas, ‘ ‘ Ancient Hunters, * ’ - 1915, p. 480. September 22, 1916] SCIENCE 405 southeastern region, including the Prov¬ inces of Albacete, Murcia and Almeria, and even to within the borders of Granada. One after another, features that had been reckoned as the exclusive property of Neolithic or later Ages are thus seen to have been shared by Palaeolithic Man in the final stage of his evolution. For the first time, moreover, we find the productions of his art rich in human subjects. At Cogul the sacral dance is performed by women clad from the waist downwards in well-cut gowns, while in a rock-slielter of Alpera,6 where we meet with the same skirted ladies, their dress is supplemented by flying sashes. On the rock painting of the Cueva de la Yieja, near the same place, women are seen with still longer gowns rising to their bosoms. We are already a long way from Eve ! It is this great Alpera fresco which, among all those discovered, has afforded most new elements. Here are depicted whole scenes of the chase in wdiich bow¬ men — up to the time of these last discover¬ ies unknown among Palaeolithic representa¬ tions — take a leading part, though they had not as yet the use of quivers. Some are dancing in the attitude of the Austral¬ ian Corroborees. Several wear plumed headdresses, and the attitudes at times are extraordinarily animated. What is spe¬ cially remarkable is that some of the groups of these Spanish-rock paintings show dogs or jackals accompanying the hunters, so that the process of domesticat¬ ing animals had already begun. Hafted axes are depicted as well as cunningly shaped throwing sticks. In one case at least we see two opposed bands of archers — marking at any rate a stage in social de¬ velopment in which organized warfare was possible — the beginnings, it is to be feared, of ‘ ‘ Kultur ’ ’ as well as of culture ! e That of Carasoles del Bosque; Breuil, AntJiro- pologie, XXVI., 1915, p. 329 seqq. Nor can there be any question as to the age of these scenes and figures, by them¬ selves so suggestive of a much later phase of human history. They are inseparable from other elements of the same group, the animal and symbolic representations of which are shared by the contemporary school of rock-painting north of the Pyre¬ nees. Some are overlaid by palimpsests, themselves of Palaeolithic character. Among the animals actually depicted, moreover, the elk and bison distinctly be¬ long to the Late Quaternary fauna of both regions, and are unknown there to the Neolithic deposits. In its broader aspects this field of hu¬ man culture, to which, on the European side, the name of Reindeer Age may still, on the whole, be applied, is now seen to have been very widespread. In Europe itself it permeates a large area — -defined by the boundaries of glaciation — from Poland, and even a large Russian tract, to Bo¬ hemia, the upper course of the Danube and of the Rhine, to southwestern Britain and southeastern Spain. Beyond the Mediter¬ ranean, moreover, it fits on under varying conditions to a parallel form of culture, the remains of which are by no means confined to the Cis-Saharan zone, where incised fig¬ ures occur of animals like the long-liorned buffalo ( Bulbalus antiquus ) and others long extinct in that region. This southern branch may eventually be found to have a large extension. The nearest parallels to the finer class of rock-carvings as seen in the Dordogne are, in fact, to be found among the more ancient specimens of simi¬ lar work in South Africa, while the rock- paintings of Spain find their best analogies among the Bushmen. Glancing at this Late Quaternary cul¬ ture, as a whole, in view of the materials supplied on the European side, it will not be superfluous for me to call attention to 406 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1134 two important points which some observ¬ ers have shown a tendency to pass over. Its successive phases, the Aurignacian, the Solutrean and the Magdalenian, with its decadent Azilian offshoot — the order of which may now be regarded as stratigraph- ically established — represent, on the whole, a continuous story. I will not here discuss the question as to how far the disappearance of Neanderthal Man and the close of the Moustierian epoch represents a “ fault” or gap. But the view that there was any real break in the course of the cultural history of the Reindeer Age itself does not seem to have sufficient war¬ rant. It is true that new elements came in from more than one direction. On the old Aurignacian area, which had a trans-Medi¬ terranean extension from Syria to Morocco, there intruded on the European side — ap¬ parently from the east — the Solutrean type of culture, with its perfected flint- working and exquisite laurel-leaf points. Magdalenian man, on the other hand, great as the proficiency that he attained in the carving of horn and bone, was much be¬ hind in his flint-knapping. That there were dislocations and temporary set-backs is evident. But on every side we still note transitions and reminiscences. When, moreover, we turn to the most striking fea¬ tures of this whole cultural phase, the primeval arts of sculpture, engraving and painting, we see a gradual upgrowth and unbroken tradition. From mere outline figures and simple two-legged profiles of animals we are led on step by step to the full freedom of the Magdalenian artists. From isolated or disconnected subjects we watch the advance to large compositions, such as the hunting scenes of the Spanish rock-paintings. In the culminating phase of this art we even find impressionist works. A brilliant illustration of such is seen in the galloping herds of horses, lightly sketched by the engraver on the stone slab from the Chaumont Grotto, depicting the leader in each case in front of his troop, and its serried line — straight as that of a well-drilled battalion — in perspective rend¬ ering. The whole must be taken to be a faithful memory sketch of an exciting epi¬ sode of prairie life. The other characteristic feature of the culture of the Reindeer age that seems to deserve special emphasis, and is almost the corollary of the foregoing, is that it can not be regarded as the property of a single race. It is true that the finely built Cro-Magnon race seems to have predominated, and must be regarded as an element of continuity throughout, but the evidence of the co-ex¬ istence of other human types is clear. Of the physical characteristics of these it is not my province to speak. Here it will be sufficient to point out that their interments, as well as their general associations, con¬ clusively show that they shared, even in its details, the common culture of the age, fol¬ lowed the same fashions, plied the same arts, and were imbued with the same be¬ liefs as the Cro-Magnon folk. The negroid skeletons intercalated in the interesting succession of hearths and interments of the Grotte des Enfants at Grimaldi had been buried with the same rites, decked with the same shell ornaments, and were supplied with the same red coloring matter for use in the spirit world, as we find in the other sepultures of these caves belonging to the Cro-Magnon race. Similar burial rites were associated in this country with the “Red Lady of Paviland,” the contempo¬ rary Aurignacian date of which is now well established. A like identity of funeral cus¬ tom recurred again in the sepulture of a man of the “Briinn” race on the eastern boundary of this field of culture. In other words, the conditions prevailing were analogous to those of modern Europe. Cultural features of the same general char- September 22, 1916] SCIENCE 407 acter had imposed themselves on a hetero¬ geneous population. That there was a con¬ siderable amount of circulation, indeed — if not of primitive commerce — among the peoples of the Reindeer Age is shown by the diffusion of shell or fossil ornaments de¬ rived from the Atlantic, the Mediterranean or from inland geological strata. Art itself is less the property of one or another race than has sometimes been imagined — in¬ deed, if we compare those products of the modern carver ’s art that have most analogy with the horn and bone carvings of the Cave Men and rise at times to great excel¬ lence — as we see them, for instance, in Switzerland or Norway — they are often the work of races of very different physical types. The negroid contributions, at least in the southern zone of this Late Quater¬ nary field, must not be underestimated. The early steatopygous images — such as some of these of the Balzi Rossi caves — may safely be regarded as due to this eth¬ nic type, which is also pictorially repre¬ sented in some of the Spanish rock-paint¬ ings. The nascent flame of primeval culture was thus already kindled in that older world, and, so far as our present knowl¬ edge goes, it was in the southwestern part of our continent, on either side of the Pyre¬ nees, that it shone its brightest. After the great strides in human progress already made at that remote epoch, it is hard, in¬ deed, to understand what it was that still delayed the rise of European civilization in its higher shape. Yet it had to wait for its fulfilment through many millennia. The gathering shadows thickened and the darkness of a long night fell not on that favored region alone, but throughout the wide area where Reindeer Man had ranged. Still the question rises — as yet imperfectly answered — were there no relay runners to pass on elsewhere the lighted torch? Something, indeed, has been recently done towards bridging over the “hiatus” that formerly separated the Neolithic from the Palasolithic Age — the yawning gulf be¬ tween two worlds of human existence. The Azilian — a later decadent outgrowth of the preceding culture — which is now seen par¬ tially to fill the lacuna, seems to be in some respects an impoverished survival of the Aurignacian.7 The existence of this phase was first established by the long and pa¬ tient investigations of Piette in the strati¬ fied deposits of the cave of Mas d’Azil in the Ariege, from which it derives its name, and it has been proved by recent discover¬ ies to have had a wide extension. It affords evidence of a milder and moister climate — well illustrated by the abundance of the little wood snail ( helix nemoralis) and the increasing tendency of the reindeer to die out in the southern parts of the area, so that in the fabric of the characteristic har¬ poons deer-horns are used as substitutes. Artistic designs now fail us, but the poly¬ chrome technique of the preceding age still survives in certain schematic and geo¬ metric figures, and in curious colored signs on pebbles. These last first came to light in the cave of Mas d’Azil, but they have now been found to recur much further afield in a similar association in grottoes from the neighborhood of Basel to that of Salamanca. So like letters are some of these signs that the lively imagination of Piette saw in them the actual characters of a primeval alphabet ! The little flakes with a worked edge often known as “pygmy flints,” which were most of them designed for insertion into bone or horn harpoons, like some Neolithic examples, are very characteristic of this stratum, which is widely diffused in France and elsewhere under the misleading name of “ Tardenoisian. ” At Of net, in Bavaria, it is associated with a ceremonial skull ~ Breuil, ‘ ‘ Congr. Prehist., ’ ’ Geneva, 1912, p. 216. 408 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1134 burial showing the coexistence at that spot of brachycephalic and dolichocephalic types, both of a new character. In Britain, as we know, this Azilian, or a closely allied phase, is traceable as far north as the Oban Caves. What, however, is of special interest is the existence of a northern parallel to this cultural phase, first ascertained by the Danish investigator, Dr. Sarauw, in the lake station of Maglemose, near the west coast of Zealand. Here bone harpoons of the Azilian type occur, with bone and horn implements showing geometrical and rude animal engravings of a character divergent from the Magdalenian tradition. The set¬ tlement took place when what is now the Baltic was still the great “Ancylus Lake,” and the waters of the North Sea had not yet burst into it. It belongs to the period of the Danish pine and birch woods, and is shown to be anterior to the earliest shell mounds of the Kitchenmidden people, when the pine and the birch had given place to the oak. Similar deposits extend to Sweden and Norway, and to the Baltic provinces as far as the Gulf of Finland. The parallel relationship of this culture is clear, and its remains are often accom¬ panied with the characteristic “pygmy” flints. Breuil, however,8 while admitting the late Palaeolithic character of this north¬ ern branch, would bring it into relation with a vast Siberian and Altaic province, distinguished by the widespread existence of rock-carvings of animals. It is interest¬ ing to note that a rock-engraving of a rein¬ deer, very well stylized, from the Trondh- jem Fjord, which has been referred to the Maglemosian phase, preserves the simple profile rendering — two legs only being visible — of Early Aurignacian tradition. s ( ‘ Les subdivisions du paleolithique sup6rieur et leur signification.” Congr&s intern, d ’Anthrop. et d’ArehSol. pr6hist., XIVme Sess., Genfeve, 1912, pp. 165, 238. It is worth noting that an art affiliated to that of the petroglyplis of the old Altaic region long survived in the figures of the Lapp trolldrums, and still occasionally lingers, as I have myself had occasion to observe, on the reindeer-horn spoons of the Finnish and Russian Lapps, whose ethnic relationship, moreover, points east of the Urals. The existence of a Late Palteolithic Province on the Russian side is in any case now well recognized and itself supports the idea of a later shifting north and north¬ east, just as at a former period it had os¬ cillated in a southwestern direction. All this must be regarded as corroborating the view long ago expressed by Boyd Daw¬ kins9 that some part of the old cave race may still be represented by the modern Eskimos. Testut’s comparison of the short- statured Magdalenian skeleton from the rock shelter of Chancelade in the Dordogne with that of an Eskimo certainly confirms this conclusion. On the other hand, the evidence, already referred to, of an extension of the Late Palaeolithic culture to a North African zone, including rock-sculptures depicting a series of animals extinct there in the later age, may be taken to favor the idea of a partial continuation on that side. Some of the early rock-sculptures in the south of the continent, such as the figure of a walk¬ ing elephant reproduced by Dr. Peringuey, afford the clearest existing parallels to the best Magdalenian examples. There is much, indeed, to be said for the view, of which Sollas is an exponent, that the bush- men, who at a more recent date entered that region from the north, and whose rock¬ painting attained such a high level of nat¬ uralistic art, may themselves be taken as later representatives of the same tradition. In their human figures the resemblances descend even to conventional details, such as we meet with at Cogul and Alpera. 9 “Early Man in Britain,” 1880, p. 233 seqq. September 22, 1916] SCIENCE 409 Once more, we must never lose sight of the fact that from the Early Anrignacian Period onwards a negroid element in the broadest sense of the word shared in this artistic culture as seen on both sides of the Pyrenees. At least we now know that cave man did not suffer any sudden extinction, though on the European side, partly, perhaps, owing to the new climatic conditions, this culture underwent a marked degeneration. It may well be that, as the osteological evi¬ dence seems to imply, some outgrowth of the old Cro-Magnon type actually perpetu¬ ated itself in the Dordogne. We have cer¬ tainly lengthened our knowledge of the Palaeolithic. But in the present state of the evidence it seems better to subscribe to Cartailhac’s view that its junction with the Neolithic has not yet been reached. There does not seem to be any real contin¬ uity between the culture revealed at Mag- lemose and that of the immediately super¬ posed Early Neolithic stratum of the shell-mounds, which, moreover, as has been already' said, evidence a change both in climatic and geological conditions, imply¬ ing a considerable interval of time. Arthur Evans University op Oxford (To be continued ) THE ORGANIZATION OF THOUGHT1 The subject of this address is the organi¬ zation of thought, a topic evidently capable of many diverse modes of treatment. I in¬ tend more particularly to give some account of that department of logical science with which some of my own studies have been connected. But I am anxious, if I can suc¬ ceed in so doing, to handle this account so as to exhibit the relation with certain con- 1 Address of the president of the Mathematical and Physical Science Section, British Association for the Advancement of Science, Newcast-le-on- Tyne, 1916. siderations which underlie general scien¬ tific activities. It is no accident that an age of science has developed into an age of organization. Organized thought is the basis of organized action. Organization is the adjustment of diverse elements so that their mutual rela¬ tions may exhibit some predetermined quality. An epic poem is a triumph of or¬ ganization, that is to say, it is a triumph in the unlikely event of it being a good epic poem. It is the successful organization of multitudinous sounds of words, associations of words, pictorial memories of diverse events and feelings ordinarily occurring in life, combined with a special narrative of great events: the whole so disposed as to excite emotions which, as defined by Mil- ton, are simple, sensuous and passionate. The number of successful epic poems is commensurate, or rather, is inversely com¬ mensurate with the obvious difficulty of the task of organization. Science is the organization of thought. But the example of the epic poem warns us that science is not any organization of thought. It is an organization of a certain definite type which we will endeavor to determine. Science is a river with two sources, the practical source and the theoretical source. The practical source is the desire to direct our actions to achieve predetermined ends. For example, the British nation, fighting for justice, turns to science, which teaches it the importance of compounds of nitrogen. The theoretical source is the desire to understand. Now I am going to emphasize the importance of theory in science. But to avoid misconception I most emphatically state that I do not consider one source as in any sense nobler than the other, or intrin¬ sically more interesting. I can not see why it is nobler to strive to understand than to busy oneself with the right ordering of one ’s 410 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1134 actions. Both have their bad sides; there are evil ends directing actions, and there are ignoble curiosities of the understanding. The importance, even in practise, of the theoretical side of science arises from the fact that action must be immediate, and takes place under circumstances which are excessively complicated. If we wait for the necessities of action before we com¬ mence to arrange our ideas, in peace we shall have lost our trade, and in war we shall have lost the battle. Success in practise depends on theorists who, led by other motives of exploration, have been there before, and by some good chance have hit upon the relevant ideas. By a theorist I do not mean a man who is up in the clouds, but a man whose motive for thought is the desire to formulate cor¬ rectly the rules according to which events occur. A successful theorist should be ex¬ cessively interested in immediate events, otherwise he is not at all likely to formulate correctly anything about them. Of course, both sources of science exist in all men. Now, what is this thought organization which we call science? The first aspect of modern science which struck thoughtful observers was its inductive character. The nature of induction, its importance, and the rules of inductive logic have been con¬ sidered by a long series of thinkers, espe¬ cially English thinkers, Bacon, Herschel, J. S. Mill, Venn, Jevons and others. I am not going to plunge into an analysis of the process of induction. Induction is the machinery and not the product, and it is the product which I want to consider. When we understand the product we shall be in a stronger position to improve the machinery. First, there is one point which it is neces¬ sary to emphasize. There is a tendency in analyzing scientific processes to assume a given assemblage of concepts applying to nature, and to imagine that the discovery of laws of nature consists in selecting by means of inductive logic some one out of a definite set of possible alternative relations which may hold between the things in na¬ ture answering to these obvious concepts. In a sense this assumption is fairly correct, especially in regard to the earlier stages of science. Mankind found itself in posses¬ sion of certain concepts respecting nature — for example, the concept of fairly perma¬ nent material bodies — and proceeded to determine laws which related the corre¬ sponding percepts in nature. But the for¬ mulation of laws changed the concepts, sometimes gently by an added precision, sometimes violently. At first this process was not much noticed, or at least was felt to be a process curbed within narrow bounds, not touching fundamental ideas. At the stage where we now are, the formula¬ tion of the concepts can be seen to be as important as the formulation of the empir¬ ical laws connecting the events in the uni¬ verse as thus conceived by us. For ex¬ ample, the concepts of life, of heredity, of a material body, of a molecule, of an atom, of an electron, of energy, of space, of time, of quantity, and of number. I am not dog¬ matizing about the best way of getting such ideas straight. Certainly it will only be done by those who have devoted them¬ selves to a special study of the facts in ques¬ tion. Success is never absolute, and prog¬ ress in the right direction is the result of a slow, gradual process of continual com¬ parison of ideas with facts. The criterion of success is that we should be able to for¬ mulate empirical laws, that is, statements of relations, connecting the various parts of the universe as thus conceived, laws with the property that we can interpret the actual events of our lives as being our frag¬ mentary knowledge of this conceived inter¬ related whole. September 22, 1916] SCIENCE 411 But, for the purposes of science, what is the actual world? Has science to wait for the termination of the metaphysical debate till it can determine its own subject-matter? I suggest that science has a much more homely starting-ground. Its task is the discovery of the relations which exist within that flux of perceptions, sensations and emotions which forms our experience of life. The panorama yielded by sight, sound, taste, smell, touch and by more in¬ choate sensible feelings, is the sole field of its activity. It is in this way that science is the thought organization of experience. The most obvious aspect of this field of actual experience is its disorderly char¬ acter. It is for each person a continuum, fragmentary, $nd with elements not clearly differentiated. The comparison of the sen¬ sible experiences of diverse people brings its own difficulties. I insist on the radically untidy, ill-adjusted character of the fields of actual experience from which science starts. To grasp this fundamental truth is the first step in wisdom, when constructing a philosophy of science. This fact is con¬ cealed by the influence of language, moulded by science, which foists on us ex¬ act concepts as though they represented the immediate deliverances of experience. The result is that we imagine that we have immediate experience of a world of per¬ fectly defined objects implicated in per¬ fectly defined events which, as known t<3 us by the direct deliverance of our senses, happen at exact instants of time, in a space formed by exact points, without parts and without magnitude : the neat, trim, tidy, exact world which is the goal of scien¬ tific thought. My contention is that this world is a world of ideas, and that its internal rela¬ tions are relations between abstract con¬ cepts, and that the elucidation of the pre¬ cise connection between this world and the feelings of actual experience is the funda¬ mental question of scientific philosophy. The question which I am inviting you to consider is this: How does exact thought apply to the fragmentary, vague continua of experience? I am not saying that it does not apply, quite the contrary. But I want to know how it applies. The solu¬ tion I am asking for is not a phrase, how¬ ever brilliant, but a solid branch of sci¬ ence, constructed with slow patience, show¬ ing in detail how the correspondence is effected. The first great steps in the organization of thought were due exclusively to the prac¬ tical source of scientific activity, without any admixture of theoretical impulse. Their slow accomplishment was the cause and also the effect of the gradual evolu¬ tion of moderately rational beings. I mean the formation of the concepts of definite material objects, of the determinate lapse of time, of simultaneity, of recurrence, of definite relative position, and of analogous fundamental ideas, according to which the flux of our experiences is mentally arranged for handy reference : in fact, the whole apparatus of common-sense thought. Con¬ sider in your mind some definite chair. The concept of that chair is simply the con¬ cept of all the interrelated experiences con¬ nected with that chair — namely, of the ex¬ periences of the folk who made it, of the folk who sold it, of the folk who have seen it, or used it, of the man who is now experi¬ encing a comfortable sense of support, com¬ bined with our expectations of an analogous future, terminated finally by a different set of experiences when the chair collapses and becomes fire-wood. The formation of that type of concept was a tremendous job, and zoologists and geologists tell us that it took many tens of millions of years. I can well believe it. I now emphasize two points. In the first 412 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1134 place, science is rooted in what I have just called the whole apparatus of common- sense thought. That is the datum from which it starts, and to which it must recur. We may speculate, if it amuses us, of other beings in other planets who have arranged analogous experiences according to an en¬ tirely different conceptual code — namely, who have directed their chief attention to different relations between their various experiences. But the task is too complex, too gigantic, to be revised in its main out¬ lines. You may polish up common sense, you may contradict it in detail, you may surprise it. But ultimately your whole task is to satisfy it. In the second place, neither common sense nor science can proceed with their task of thought organization without de¬ parting in some respect from the strict con¬ sideration of what is actual in experience. Think again of the chair. Among the ex¬ periences upon which its concept is based, I included our expectations of its future history. I should have gone further and included our imagination of all the pos¬ sible experiences which in ordinary lan¬ guage we should call perceptions of the chair which might have occurred. This is a difficult question, and I do not see my way through it. But at present in the con¬ struction of a theory of space and of time, there seem insuperable difficulties if we re¬ fuse to admit ideal experiences. This imaginative perception of experi¬ ences, which, if they occurred, would be coherent with our actual experiences, seems fundamental in our lives. It is neither wholly arbitrary, nor yet fully determined. It is a vague background which is only made in part definite by isolated activities of thought. Consider, for example, our thoughts of the unseen flora of Brazil. Ideal experiences are closely connected with our imaginative reproduction of the actual experiences of other people, and also with our almost inevitable conception of ourselves as receiving our impressions from an external complex reality beyond ourselves. It may be that an adequate analysis of every source and every type of experience yields demonstrative proof of such a reality and of its nature. Indeed, it is hardly to be doubted that this is the case. The precise elucidation of this question is the problem of metaphysics. One of the points which I am urging in this address is that the basis of science does not depend on the assumption of any of the conclusions of metaphysics; but that both science and metaphysics start from the same given groundwork of immediate experience, and in the main proceed in opposite directions on their diverse tasks. For example, metaphysics inquires how our perceptions of the chair relate us to some true reality. Science gathers up these perceptions into a determinate class, adds to them ideal perceptions of analogous sort, which under assignable circumstances would be obtained, and this single concept of that set of perceptions is all that science needs; unless indeed you prefer that thought find its origin in some legend of those great twin brethren, the cock and bull. My immediate problem is to inquire into the nature of the texture of science. Sci¬ ence is essentially logical. The nexus be¬ tween its concepts is a logical nexus, and the grounds for its detailed assertions are logical grounds. King James said, “No bishops, no king.” With greater confidence we can say, “No logic, no science.” The reason for the instinctive dislike which most men of science feel towards the recog¬ nition of this truth is, I think, the barren failure of logical theory during the past three or four centuries. We may trace this failure back to the worship of authority September 22, 1916] SCIENCE 413 which in some respects increased in the learned wrorld at the time of the Renais¬ sance. Mankind then changed its author¬ ity, and this fact temporarily acted as an emancipation. But the main fact, and we can find complaints2 of it at the very com¬ mencement of the modern movement, was the establishment of a reverential attitude towards any statement made by a classical author. Scholars became commentators on truths too fragile to bear translation. A science which hesitates to forget its found¬ ers is lost. To this hesitation I ascribe the barrenness of logic. Another reason for distrust of logical theory and of mathe¬ matics is the belief that deductive reason¬ ing can give you nothing new. Your con¬ clusions are contained in your premises, which by hypothesis are known to you. In the first place this last condemnation of logic neglects the fragmentary, discon¬ nected character of human knowledge. To> know one premise on Monday, and another premise on Tuesday, is useless to you on Wednesday. Science is a permanent record of premises, deductions and conclusions, verified all along the line by its correspond¬ ence with facts. Secondly, it is untrue that when we know the premises we also know the conclusions. In arithmetic, for ex¬ ample, mankind are not calculating boys. Any theory which proves that they are conversant with the consequences of their assumptions must be wrong. We can ima¬ gine beings who possess such insight. But we are not such creatures. Both these an¬ swers are, I think, true and relevant. But they are not satisfactory. They are too much in the nature of bludgeons, too exter¬ nal. We want something more explanatory of the very real difficulty which the ques¬ tion suggests. In fact, the true answer is embedded in the discussion of our main 2 JE. g., in 1551 by Italian schoolmen. problem of the relation of logic to natural science. It will be necessary to sketch in broad outline some relevant features of modern logic. In doing so I shall try to avoid the profound general discussions and the minute technical classifications which oc¬ cupy the main part of traditional logic. It is characteristic of a science in its earlier stages — and logic has become fossilized in such a stage — to be both ambitiously pro¬ found in its aims and trivial in its han¬ dling of details. We can discern four de¬ partments of logical theory. By an analogy which is not so very remote I will call these departments or sections the arithmetic sec¬ tion, the algebraic section, the section of general-function theory, the analytic sec¬ tion. I do not mean that arithmetic arises in the first section, algebra in the second section, and so on; but the names are sug¬ gestive of certain qualities of thought in each section which are reminiscent of anal¬ ogous qualities in arithmetic, in algebra, in the general theory of a mathematical func¬ tion, and in the analysis of the properties of particular functions. The first section — namely, the arithmetic stage — deals with the relations of definite propositions to each other, just as arith¬ metic deals with definite numbers. Con¬ sider any definite proposition; call it “p.” We conceive that there is always another proposition which is the direct contradic¬ tory to “p”; call it “not-p.” When we have got two propositions, p and q, we can form derivative propositions from them, and from their contradictories. We can say, “At least one of p or q is true, and perhaps both.” Let us call this proposi¬ tion “p or q.” I may mention as an aside that one of the greatest living philosophers has stated that this use of the word “or” — namely, “p or q” in the sense that either or both may be true — makes him despair of 414 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1134 exact expression. We must brave his wrath, which is unintelligible to me. We have thus got hold of four new prop¬ ositions, namely, “p or g,” and “not-p or g,” and “p or not-g,” and “not-p or not- q.” Call these the set of disjunctive deriv¬ atives. There are, so far, in all eight prop¬ ositions p, not-p, q, not-g, and the four disjunctive derivatives. Any pair of these eight propositions can be taken, and sub¬ stituted for p and q in the foregoing treat¬ ment. Thus each pair yields eight propo¬ sitions, some of which may have been obtained before. By proceeding in this way we arrive at an unending set of prop¬ ositions of growing complexity, ultimately derived from the two original propositions p or q. Of course, only a few are impor¬ tant. Similarly we can start from three propositions, p, q, r, or from four proposi¬ tions, p, q, r, s, and so on. Any one of the propositions of these aggregates may be true or false. It has no other alternative. Whichever it is, true or false, call it the “truth-value” of the proposition. The first section of logical inquiry is to settle what we know of the truth-values of these propositions, when we know the truth- values of some of them. The inquiry, so far as it is worth while carrying it, is not very abstruse, and the best way of express¬ ing its results is a detail which I will not now consider. This inquiry forms the arithmetic stage. The next section of logic is the algebraic stage. Now, the difference between arith¬ metic and algebra is that in arithmetic definite numbers are considered, and in algebra symbols — namely, letters — are intro¬ duced which stand for any numbers. The idea of a number is also enlarged. These letters, standing for any numbers, are called sometimes variables and sometimes parameters. Their essential characteristic is that they are undetermined, unless, in¬ deed, the algebraic conditions which they satisfy implicitly determine them. Then they are sometimes called unknowns. An algebraic formula with letters is a blank form. It becomes a determinate arith¬ metic statement when definite numbers are substituted for the letters. The impor¬ tance of algebra is a tribute to the study of form. Consider now the following propo¬ sition, The specific heat of mercury is 0.033. This is a definite proposition which, with certain limitations, is true. But the truth- value of the proposition does not immedi¬ ately concern us. Instead of mercury put a mere letter which is the name of some un¬ determined thing: we get The specific heat of x is 0.033. This is not a proposition ; it has been called by Russell a propositional function. It is the logical analogy of an algebraic expres¬ sion. Let us write f(x ) for any proposi¬ tional function. We could also generalize still further, and say The specific heat of x is y. We thus get another propositional func¬ tion, F(x, y) of two arguments x and y, and so on for any number of arguments. Now, consider f(x). There is the range of values of x, for which f(x) is a proposi¬ tion, true or false. For values of x outside this range, f(x ) is not a proposition at all, and is neither true nor false. It may have vague suggestions for us, but it has no unit meaning of definite assertion. For ex¬ ample, The specific heat of water is 0.033 is a proposition which is false ; and The specific heat of virtue is 0.033 is, I should imagine, not a proposition at all; so that it is neither true nor false, though its component parts raise various associations in our minds. This range of values, for which f(x) has sense, is called the “type” of the argument x. September 22, 1916] SCIENCE 415 But there is also a range of values of x for which f(x) is a true proposition. This is the class of those values of the argument which satisfy f(x) . This class may have no members, or, in the other extreme, the class may be the whole type of the argu¬ ments. We thus conceive two general proposi¬ tions respecting the indefinite number of propositions which share in the same logical form, that is, which are values of the same propositional function. One of these prop¬ ositions is f(x) yields a true proposition for each value of x of the proper type; the other proposition is There is a value of x for which f(x) is true. Given two, or more, propositional functions f{x) and (x) with the same argument x, we form derivative propositional functions, namely, f(x) or cf>(x), f(x) or not -cf>{x), and so on with the contradictories, obtain¬ ing, as in the arithmetical stage, an unend¬ ing aggregate of propositional functions. Also each propositional function yields two general propositions. The theory of the interconnection between the truth-values of the general propositions arising from any such aggregate of propositional functions forms a simple and elegant chapter of mathematical logic. In this algebraic section of logic the theory of types crops up, as we have al¬ ready noted. It can not be neglected with¬ out the introduction of error. Its theory has to be settled at least by some safe hy¬ pothesis, even if it does not go to the philo¬ sophic basis of the question. This part of the subject is obscure and difficult, and has not been finally elucidated, though Rus¬ sell’s brilliant work has opened out the subject. The final impulse to modern logic comes from the independent discovery of the im¬ portance of the logical variable by Frege and Peano. Frege went further than Peano, but by an unfortunate symbolism rendered his work so obscure that no one fully recognized his meaning who had not found it out for himself. But the move¬ ment has a large history reaching back to Leibniz and even to Aristotle. Among English contributors are De Morgan, Boole and Sir Alfred Kempe ; their work is of the first rank. The third logical section is the stage of general-function theory. In logical lan¬ guage, we perform in this stage the transi¬ tion from intension to extension, and in¬ vestigate the theory of denotation. Take the propositional function f(x). There is the class, or range of values for x, whose members satisfy f(x). But the same range may be the class whose members satisfy another propositional function f>(x). It is necessary to investigate how to indicate the class by a way which is indifferent as between the various propositional functions which are satisfied by any member of it, and of it only. What has to be done is to analyze the nature of propositions about a class — namely, those propositions whose truth-values depend on the class itself and not on the particular meaning by which the class is indicated. Furthermore, there are propositions about alleged individuals indicated by de¬ scriptive phrases : for example, propositions about “the present King of England,” who does exist, and “the present Emperor of Brazil,” who does not exist. More com¬ plicated, but analogous, questions involving propositional functions of two variables in¬ volve the notion of “correlation,” just as functions of one argument involve classes. Similarly functions of three arguments yield three-cornered correlations, and so on. This logical section is one which Russell has made peculiarly his own by work which must always remain fundamental. I have 416 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1134 called this the section of functional theory, because its ideas are essential to the con¬ struction of logical denoting functions which include as a special case ordinary mathematical functions such as sine, log¬ arithm, etc. In each of these three stages it will be necessary gradually to introduce an appropriate symbolism, if we are to pass on to the fourth stage. The fourth logical section, the analytic stage, is concerned with the investigation of the properties of special logical con¬ structions, that is, of classes and correla¬ tions of special sorts. The whole of mathe¬ matics is included here. So the section is a large one. In fact, it is mathematics, neither more nor less. But it includes an analysis of mathematical ideas not hitherto included in the scope of that science, nor, indeed, contemplated at all. The essence of this stage is construction. It is by means of suitable constructions that the great framework of applied mathematics, com¬ prising the theories of number, quantity, time and space, is elaborated. It is impossible even in brief outline to explain how mathematics is developed from the concepts of class and correlation, in¬ cluding many-cornered correlations, which are established in the third section. I can only allude to the headings of the process which is fully developed in the work, “Mathematica Principia,” by Mr. Russell and myself. There are in this process of development seven special sorts of correla¬ tions which are of peculiar interest. The first sort comprises one-to-many, many-to- one, and one-to-one correlations. The sec¬ ond sort comprises serial relations, that is, correlations by which the members of some field are arranged in a serial order, so that, in the sense defined by the relation, any member of the field is either before or after any other member. The third class com¬ prises inductive relations, that is, correla¬ tions on which the theory of mathematical induction depends. The fourth class com¬ prises selective relations, which are re¬ quired for the general theory of arithmetic operations, and elsewhere. It is in connec¬ tion with such relations that the famous multiplicative axiom arises for considera¬ tion. The fifth class comprises vector rela¬ tions, from which the theory of quantity arises. The sixth class comprises ratio re¬ lations, which interconnect number and quantity. The seventh class comprises three-cornered and four-cornered relations which occur in geometry. A bare enumeration of technical names, such as the above, is not very illuminating, though it may help to a comprehension of the demarcations of the subject. Please re¬ member that the names are technical names, meant, no doubt, to be suggestive, but used in strictly defined senses. We have suffered much from critics who con¬ sider it sufficient to criticize our procedure on the slender basis of a knowledge of the dictionary meanings of such terms. For example, a one-to-one correlation depends on the notion of a class with only one mem¬ ber, and this notion is defined without ap¬ peal to the concept of the number one. The notion of diversity is all that is wanted. Thus the class a has only one member, if (1) the class of values of x which satisfies the propositional function, x is not a member of a, is not the whole type of relevant values of x, and (2) the propositional function, x and y are members of a, and x is diverse from y, is false whatever be the values of x and y in the relevant type. Analogous procedures are obviously pos¬ sible for higher finite cardinal members. Thus, step by step, the whole cycle of cur¬ rent mathematical ideas is capable of log¬ ical definition. The process is detailed and laborious, and, like all science, knows noth- September 22, 1916] SCIENCE 417 ing of a royal road of airy phrases. The essence of the process is, first to construct the notion in terms of the forms of propo¬ sitions, that is, in terms of the relevant propositional functions, and secondly to prove the fundamental truths which hold about the notion by reference to the results obtained in the algebraic section of logic. It will be seen that in this process the wThole apparatus of special indefinable mathematical concepts, and special a priori mathematical premises, respecting number, quantity and space, has vanished. Mathematics is merely an apparatus for analyzing the deductions which can be drawn from any particular premises, sup¬ plied by common sense, or by more refined scientific observation, so far as these de¬ ductions depend on the forms of the prop¬ ositions. Propositions of certain forms are continually occurring in thought. Our existing mathematics is the analysis of de¬ ductions, which concern those forms and in some way are important, either from prac¬ tical utility or theoretical interest. Here I am speaking of the science as it in fact exists. A theoretical definition of mathematics must include in its scope any deductions depending on the mere forms of propositions. But, of course, no one would wish to develop that part of mathe¬ matics which in no sense is of importance. This hasty summary of logical ideas sug¬ gests some reflections. The question arises, How many forms of propositions are there ? The answer is : An unending number. The reason for the supposed sterility of logical science can thus be discerned. Aristotle founded the science by conceiving the idea of the form of a proposition, and by con¬ ceiving deduction as taking place in virtue of the forms. But he confined propositions to four forms, now named A, I, E, 0. So long as logicians were obsessed by this un¬ fortunate restriction, real progress was im¬ possible. Again, in their theory of form, both Aristotle and subsequent logicians came very near to the theory of the logical variable. But to come very near to a true theory, and to grasp its precise application, are two very different things, as the his¬ tory of science teaches us. Everything of importance has been said before by some¬ body who did not discover it. Again, one reason why logical deductions are not obvious is that logical form is not a subject which ordinarily enters into thought. Common-sense deduction prob¬ ably moves by blind instinct from concrete proposition to concrete proposition, guided by some habitual association of ideas. Thus common sense fails in the presence of a wealth of material. A more important question is the rela¬ tion of induction, based on observation, to deductive logic. There is a tradition of opposition between adherents of induction and of deduction. In my view, it would be just as sensible for the two ends of a worm to quarrel. Both observation and deduc¬ tion are necessary for any knowledge worth having. We can not get an inductive law without having recourse to a propositional function. For example, take the statement of observed fact, This body is mercury, and its specific heat is 0.033. The propositional function is formed, Either x is not mercury, or its specific heat is 0.033. The inductive law is the assumption of the truth of the general proposition, that the above propositional function is true for every value of x in the relevant type. But it is objected that this process and its consequences are so simple that an elab¬ orate science is out of place. In the same way, a British sailor knows the salt sea when he sails over it. What, then, is the use of an elaborate chemical analysis of sea-water? There is the general answer, that you can not know too much of meth- 418 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1134 ods which you always employ ; and there is the special answer, that logical forms and logical implications are not so very simple, and that the whole of mathematics is evi¬ dence to this effect. One great use of the study of logical method is not in the region of elaborate de¬ duction, but to guide us in the study of the formation of the main concepts of science. Consider geometry, for example. What are the points which compose space ? Euclid tells us that they are without parts and without magnitude. But how is the notion of a point derived from the sense- perceptions from which science starts ? Certainly points are not direct deliver¬ ances of the senses. Here and there we may see or unpleasantly feel something suggestive of a point. But this is a rare phenomenon, and certainly does not war¬ rant the conception of space as composed of points. Our knowledge of space proper¬ ties is not based on any observations of re¬ lations between points. It arises from ex¬ perience of relations between bodies. Now a fundamental space relation between bod¬ ies is that one body may be part of another. We are tempted to define the “whole and part” relation by saying that the points occupied by the part are some of the points occupied by the whole. But “whole and part” being more fundamental than the notion of “point,” this definition is really circular and vicious. We accordingly ask whether any other definition of “spatial whole and part” can be given. I think that it can be done in this way, though, if I be mistaken, it is unessential to my general argument. We have come to the conclusion that an ex¬ tended body is nothing else than the class of perceptions of it by all its percipients, actual or ideal. Of course, it is not any class of perceptions, but a certain definite sort of class which I have not defined here, except by the vicious method of saying that they are perceptions of a body. Now, the perceptions of a part of a body are among the perceptions which compose the whole body. Thus two bodies a and b are both classes of perceptions; and b is part of a when the class which is b is contained in the class which is a. It immediately fol¬ lows from the logical form of this definition that if b is part of a, and c is part of b, then c is part of a. Thus the relation “whole to part” is transitive. Again, it will be convenient to allow that a body is part of itself. This is a mere question of how you draw the definition. With this understanding, the relation is reflexive. Finally, if a is part of b, and b is part of a, then a and b must be identical. These properties of “whole and part” are not fresh assumptions, they follow from the logical form of our definition. One assumption has to be made if we as¬ sume the ideal infinite divisibility of space. Namely, we assume that every class of per¬ ceptions which is an extended body con¬ tains other classes of perceptions which are extended bodies diverse from itself. This assumption makes rather a large draft on the theory of ideal perceptions. Geometry vanishes unless in some form you make it. The assumption is not peculiar to my ex¬ position. It is then possible to define what we mean by a point. A point is the class of extended objects which, in ordinary language, con¬ tain that point. The definition, without presupposing the idea of a point, is rather elaborate, and I have not now time for its statement. The advantage of introducing points into geometry is the simplicity of the logical expression of their mutual relations. For science, simplicity of definition is of slight importance, but simplicity of mutual rela¬ tions is essential. Another example of this law is the way physicists and chemists September 22, 1916] SCIENCE 419 have dissolved the simple idea of an ex¬ tended body, say of a chair, which a child understands, into a bewildering notion of a complex dance of molecules and atoms and electrons and wraves of light. They have thereby gained notions with simpler logical relations. Space as thus conceived is the exact for¬ mulation of the properties of the apparent space of the common-sense world of experi¬ ence. It is not necessarily the best mode of conceiving the space of the physicist. The one essential requisite is that the corre¬ spondence between the common-sense world in its space and the physicists’ world in its space should be definite and reciprocal. I will now break off the exposition of the function of logic in connection with the sci¬ ence of natural phenomena. I have en¬ deavored to exhibit it as the organizing principle, analyzing the derivation of the concepts from the immediate phenomena, examining the structure of the general propositions which are the assumed laws of nature, establishing their relations to each other in respect to reciprocal implications, deducing the phenomena we may expect under given circumstances. Logic, properly used, does not shackle thought. It gives freedom and, above all, boldness. Illogical thought hesitates to draw conclusions, because it never knows either what it means, or what it assumes, or how far it trusts its own assumptions, or what will be the effect of any modification of assumptions. Also the mind untrained in that part of constructive logic which is relevant to the subject in hand will be ignorant of the sort of conclusions which follow from various sorts of assumptions, and will be correspondingly dull in divin¬ ing the inductive laws. The fundamental training in this relevant logic is, un¬ doubtedly, to ponder with an active mind over the known facts of the case, directly observed. But where elaborate deductions are possible, this mental activity requires for its full exercise the direct study of the abstract logical relations. This is applied mathematics. Neither logic without observation, nor observation without logic, can move one step in the formation of science. We may conceive humanity as engaged in an inter¬ necine conflict between youth and age. Youth is not defined by years, but by the creative impulse to make something. The aged are those who, before all things, desire not to make a mistake. Logic is the olive branch from the old to the young, the wand which in the hands of youth has the magic property of creating science. A. N. Whitehead DR. HALDANE’S SILLIMAN LECTURES Dr. J. S. Haldane, of the University of Ox¬ ford, gives the Silliman lectures at Yale Uni¬ versity on October 9, 10, 12 and 13. The gen¬ eral subject of the lectures is : Organization and Environment as illustrated by the Physi¬ ology of Breathing. The topics of the separate lectures are: Lecture I. — The problem presented by the co¬ ordinated maintenance of reactions between or¬ ganism and environment — vitalistic and mechan¬ istic attempts at explanation ; The elementary facts relating to breathing; The respiratory cen¬ ter and the blood; Alveolar air and the exact reg¬ ulation of its C02 percentage; Apnea and hyper- pnea; Varying frequency of breathing; Physio¬ logical effects of varying pressures of gases; Ef¬ fects of deprivation of C02; Effects of air of con¬ fined spaces and mines; Effects of compressed air in diving; Influence of the vagus nerves in breath¬ ing; Coordination of the responses to central and peripheral nervous stimuli, so that the respiratory apparatus acts as a whole. Lecture II. — The gases of the blood; Oxyhemo¬ globin and the conditions of its dissociation; The combinations of C02 in the blood and their dis¬ sociation; Effects of oxygenation of hemoglobin on the dissociation of C02; Exact physiological regulation of the blood-gases; Evidence that C02 acts physiologically as an acid; Investigations of 420 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1134 the reaction of blood; Extreme delicacy of the physiological regulation of the blood reaction; Regulation by the lungs, liver and kidneys; Ef¬ fects of want of oxygen on the breathing; High balloon ascents, CO poisoning, and mountain sick¬ ness; Acclimatization to oxygen want: — the Anglo- American expedition to Pikes Peak in 1911; Ac¬ climatization effects of oxygen want on the breath¬ ing; Acclimatization effects on the hemoglobin percentage and blood-volume; Acclimatization ef¬ fects on active secretion inwards of oxygen by the lungs; Factors in acclimatization to want of oxy¬ gen. Lecture III. — Further analysis of oxygen secre¬ tion by the lungs ; Secretion of oxygen by the swim-bladder; Secretion in other glands; Analogy between secretion and cell-nutrition; The circula¬ tory regulation of carriage of oxygen and C02; Regulation by vaso-motor nervous control ; Evi¬ dence that this control depends upon the metabol¬ ism of the tissues; Evidence that the heart’s ac¬ tion in pumping blood depends on the same condi¬ tions; Part played by contraction of the veins; The blood as a constant internal environment; Regulation of this internal environment by the kidneys; Regulation by other organs; Regulation after bleeding and transfusion; Regulation of the external environment; In reality the constancy of the internal or external environment is a balance between disturbing and restoring influences, each of which persists; The ordinary idea of “func¬ tion” in an organ is misleading; “Causes” and ‘ ‘ stimuli ’ ’ — physiology as an endless maze of causes. Lecture IV. — Examination of mechanistic inter¬ pretation of regulation of the environment; Dif¬ ference between an organism and a machine; Life endures actively and develops; In life the whole is in the parts and the past is in the present; Or¬ ganism, environment and life-history can not be separated; For biology life and not matter is the primary reality; The true aims and methods of biology; Biology an exact experimental science; Relation of physiological to physical and chemical investigation of organisms; The limitations of ex¬ isting physical and chemical conceptions; Inade¬ quacy of vitalism; Vitalism the inevitable accom¬ paniment of attempted mechanistic interpreta¬ tions of life; Individual life as a part of a wider life; The limitations of biological conceptions; Science and religion. SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS Josiah Royce, Alvord professor of the his¬ tory of philosophy at Harvard University, dis¬ tinguished for his contributions to philosophy, logic, ethics and psychology, died on Septem¬ ber 14, in his sixtieth year. The British government has appointed two committees to inquire, respectively, into the position of science and modern languages in the system of education of Great Britain. The members of the committee on science are: Sir J. J. Thomson (chairman), the Rt. Hon. F. D. Acland, Professor H. B. Baker, Mr. Graham Balfour, Sir William Beardmore, Bart., Sir G. H. Claughton, Bart., Mr. C. W. Crook, Miss E. R. Gwatkin, Sir Henry Hibbert, M.P., Mr. William Neagle, Mr. F. G. Ogilvie, C.B., Dr. Michael Sadler, C.B., Professor E. H. Starling, Mr. W. W. Yaughan, Mr. F. B. Stead, inspector of schools, secretary. This committee is instructed “ to inquire into the position occupied by natural science in the edu¬ cational system of Great Britain, especially in secondary schools and universities; and to advise what measures are needed to promote its study, regard being had to the require¬ ments of a liberal education, to the advance¬ ment of pure science, and to the interests of the trades, industries and professions which particularly depend upon applied sciences.” Sir Charles H. Bedford has been appointed general secretary of the newly constituted As¬ sociation of British Chemical Manufacturers. The business of the association is for the present being carried on at the offices of the Society of Chemical Industry. Dr. I. J. Kligler, who has been in imme¬ diate charge of the bacterial collection of the department of public health of the American Museum of Natural History, has resigned to accept a position with the Rockefeller Insti¬ tute. His place will be taken by Thomas G. Hull, Ph.D. (Yale, ’16). The Boston City Council has passed an ordinance that will give the city police court a medical department and psychologic labo¬ ratory. All offenders will pass through this department, the verdict of which as to their mental condition, will be taken into considera¬ tion before sentence is pronounced. Dr. Victor Y. Anderson is appointed as head. September 22, 1916] SCIENCE 421 Professor Charles Smith Prosser, head of the department of geology of the Ohio State University, has died at the age of fifty-six years. His body was found in the Olentangy River, near the university campus, on Septem¬ ber 18. Dr. Prosser received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctor’s degree at Cornell Uni¬ versity and was instructor in paleontology there. Later he was paleontologist of the U. S. Geological Survey and professor at Wash¬ burn and Union Colleges, going to the Ohio State University in 1899. He was the author of important contributions to stratigraphical geology and paleontology. William Esson, since 1897 Savillian pro¬ fessor of geometry at the University of Oxford, has died at the age of eighty-eight years. S. B. MacLaren, professor of mathematics in University College, Reading, died on Au¬ gust 14, as the result of wounds, while serving in the corps of engineers of the British army. Dr. C. C. Clough, of the Scottish Geolog¬ ical Survey, died on August 27, aged sixty- three years. We learn from Nature that Captain A. R. Brown, formerly science master at Buck- haven High Grade School, and Second Lieu¬ tenant H. Watson, mathematical master at Ormskirk Grammar School, have both been killed in action. Dr. A. Charpentier, professor of medical physics at Haney, has died suddenly in his sixty-fifth year. Dr. Walter Zurliellen, formerly an assist¬ ant director of the National Astronomical Ob¬ servatory at Santiago, Chili, is, according to a wireless dispatch from Berlin, dead as a result of wounds received on the battlefield. Two offices in the health department of the District of Columbia are created by Congress in the appropriation bill enacted September 1. A chief medical and sanitary inspector is to be appointed, who, under direction of the health officer, is to give his whole time to, and exercise direction and control of, the medical and sanitary conditions of the public schools, at a salary of $2,500 a year. He will assume charge of the thirteen medical inspectors and five graduate nurses now in the service. A chief food inspector, at $1,800 a year, is au¬ thorized to have general supervision and con¬ trol of the food inspection service, comprising seventeen subordinate inspectors. In central Alaska south of the Yukon River there is a large area which prior to 1915 was practically unknown. In the summer of 1915 a small United States Geological Survey party in charge of H. M. Eakin made a rapid explora¬ tion from Tanana River at Cosna to the head¬ waters of Nowitna River and thence down the Nowitna to the Yukon. A preliminary state¬ ment of the important geologic and topo¬ graphic observations made on that expedition has recently been published by the United States Geological Survey, Department of the Interior, as part of Bulletin 642, entitled “ Ex¬ ploration in the Cosna-Nowitna Region.” Much time has been spent by a few prospectors in a search for placer gold on Nowitna River, but so far as is known the occurrence of com¬ mercial placers in that region has not been demonstrated. In much of the region pros¬ pecting is beset with considerable difficulty, owing to the great depth and breadth of the alluvial filling in the larger valleys. Although no lodes have yet been discovered the evidence available seems to suggest that the gold in the bedrock was probably introduced as a result of the igneous activities that produced the mon- zonites and granites, so that gold is most likely to be found near these intrusive masses. The map accompanying this report indicates the distribution of these intrusive rocks as well as of the other geologic formations. Dr. Lucy L. W. Wilson, excavating for the Philadelphia Commercial Museum, has closed her camp at Otowi, Hew Mexico. In this, her second season, she has (a) excavated 165 rooms and a kiva in the large pueblo; ( b ) located fourteen pueblos (two of them hundred room houses) on low ridges south of the large pueblo; (c) excavated fourteen rooms and a kiva in these smaller pueblos; ( d ) excavated and cleaned out the rooms in two three-story cliff dwellings in the mesa north and west of 422 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1134 the large pueblo; (e) explored the cave dwell¬ ings in the southern mesa and the caves in the so-called “ tent villages.” No certain evidence of prehistoric occupation was found in either case, in spite of reports to the contrary. Nine hundred and five artifacts were catalogued: 613 of stone, 159 of pottery, 88 of bone, 25 miscellaneous (fabric, rope, games, pendants, etc.) together with 21 burials and 53 evidences of food. Twenty-seven pieces of pottery were taken out whole, including five tinajes. The most important single find was that of an an¬ thropomorphic figure of clay, originally col¬ ored red, with turquoise eyes and a turquoise in the chest. The work of excavation will be continued for at least another season. According to the London correspondent of the Journal of the American Medical Associa¬ tion the births registered in England in the fourth quarter of 1915 corresponds to a rate of 19.5 annually per thousand of the popula¬ tion. This rate is 4.6 per thousand below the mean birth rate in the ten preceding fourth quarters and 2.7 below the rate in the corre¬ sponding period of 1914; it is the lowest birth rate recorded in any quarter since the estab¬ lishment of civil registration. The natural in¬ crease of population in England and Wales last quarter by excess of births over deaths was 46,368, against 87,995, 89,045 and 77,394 in the fourth quarters of 1912, 1913 and 1914, respectively. The deaths registered in the same quarter correspond to an annual rate of 14.6 per thousand persons living; this rate is 0.3 per thousand above the mean rate in the ten preceding fourth quarters, and 0.7 per thousand above the rate in the fourth quarter of 1914. During the year 1915 there were 814,527 births and 562,326 deaths registered in England and Wales. The natural increase of population, by excess of births over deaths, was, therefore, 252,201, the average annual in¬ crease in the preceding five years having been 378,360. The number of persons married dur¬ ing the year was 720,052. The marriage rate was 19.3 persons married per thousand of the population, which is 3.5 per thousand above the rate in 1914 and higher than the rate in any other year on record. One of the phe¬ nomena of the present time is the war wed¬ ding. The greater part of the young men of the country have joined the army and often marry before leaving for the front. The rea¬ son generally appears to be financial. If they join the ranks their wives are entitled to sepa¬ ration allowances, and if they are killed, to pensions. In the better classes, from which the officers usually come, the desire that their fiancees shall succeed to their property is another motive. Compared with the average in the ten years 1905-1914, the marriage rate in 1915 showed an increase of 3.9 per thou¬ sand. The birth rate was 21.8 per thousand of the population, which is 1.8 per thousand be¬ low the rate in 1914, and lower than the rate in any other year on record. Compared with the average in the ten years 1905-1914, the birth rate in 1915 showed a decrease of 3.6 per thousand. The death rate in 1915 was 15.1 per thousand, which was 1.2 per thousand above the rate in 1914. Compared with the rate in the ten years 1905-1914, the death rate in 1915 showed an increase of 0.7 per thou¬ sand. We learn from Nature that at the annual general meeting of the Chemical Society held at Burlington House, Dr. Alexander Scott pre¬ sided, and a discussion took place with regard to the removal from the list of those honorary and foreign members who are alien enemies, and it was decided to refer the matter to the council for further consideration. It was with great pleasure the president announced that the fol¬ lowing donations had been made to the re¬ search fund: (a) £1,000 from Dr. G. B. Long- staff, whose father, by his gift of a similar amount, was largely instrumental in founding the research fund forty years ago; (b) £1,000 from Mrs. and Miss Muller, in commemora¬ tion of the late Dr. Hugo Muller’s long con¬ nection with the society; (c) £500 from Dr. Alexander Scott, to mark his appreciation of the valuable work done by the research fund, and in commemoration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the society. Professor G. G. Henderson and Professor A. Lapworth were elected new vice-presidents, and Mr. A. Chas- ton Chapman, Mr. C. A. Hill, Dr. R. H. Pick- September 22, 1916] SCIENCE 423 ard, and Dr. F. L. Pyman were elected as new ordinary members of council. The Chemists’ Club of New York announces the establishment of another scholarship fund, the income from which, approximately $400 per year, is to be devoted to assisting finan¬ cially deserving young men to obtain educa¬ tion in the field of industrial chemistry or chemical engineering. This scholarship has been endowed by Mr. Wm. F. Hoffmann. Its benefits will be open to properly qualified ap¬ plicants without restriction as to residence, and may be effective at any institution in the United States which may be designated or approved by the Chemists’ Club. In accord¬ ance with the deed of trust applicants must, as a minimum qualification, have completed a satisfactory high-school training involving substantial work in elementary chemistry, physics and mathematics and present a certifi¬ cate showing that they have passed the en¬ trance examination requirements of the Col¬ lege Entrance Examination Board or its equivalent. Preference will be given to young men who have supplemented these minimum qualifications with additional academic work, especially in subjects which will form a suit¬ able foundation for the more advanced study of applied chemistry and chemical engineer¬ ing. All inquiries should be addressed to the Hoffmann Scholarship Committee of the Chem¬ ists’ Club, 50 East 41st Street, New York City. Applications for the next academic year should be in the hands of the committee on or before June 1, 1917. The scholarship will be awarded and candidates selected and notified on or be¬ fore July 1. In his anniversary address to the Society of Antiquaries, the president, Sir Arthur Evans, made the following observations: I am well aware that the question of the expul¬ sion, or at least suspension, of German honorary members of this and other learned societies in this country is in the air. There seems, at the same time, to be a general consensus of opinion that if any action in this matter be considered desirable it should be taken in common. To this end your council have empowered me to submit proposals on their behalf. But I will not attempt to conceal from the society my own feelings on this grave matter. . . . The existence among German honorary fellows of savants belonging to that noble class of which the late Dr. Helbig stood forth as a con¬ spicuous example — to whom the brotherhood of science was a bond at least as great as that of nationality and language — should give us pause before we carry out any too sweeping measures. In spite of the ‘ ‘ Gospel of Hate, ’ ’ let it be said to their credit, the learned societies and academies of Germany, with inconsiderable exceptions, have re¬ frained from striking their English members from their rolls. In spite of official pressure, the Acad¬ emy of Berlin has twice refused to take this ac¬ tion. I myself am not ashamed of confessing that I have received, in the period of the war itself, cordial and even unsolicited assistance from a Ger¬ man archeologist, occupying a high official position. . . . In these times of intolerable provocation we, and members of kindred societies, who stand on the neutral ground of science have a high duty to perform. That there should be a serious and pro¬ longed estrangement of the peoples of the British commonwealth from those of the German empire has become inevitable. But this does not affect the immutable condition of all branches of re¬ search, which is their essential interdependence. We have not ceased to share a common task with those who to-day are our enemies. We can not shirk the fact that to-morrow we shall be once more laborers together in the same historic field. It is incumbent on us to do nothing which should shut the door to mutual intercourse in subjects like our own, which lie apart from the domain of hu¬ man passions, in the silent avenues of the past. We learn from the British Medical Journal that the museum of the French army medical service installed at the Val-de-Grace military hospital under the direction of Professor Jacob, was recently formally opened by M. Justin Godard, under secretary of state of the sanitary service. On the ground floor are a library, an archives room, and others for speci¬ mens, mouldings and apparatus. The first floor is given up to a collection of the instru¬ ments of destruction — bullets, shells (incen¬ diary, shrapnel, asphyxiating and explosive gases), aerial torpedoes, Zeppelin and aeroplane bombs— used by the Germans; alongside these are specimens of protective apparatus (hel¬ mets and masks). Then comes a miniature exposition of sanitary cantonments, special 424 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1134 beds, and other hygienic inventions for use at the front. A laboratory of antityphoid vacci¬ nation displays the apparatus, the preparations used, and the graphic records. Painted sculp¬ tures by M. Jean Larrive illustrate the work¬ ing of the sanitary service. A series of reliefs shows first aid in the trenches, the transport of a badly wounded man, the arrival at the first line dressing station, and the interior of the station. A room is set apart for surgical in¬ struments and sterilizing apparatus, with mod¬ els showing the disinfection of wounds by the * Dakin method. A valuable collection of foreign and do¬ mestic woods in panel form is being installed on the second and third floors of the rotunda in the new $250,000 Forestry Building of the State College of Forestry at Syracuse. For the past two years search has been made throughout the country for available commer¬ cial varieties of wood native to this country, as well as the important commercial woods from South America, Mexico, the West Indies, Africa and the East Indies. Among the rare foreign woods that will be displayed as panels around the rotunda in the College of Forestry building are African gaboon, East India koa, marblewood, East India rosewood, satinwood, camphor wood, teak, Circassian walnut and eight different kinds of mahogany. Among the western woods of this country displayed are Douglas fir, California redwood, sugar pine, western yellow pine, Sitka spruce, Port Oxford cedar, incense cedar and several va¬ rieties of eucalyptus. The southern forests are represented by cypress, southern hard pine. North Carolina pine, red and black gum, cucumber and persimmon. A great va¬ riety of native hard and soft woods found in New York are the nucleus around which these rarer woods are gathered. The collection of panels of native and foreign woods built into the rotunda of the College of Forestry build¬ ing at Syracuse are being finished carefully to bring out the natural grain to best effect and at the same time to detract as little as pos¬ sible from the native color and natural wood fibers. Each panel is to be labeled with the common and scientific name so that both the student body of the college and the many visi¬ tors who come to the building may study a permanent exhibit of unusual interest and value. Lumber manufacturers’ associations and lumbermen throughout the country have been cooperating very cordially with the New York State College of Forestry in supplying these panels. A machine for testing the strength of boxes has been devised by engineers of the Forest Service and is in use at the Forest Products Laboratory at Madison, Wisconsin. The ma¬ chine is the result of experiments made to de¬ termine a fair test for all types of boxes. A series of tests in cooperation with the Ameri¬ can Society for Testing Materials and the Na¬ tional Association of Box Manufacturers has been carried on during the past year to deter¬ mine the strength of boxes of various woods and of different construction. Over four and a half billion feet of lumber is used for box making every year, and on this account the tests are considered important. Moreover, big losses are caused by the breakage of boxes in transit, and all parties concerned are said to be anxious to determine the best kind of box. The machine consists of a hexagonal drum with 3^-foot sides, which is lined with thin steel sheets. Pieces of scantling bolted to the bottom form what are known as “ haz¬ ards.” In making the tests boxes filled with cans containing water are placed in the drum, which is then rotated. For convenience in observing the results of the tests, the sides and ends of the box are numbered with large figures, and in addition other numbers are placed at specified points on each side. The “ hazards ” cause the boxes to be carried part way round and then dropped back to the lower level of the drum. Each fall of this sort is a pretty fair imitation of the probable treat¬ ment it would receive in shipment. The boxes are watched carefully, and notes are taken on the manner in which they give way and the number of falls required to break them in pieces. In this way it is possible to determine what kinds of woods are best suited for boxes. The tests showed a decided need for a stand¬ ard classification of box woods, and three September 22, 1916] SCIENCE 425 groups have been made, based on the data that were obtained. Leading metal-producing companies from all sections of the country will be represented by members of their staff at the meeting of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, which convenes in Arizona on September 18. The country’s record production of metal dur¬ ing the past year has greatly stimulated the interest in those general mining topics which will be discussed at the institute’s sessions. More than twenty corporations have already expressed a desire to be represented by insti¬ tute members who may participate in the tech¬ nical gathering. Some of these are Anaconda Copper Mining Co., the largest copper produc¬ ing company in the country; American Smelt¬ ing and Refining Co., the largest lead-produc¬ ing company; Ray Consolidated Copper Co., Treadwell and Alaska Juneau mines, Miami Copper Co., and the Mew Jersey Zinc Co. Among the engineers' who will be present are L. D. Ricketts, Benjamin B. Thayer, William L. Saunders, Sidney J. Jennings, George D. Barron and Philip M. Moore. A special train from Mew York will be the traveling head¬ quarters, the train moving from point to point in Arizona each day during the week of the convention. Some seventy papers have been prepared for discussion at the meeting. These papers bear largely upon new methods of pro¬ duction and the mining outlook in various parts of the world. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS Under the will of William Watson Law¬ rence, of Pittsburgh, Princeton University will ultimately receive the residue of his estate, estimated at more than $750,000. Professor Carl T. Dowell, instructor of chemistry at the University of Texas, Austin, has been elected associate professor of chem¬ istry at Tulane University. The following appointments and changes are announced from the University of Illinois : Professor Richard C. Tolman, recently at the University of California, has been appointed professor of physical chemistry to succeed Pro¬ fessor E. W. Washburn, who has been ap¬ pointed head of the department of ceramics. Dr. Roger C. Adams has been appointed as¬ sistant professor of organic chemistry to suc¬ ceed Dr. C. G. Derick, who is organizing a re¬ search laboratory for the Schoellkopf Aniline and Chemical Works in Buffalo. Dr. Horace G. Deming, recently returned from the Philip¬ pines, has been appointed associate in chem¬ istry to assist in the instruction in general chemistry and qualitative analysis. Professor C. W. Balke, formerly at the head of the divi¬ sion of general chemistry and qualitative anal¬ ysis is organizing a research laboratory for the Pfanstiehl Company in Morth Chicago which is engaged in the application of rare metals to industrial uses. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE VITALISM I have read with much interest the addresses that have appeared in Science, forming part of a symposium on “ The Basis of Individual¬ ity in Organisms.” But I have not noted that two well-known facts, that seem to me of major importance to the discussion, have been jointly focused on the problem. May I men¬ tion them, and briefly suggest their bearing ? 1. I assume all would agree that non-percep- tual realities — Spencer’s Unknowable, Kant’s Ding-an-sich, Locke’s Something, I know not what, that supports sensations — exist, and are the kernel of all matter, dead and living. These realities — whose natures remain so dim to our inquiries — it is that behave in the ways laboriously and skilfully discovered, described and formulated by natural science. Their existence and basal activity might, further, be thought to validate vitalism. For the active beings ( i . e., themselves) of which conscious organisms are aware are the very realities that behave after the conscious fashion, and their natures might reasonably be thought to throw light on their behavior, as has, in fact, been 426 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1134 the case. But such an inference goes too fast. 2. The behavior of certain groups, even when viewed phenomenally, in abstraction from their realities, as natural science views them, is different from the behavior of the aggregate of their components ungrouped; and the be¬ havior of the components grouped is different from their behavior ungrouped; different as regards the scientific laws they observe. The proper number of electrons act differently, individually and collectively, before and after being grouped into an atom of helium. And so with the atoms that form molecules; the molecules that form cells; the cells that form organisms ; the organisms that form crowds or societies. Here, as I see it, emerges the question of the acceptance or rejection of vitalism, as a factor in natural scientific explanation — 1, above, shows we must accept it as a fact. If it can be successfully maintained that a full knowl¬ edge of the perceptual behavior of electrons, atoms and molecules, before they are grouped and regrouped into cells and organisms, will enable us to predict their behavior, and the behavior of the cells and organisms they form, after the grouping and regrouping, then vital¬ ism is not needed for natural scientific expla¬ nation. If not, non-perceptual realities being existent, potent and observable, in the case of conscious beings, they, and therefore vitalism, must be availed of to eke out our otherwise incomplete explanations. Of course, our pres¬ ent knowledge does not permit such predic¬ tions, and therefore ordinary intercourse, the social sciences, and psychology, are per force vitalistic in explanation, for the present at least. But the antivitalists maintain that full prediction will come some day, and that mean¬ time we should not be scientifically — I should say natural scientifically; psychology at least is a science — satisfied till it does; while the vitalists believe our knowledge of outer per¬ ceptual happenings never will permit full pre¬ diction, though it probably will approximate more and more closely to doing so. Whichever side is right, two facts should not be forgotten. (1) Though living cells and organisms act according to the chemical and physical laws observed by electrons, atoms and molecules in their simpler groupings, they also, and in addition, behave after the higher vital fashion; i. e., intelligently and any explana¬ tion offered by natural science that pretends to explain intelligence away is incorrect or incomplete, because false to the facts it is bound to respect. (2) The real agents, whose activities the sciences of nature, among others, are called upon to describe and explain, are, in the case of us men, the Egos of which we are severally confusedly conscious. In sum, then, natural scientists, as such, must deny vitalism, in order to achieve the maximum of explanation in quantitative and phenomenalistic terms; but practical and philosophic men, viewing their problem en¬ tire, and engaged in the larger game of living, must recognize and reckon with the effective reality of the human (and animal) Ego. I ask indulgence for the dogmatic tone, as¬ sumed in the interest of terseness; it conceals not a few modesties. S. E. Mezes The College of the City of New York THE ANIMAL DIET OF EARLY MAN It may be the merest speculation to say what early man did or did not eat, but, there appears to be rather strong zoological evidence that man and his ancestors have long indulged in three forms of animal food which to-day are commonly found in markets. The perfect adaptation to their definitive and intermedi¬ ate hosts and the rather high degree of differ¬ entiation of the three large tapeworm para¬ sites of man must impress itself upon every one who gives the matter consideration and yet it is a point which I have not seen men¬ tioned in the books on animal parasites with which I am familiar. The tapeworms referred to are the beef tapeworm, Taenia saginata; the pork tapeworm, Toenia solium, and the fish tapeworm, Dibo- thriocephalus latus. The definitive host of the two tsenias is man, and I believe man alone. The intermediate host of Toenia saginata is Bos taurus. The common intermediate host of Toenia solium is the pig, Sus scrofa, less September 22, 1916] SCIENCE 427 commonly man himself, very rarely other ani¬ mals. Both these tapeworms are rather highly specialized and do not appear to be readily adaptable to other hosts. The conclu¬ sion seems clear that man has been eating cattle and pigs or their immediate ancestors, and perhaps himself, for as many ages as needed for these tapeworms to attain their present degree of differentiation. We have no evidence that species of any kind are rapidly produced, and the parasites have probably had as slow an evolution as man himself. The fish tapeworm has other definitive hosts than man, notably the dog and the evidence is not con¬ clusive that early man was piscivorous. The ease, however, with which man becomes in¬ fested with this parasite might indicate that he had eaten uncooked fish for a long period. The adaptability of trichina, Trichinella spiralis, for man and pigs is rather significant in this connection, but trichina seems to thrive so easily in almost any mammalian host that not much weight can be attached to that para¬ site as indicating a pork diet for early man. The idea of the concomitant evolution of these human parasites, of man, and of the ani¬ mals serving as food for him and intermediate hosts for the parasites has interested me for some time. It has recently been brought to the foreground by Gregory’s “ Studies on the Evolution of the Primates ” 1 in which he so graphically describes (pp. 342-344) the evolu¬ tion of human food habits. On different grounds from parasitology Gregory concludes that the wild boar was “ one of the first medium-sized animals that the nascent Homi- nidse would be successful in killing.” The only other animal mentioned by him as prob¬ able food of early man is the horse. Our knowledge of the beef tapeworm seems to indi¬ cate that Bos taurus or its progenitors were eaten as well as early horses. There is nothing to show that horses were not eaten, unless the rather widespread abhorence of eating horse¬ flesh at the present time can be construed that man never adapted himself to that diet as he did to beef. i Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., Yol. 35, pp. 239- 355, June 16, 1916. It is not beyond possibility that the ac¬ quirement of a meat diet by the vegetarian pre-men may by improvement of nutrition, by shortening of digestive processes, and by stimulating properties of proteins and their split-products have played an important part in man’s evolution over his vegetarian com¬ petitors. M. W. Lyon, Jr. George Washington University SCIENTIFIC BOOKS Napier Tercentenary Memorial Volume. Edited by Cargill Gilston Knott. Pub¬ lished for the Royal Society of Edinburgh by Longmans, Green and Company. Lon¬ don, 1915. Pp. xii + 422. Price, $7.00. The International Congress which met at Edinburgh from Friday, July 24, to Monday, July 27, 1914, to commemorate the tercentenary of the publication of John Napier’s “ Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio ” was the last great international assembly of scientists before the Great War. Appreciations of Eng¬ lish scientists and congratulatory addresses by German scientists and German univer¬ sities, in honor of an Englishman, will prob¬ ably not soon be seen again. The variety of interests touched by such an invention as logarithms, in its developments, is so well illustrated by the papers of this memorial volume that it seems desirable to pre¬ sent the list. "The Invention of Logarithms, ’ ’ by Lord Moul¬ ton, president of the congress. "John Napier of Merchiston, ’ ’ by Professor P. Hume Brown, University of Edinburgh. "Merchiston Castle," by George Smith, master of Dulwich College, formerly headmaster of Mer¬ chiston Castle School. "Logarithms and Computation," by J. W. L. Glaisher, Trinity College, Cambridge. "The Law of Exponents in the Works of the Six¬ teenth Century, ’ ’ by Professor David Eugene Smith, Columbia University. "Algebra in Napier’s Day and Alleged Prior In¬ ventions of Logarithms," by Professor Florian Cajori, Colorado College. "Napier’s Logarithms and the Change to Brigg’s Logarithms," by Professor George A. Gibson, University of Glasgow. 428 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1134 “Introduction of Logarithms into Turkey,” by Lieutenant Salih Mourad, of the Turkish navy. “A Short Account of the Treatise, 'De Arte Log- istica, ’ ’ ’ by Professor J. E. A. Steggall, Univer¬ sity of St. Andrews, Dundee. ‘ 1 The First Naperian Logarithm Calculated be¬ fore Napier,” by Professor Giovanni Yacca, University of Rome. “The Theory of Naperian Logarithms Explained by Pietro Mengoli (1659),” by Professor Vacca. “Napier’s Rules and Trigonometrically Equiva¬ lent Polygons, ’ ’ by Professor D. M. Y. Somer¬ ville, Wellington University, New Zealand. “Bibliography of Books Exhibited at the Napier Tercentenary Celebration, July, 1914,” by Pro¬ fessor R. A. Sampson, University of Edinburgh. ‘ ‘ Fundamental Trigonometrical and Logarithmic Tables,” by Professor H. Andoyer, University of Paris. “Edward Sang and his Logarithmic Calcula¬ tions,” by Professor C. G. Knott, University of Edinburgh. “Formulas and Scheme of Calculation for the De¬ velopment of a Function of two Variables in Spherical Harmonics,” by Professor J. Bausch- inger, University of Strassburg. “Numerical Tables and Nomograms,” by Pro¬ fessor M. d ’Ocagne, 1 ’Ecole Polytechnique, Paris. “On the Origin of Machines of Direct Multiplica¬ tion,” by Professor d ’Ocagne. “New Table of Natural Sines,” by Mrs. E. Gif¬ ford. ‘ 1 The Arrangement of' Mathematical Tables, ’ ’ by Dr. J. R. Milne, University of Edinburgh. “Note on Critical Tables,” by Mr. T. C. Hudson, of the Nautical Almanac staff. “On a Possible Economy of Entries in Tables of Logarithmic and Other Functions, ’ ’ by Pro¬ fessor Steggall. ‘ ‘ The Graphical Treatment of some Crystallo¬ graphic Problems,” by Dr. A. Hutchinson, Pem¬ broke College, Cambridge. “A Method of Computing Logarithms by Simple Addition,” by William Schooling. ‘ ‘ How to Reduce to a Minimum the Mean Error of Tables,” by A. K. Erlang, Copenhagen Uni¬ versity. “Extension of Accuracy of Mathematical Tables by Improvement of Differences,” by Dr. W. F. Sheppard. “Unpublished Tables Relating to the Probability- Integral,” by Dr. Sheppard. “A Method of Finding Without the Use of Tables the Number Corresponding to a given Natural Logarithm,” by Dr. Artemas Martin, of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. “Approximate Determinations of the Functions of an Angle, and the Converse,” by Mr. H. S. Gay, of Shamokin, Pa. “Life Probabilities; on a Logarithmic Criterion of Dr. Goldziher and on its Extension,” by M. Albert Quiquet, general secretary of the In¬ stitute of French Actuaries. In addition to the above scientific papers the volume includes a record of the proceedings of the congress, with a list of the members, and subject and name indices. Of particular interest is the announcement of new tables, prepared or under preparation, made at this congress. Mrs. Gilford has con¬ structed and published a table to every second of arc of natural sines to eight places of decimals. Such tables will be increasingly in demand since the larger calculating machines are supplanting in many instances logarithms. No little surprise is occasioned by the fact that a mathematician and astronomer of the ability of Professor Andoyer should have devoted sev¬ eral years to the laborious task of computation of tables. The partial fruit of this effort is the publication of the logarithms of the trigo¬ nometrical function for every ten seconds of arc to fourteen places of decimals; a large quarto volume of 600 pages, appearing at Paris in 1911. Following this there is in course of publication, evidently delayed by the war, a similar table of the natural functions, to form a quarto volume of about 1,000 pages. Pro¬ fessor Andoyer contemplates further a 14-place table of logarithms of numbers between 100,- 000 and 200,000. Another set of tables which may be published, and which would render un¬ necessary the last work mentioned, is the tables of logarithms to fifteen places of the natural numbers from 100,000 to 370,000 by Dr. Edward Sang. The computer resided in Edinburgh where he died in 1890. His tables are accurate to fourteen places, and the manu¬ script was prepared with such care that it would lend itself admirably to reproduction by photographic processes; to include his tables September 22, 1916] SCIENCE 429 of logarithms to 28 figures of the numbers from 1 to 10,000 and to 15 figures of the num¬ bers from 100,000 to 200,000 will require a volume of 1,100 pages. In the paper by Mr. H. S. Gray the final formulae are unfortunately incorrectly printed (p. 367). Corrected these should read, as follows : a = ... - , a less than 45°. .01147 + .006 cos a 90 - a = - r-- — . - , a greater than 45°. It is interesting to note that the author, a practising engineer, arrived at his approxi¬ mate determinations of the sine and cosine by a consideration of first and second differ¬ ences; similar considerations appear in the earliest tables of sines, in the Hindu Surya Siddhanta and in the work of Aryabhatta, a Hindu astronomer of the sixth century a.d. The historical notes in connection with the conception and development of logarithms are of real interest. Professor David Eugene Smith discusses admirably the treatment in early works on algebra and arithmetic of the law of exponents. Any careful study of the evidence presented by Dr. Smith will show that the way was being well prepared for the invention of logarithms, so that no surprise need be occasioned by the fact that other claimants to the honor of the discovery have their patriotic supporters. Professor Florian Cajori meets in a definite and decisive manner the arguments which have been advanced in favor of the priority in the field of the Swiss writer, Joost Biirgi, sometimes claimed as a German. Cajori says : They compare Biirgi ’s supposed date of inven¬ tion with Napier’s date of publication, and there¬ from do not conclude, as they legitimately could, that Biirgi was an independent inventor, but they conclude, as they can not legitimately do, that Biirgi ’s invention was prior to Napier’s, or that Biirgi very probably lost priority simply because of failure to publish his logarithms as soon as in¬ vented by him. This memorial volume is marred by the mis¬ taken efforts to ascribe to Napier the discovery of imaginaries, and the introduction of the decimal point. Numerous writers, notably Cardan and Bombelli, had a much more pro¬ found grasp of imaginaries than is anywhere exhibited by Napier. So far as the decimal point is concerned Pitiscus in his u Trigonom¬ etry ” of 1612 preceded by four years Wright, or Napier, in the use of the comma which ap¬ pears in Wright’s 1616 translation of the “ Descriptio ” and in Napier’s “ Rabdologise ” of 1617 ; that Napier was familiar with the work of Pitiscus is proved by the fact that in both the “ Descriptio ” and the “ Rabdologise ” Pitiscus is cited. The spread of the decimal system was greatly facilitated by Napier’s adoption, but it is not warranted to ascribe to him any “ share in the improvement of decimal arithmetic.” The historical notes (pp. 159-161) to the article on the “ De Arte Logistica ” are re¬ plete with errors. In the dates on the progress of arithmetical and algebraical printing Lucas de Burgo comes first, followed by Cardan with “the next known book.” Arithmetics printed before Cadan’s work of 1539 occupy 192 pages of Smith’s “ Rara Arithmetica ” while in algebra the well-known works of Gram- mateus and Ghaligai precede Cardan. Stifel or Stifelius (not Stifellius) did not introduce the ■+, — and V signs. Even the English algebra by Robert Recorde is cited as of date 1552, instead of 1557. The concluding remarks to the effect that in Napier’s day and for some time afterwards arithmetic and algebra were no part of the mathematical curriculum is absurd. The solution of the cubic and the bi¬ quadratic was effected nearly one hundred years before the time of Napier’s great pub¬ lication; Yieta’s introduction of literal coeffi¬ cients preceded by more than twenty years; the serious study of algebra and arithmetic made in the time of Napier prepared the way for the invention of the analytic geometry and the calculus, introducing the era of modern mathematics. To his contemporaries Napier’s most cele¬ brated work was “A Plaine Discovery of the whole Revelation of St. John,” published in 430 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1134 1593 and followed by three Dutch editions be¬ tween 1600 and 1607, by nine French editions between 1602 and 1607, by four German be¬ fore 1627, and by several other English edi¬ tions. In this, following the conclusion that the Pope is Antichrist, the end of the world is set to fall between 1688 and 1700. This type of arithmetical mysticism in the study of “ Eevelations ” appealed to many other mathe¬ maticians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, some of whom were not so wise as to set the end of the world sufficiently distant to be safe. From the time of the earliest known trigo¬ nometrical tables of Hipparchus and Ptolemy, probably based upon Babylonian documents, down through the ages there has been a con¬ tinued interest in such mathematical tables. The Babylonians, the Greeks, the Hindus, the Arabs, the Europeans of the Middle Ages, and many of the nations of the ’present day have contributed energetic workers to this field. Ho one can deny to Napier the just claim to having made the greatest contribution for the final construction of tables sufficient for com¬ putation purposes of the most diverse types. Louis C. Karpinski University of Michigan A NEW TRIANGULATION SIGNAL LAMP State, county and city surveyors must look to the national government for the exact geo¬ graphical positions upon which to base their respective surveys. The duty to establish and furnish these positions devolves upon the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. The geodesist determines astronomically with the greatest possible exactness the longi¬ tude and latitude of selected principal points, suitably distributed over the whole country. The geographical positions of the many places between these principal points required are as¬ certained most accurately and economically by means of what is called triangulation. A rough, preliminary or reconnaisance survey re¬ veals those points which are intervisable and most desirable as to distance and other char¬ acteristics, to form the corners of connected triangles. From the measured length of one side of a suitably selected one of these tri¬ angles and the angles of all the interconnected ones, the exact latitude and longitude of each point is computed. Though the general principle employed in the measurement of these angles is the same as that applied in the survey of a railroad, a farm, etc., the great distance between the points, varying between ten and a hundred miles or over, requires not only the use of specially large and refined instruments, but also a special means of making the point vis¬ ible to the observer. This latter is now done, in day time, by reflecting sunlight to the ob¬ server from a mirror placed accurately over the point, and at night by means of a specially constructed acetylene lamp. It is apparent that distances of the magni¬ tude mentioned can be penetrated by either means only under favorable weather condi¬ tions, and that many days during a season are lost even when the atmosphere is only slightly clouded by smoke, fog, etc. As the expense to maintain the party, which amounts to from $50 to $60 per day, goes on whether observa¬ tions are made or not, it was thought that ad¬ vances in illuminating devices made since the lamp now used was adopted might be utilized to increase considerably the intensity of the light directed to the observer, and thereby in¬ crease the number of observing nights. Experiments made with calcium light pro¬ duced by the oxy-acetylene flame showed this form of illumination to be impracticable by reason of cost and bulkiness of the apparatus necessary. The storage cell was studied with the view of using electricity as a source of light. Its cost and weight and the difficulties connected with its maintenance were found to be too great. The electric generators with the neces¬ sary prime motor were carefully studied, tried experimentally and found to be too heavy for transporting to difficult stations, and doubtful as to continued and unfailing service. The result of a series of tests of dry cells, which are readily divisible into loads suitable for climbing difficult ascents, however, war¬ ranted the design and construction of a new September 22, 1916] SCIENCE 431 type of lamp, the use of which, undoubtedly, will increase the present number of observing nights per month by at least twenty-five per cent. The main part, an ordinary automobile head light, is suitably mounted for directing in the horizontal and vertical; the lamp is provided with an ammeter, a small rheostat and a switch. The whole, packed in a strong case, weighs twenty-three and one half pounds. In order to obtain most nearly the maxi¬ mum intensity of the light, it was necessary that the lamp bulb be provided with a filament concentrated to a degree not found in those on the market. One of the lamp manufacturers was induced to make the necessary designs and experimental tests, and submitted a num¬ ber for trial. At the present time all the lights of the sta¬ tions surrounding the observer’s station are kept burning continuously from sunset to the closing of the observations for the night. The use of the dry cell was found practicable and not too costly on the assumption that the pro¬ posed lamp was to be kept burning throughout the night. The trial of the newly designed lamp by comparison with the present acetylene lamp, however, proved the former so much superior, that it was decided to have the lights shown only on signal, flashed with one of the new lamps by the observer, for the few min¬ utes each time it is observed upon. This re¬ duces very materially the consumption of cur¬ rent and battery cost. The lamp, after being provided with two additional bulbs, one for medium and one for short distances, was tested by the Bureau of Standards, with the following results: Apparent candle power, at a distance of 100 ft. Lamp with specially concen¬ trated filament, gas filled, 6 volts, 2.5 amp . 250,000 Automobile lamp, 6 volts, 1.8 amp . 50,000 Flash light lamp, 2.7 volts, .34 amp . 6,000 The candle power of the acetylene lamp now used in the triangulation carried on by the survey, measured under the same conditions, is 1,500. E. G. Fischer U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey SPECIAL ARTICLES LINKED MENDELIAN CHARACTERS IN A NEW SPECIES OF DROSOPHILA In my cultures of a new species of Droso¬ phila, tentatively called “ species B,”1 several mutants have recently appeared. They have not all been tested fully with respect to their linkage relations, but enough has been learned to suggest some interesting possibilities when considered in connection with the results of Morgan and others on Drosophila ampelophila. Three linkage groups have already been ob¬ tained in my material, and five characters re¬ main to be studied. Of the linkage groups one is sex-linked and contains four characters, the others are non-sex-linked and are composed, respectively, of one and two characters. So far as the evidence goes, it indicates a mode of inheritance in this fly entirely com¬ parable with that in D. ampelophila, although I have as yet been unable to determine whether or not there is “ crossing over ” in the male, because the only linked factors thoroughly studied (aside from the sex-linked group) are completely linked and give no crossing over in either sex. The most interesting feature of the results, as they stand at present, is the apparent corre¬ spondence between certain mutant characters in this species and in D. ampelophila. Four of the characters I have obtained show this correspondence. One of them (“ confluent ”) has already been recorded.1 It is a dominant, non-sex-linked character, and has a lethal effect when flies are homozygous for it. Its counterpart in ampelophila is an almost exact duplicate in appearance, and apparently has the same peculiarities in genetic behavior. There seems to be little doubt that these characters are actually alike in the two species. The other three are “ black,” “ yellow ” and “ forked.” Black has only been studied enough to tell that it is not sex -linked; and since there are two or three factors in ampelophila that give a melanistic effect, there is some doubt as to which, if any, is really comparable to the one I have found. But with respect to yellow and forked the case is different, for they not only correspond exactly in appearance, but i Metz and Metz, ‘ ‘ Mutations in Two Species of Drosophila Amer. Nat., 1915. 432 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1134 they belong to the same linkage group , in both species. Since this happens to be the sex- linked group it means in reality that three corresponding factors — the sex factor, the yel¬ low factor and the forked factor — are linked in both species. Whether the same degree of linkage obtains in each has not been deter¬ mined. It is, of course, too early to generalize from this one case, but certainly the evidence strongly suggests that there is a genetic con¬ tinuity of factorial associations in these flies. And if the factors are located in the chromo¬ somes it is equally suggestive of a genetic continuity of the chromosomes. So far as I know this is the first clear case of the kind on record, and since the work promises further evidence on the same point a word may be said regarding the chromosomes of the species concerned. As is well known Drosophila ampelophila has four pairs of chromosomes — two of large euchromosomes, one of shorter sex-chromosomes and one of very small “ m-chromosomes.” In contrast to this the species I am breeding has six chromosome pairs, of which only two resemble those in ampelophila. The latter are the sex- chromosomes and the “ m-chromosomes.” The other four pairs replace the two euchromo- some pairs of ampelophila and are individually about half their size.2 Upon the chromosome hypothesis characters in this new species should fall into six linkage groups instead of four. And what is of much greater interest, if present indications are reliable, it may eventually be possible to com¬ pare these groups (and hence the chromo¬ somes ?) individually with those in ampelophila by means of corresponding characters. The first step in this comparison may be repre¬ sented by the sex-linked characters yellow and forked mentioned above. A more detailed report of these results will be presented as soon as certain experiments now under way are completed. Chas. W. Metz Station for Experimental Evolution, Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y. 2 See Metz, C. W., ‘ ‘ Chromosome Studies in the Diptera,” I., Jour. Exp. Zool. , 1914, p. 50. BACTERIAL BLIGHTS OF BARLEY AND CER¬ TAIN OTHER CEREALS At the Columbus meeting of the American Phytopathological Society the writers reported on a bacterial disease of barley. This was de¬ scribed as a widely occurring disease attack¬ ing leaves, leaf sheaths and glumes, early characterized by water-soaked lesions with bacterial exudate, and later by the persistent transparency following the death of the parts invaded. The abstract of this paper appeared in Phytopathology (Yol. 6, p. 98). Labora¬ tory and field studies have now been com¬ pleted which confirm all of the preliminary statements and furnish the data for the pub¬ lication of the causal organism as a new spe¬ cies. It is a monotrichous rod with a single polar flagellum, hence referable to Migula’s genus Pseudomonas. Field and laboratory studies have combined to show that it is seed borne, and that in this way it is readily dis¬ seminated. This fact accounts for its very general distribution, it having already been collected from eight states. Not only has the development of the disease been traced in the field where infected seed was used, but, in addition, the organism has been secured in pure culture from seed collected two years previously, and successful inoculations with this have proved its continued virulence. Diseases very similar to the one on barley have been found and studied on wheat, spelt and rye. These have all been proved to be of bacterial origin. From each of these hosts the causal organism has been isolated, and its pathogenicity fully determined. The organ¬ isms from these three sources are apparently all one species and they are very similar to the barley blight organism. This similarity holds for the appearance and development of the disease lesions, and for the morphological and cultural characters of the organisms. All like the barley organism are monotrichous and yellow in culture. The chief difference noted is in the behavior in cross inoculations. The barley blight organ¬ ism when inoculated on wheat, rye, spelt, oats and barley, infects barley only. The wheat, September 22, 1916] SCIENCE 433 rye and spelt organisms all behave alike as to pathogenicity when inoculated on wheat, rye, spelt, barley and oats in that they each infect all these grains except oats. A blade blight of oats quite different in type from the blights of the other grains noted above has also been found in Wisconsin and its bacterial cause de¬ termined. This disease apparently corresponds in appearance with the bacterial blade blight of oats described by Manns.1 From it a mono- trichous white organism has been isolated which in pure culture infects oats readily but apparently is not pathogenic on the other cereals listed above. The detailed account of the studies upon barley blight together with the technical de¬ scription of that organism as a new species has already been sent to press. The results of the comparative studies on these other bacterial grain blights will be given in a subsequent publication. L. E. Jones, A. G. Johnson, C. S. Keddy University of Wisconsin Fig. 1. Aspergillus growing on potato agar. The lower half contains oil of nutmeg (1: 200) which inhibits growth of mold. ANOTHER USE OF THE DOUBLE-PLATE METHOD1 In a study of the antagonism exhibited by i Manns, T. F., “The Blade Blight of Oats; a Bacterial Disease,” Ohio Agr. Exp. Sta. Bull., 210, pp. 91-167, 1909. i Read at the meeting of the Society of Amer¬ ican Bacteriologists, Urbana, Ill., December 28- certain bacteria for B. typhosus, one of us (W. D. F.) used and described a method called by us the “ double-plate method.”2 This method enabled us to see and photograph the effect which certain bacteria had in limiting or preventing the growth of B. typhosus. The method consisted of dividing a petri dish in halves by means of a small rod or tube and flooding one half of this double-plate with sterile agar and the other with agar contain¬ ing the antibiont. Over the surfaces of both halves the other antibiont was streaked. The resulting growth of the streaks readily showed the effect of the antagonism. Some eight years later, Churchman3 de¬ scribes an identical procedure for demonstrat¬ ing the selective action of gentian violet. He makes no mention of our method but substi¬ tutes a metal strip for the glass rod and the name “ divided plate ” for double-plate. He was evidently not aware of our previous de¬ scription. Kecently' we have used this method for deter- Fig. 2. Penicillium on potato agar. Marked in¬ hibition due to eugenol (1: 1,000) in lower half of dish. 30, 1915. Publication authorized by the Director of the Wisconsin Experimeirt Station. ■2 Frost, W. D., ‘ ‘ The Antagonism Exhibited by Certain Saprophytic Bacteria Against the Bacillus typhosus Gaffky, ” Jour. Inf. Dis., November 5, 1904, pp. 599-641. 3 Churchman, ‘ ‘ The Selective Bactericidal Ac¬ tion of Gentian Violet,” Jour. Exp. Med., Vol. 16, 1912, pp. 221-247. 434 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1134 mining' the effect which spices have on micro¬ organisms. Here the spice or condiment is mixed with the agar and poured on one side of the plate, plain agar on the other and streaks of the organism in use made across both. A modification in the method of preparation has been adopted which obviates the necessity of using rods or metal strips. This consists of cutting semi-discs of muslin (cheesecloth) which are sterilized in the petri dishes. Plain agar is poured over the entire dish and then when the agar is hard the piece of cloth with adherent agar is taken out from each petri dish with sterile forceps and into its place is poured the agar containing the condiment to be tested. The cloth semi-discs are more easily prepared than the rods and the union between the agar in the two halves of the plate is more direct. This, we take it, is an advantage since it readily permits of diffu¬ sion. The agar clinging to the cloths need not be wasted but may be saved by throwing the cloths into a funnel and allowing the agar, when liquefied, to drain off into a flask. In¬ stead of plain nutrient agar, potato or wort agar, gelatine or other liquefiable solid media favorable to the growth of organisms to be studied, may be used. The accompanying figures illustrate the method of use and the character of the results obtained. W. D. Frost, Freda M. Bachmann Department of Bacteriology, Wisconsin Agricultural Exp.' Sta., Madison, Wis. SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES ST. LOUIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE At a meeting of the St. Louis Academy of Sci¬ ence on March 20, 1916, Dr. A. R. Davis, of the Missouri Botanical Garden, presented a paper on ‘ ‘ Enzyme Action in Marine Algae, ’ ’ of which the following is an abstract: During the years 1914-15 a general survey was made of the enzymes of certain representative ma¬ rine algae. The work was carried on for the most part at the Woods Hole Biological Laboratory since fresh, vigorously growing plants were ob¬ tainable in that immediate vicinity. Plants were also collected and carefully dried and with this material the work was further prosecuted at the Missouri Botanical Garden. All investigations where dried tissue was involved, however, were later duplicated with fresh material at Woods Hole. The standard methods of enzyme isolation and determination were employed and where nega¬ tive results were obtained many modifications of these methods were brought to bear. In sum¬ marizing the results obtained, two striking points stand out, i. e., the relative paucity of the number of enzymes demonstrable by standard methods, and the extraordinary slowness with which most of these enzymes act. Especially were both these points true for the “browns.” In Ascophyllum and Fucus of this group catalase was the only enzyme demonstrable, while in Laminaria and Mesoglcea diastase, lipase, proteinases and cata¬ lase were found. Enzyme action was much more easily shown in the ‘ ‘ reds ’ ’ and the ‘ ‘ greens ’ ’ where in addition to the ferments found above, dextrinase, tryptase, ereptase and nuclease could be demonstrated. Oxidase was shown in but two forms, Agardliiella and Ulva. The rate of action in these two groups was also much faster than it was in the “browns,” although here too, such ac¬ tion was slow when compared with that of many of the higher plants. The carbohydrases found were those acting upon such polysaccharides as starch, glycogen, dex¬ trin and laminarin — in no case any of the disac¬ charides employed being attacked. This latter fact is especially interesting in the light of the role maltose plays in the assimilation of the higher carbohydrates. Lipases and nucleases were quite widely distributed, and proteinases (tryptic and ereptic) were demonstrated in most of the forms investigated. Casein and peptone in neutral and slightly alkaline solution proved the most favorable substrates for these latter enzymes, al¬ though albumin and legumin were also hydrolyzed in certain instances. There was no digestion of algal protein, as shown by autolytic experiments, and no splitting of amino acids. Several factors may enter in to account for the limited number of enzymes formed and the slow¬ ness of their action: (1) they may be formed in small amounts in the tissues, or as formed may be inherently slow; (2) inhibiting substances may be liberated upon crushing the cell which may cut down the rate of action or destroy it altogether. Evidence is at hand tending to show that both of these factors may be concerned. J. M. Greenman, Corresponding Secretary SCIENCE Friday, September 29, 1916 CONTENTS The British Association for the Advancement of Science: — The Present Position and Future Prospects of the Chemical Industry in Great Britain: Professor G. G. Henderson . 435 New Archeological Lights on the Origin of Civilisation in Europe: Sir Arthur Evans. 448 The Importance of Scientific Eesearch to the Industries: Professor C. Alfred Jacobson. 456 Scientific Notes and News . 460 University and Educational News . 463 Discussion and Correspondence : — The Song of Fowler’s Toad: H. A. Allard. Better Coordination of Undergraduate Courses: Dr. Bert Bussell. Sylvester and Cayley: Professor George Bruce Halsted. 463 Scientific Books: — Pxentiss ’s Laboratory and Text-book of Em¬ bryology : B. J. T . 466 Concerning the Species Amoeba proteus: Dr. A. A. Schaeffer . 468 Zuhi Inoculative Magic: Elsie Clews Par¬ sons . 469 Special Articles: — The Importance of Lateral Vision in its Belation to Orientation: Professor C. C. Trowbridge . 470 The American Association for the Advance¬ ment of Science: — Section B — Physics : Dr. W. J. Humphreys. 474 MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended for review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison- On-Hudson, N. Y. THE PRESENT POSITION AND FUTURE PROSPECTS OF THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY IN GREAT BRITAIN i For the third time in succession the Sec¬ tion meets under the shadow of the war cloud, but there is some slight consolation for the indescribable suffering and sorrow which have been imposed upon millions of our fellow creatures in the hope and belief that this cloud also may have a silver lin¬ ing. It is perhaps no exaggeration to say that nothing less than such an upheaval of existing habits and traditions as has been caused by the war would have sufficed to arouse the British nation from the state of apathy towards science with which it has been fatuously contented in the past. Now, however, the sleeper has at least stirred in his slumber. The press bears witness, through the appearance of innumerable articles and letters, that the people of this country, and even the politicians, have be¬ gun to perceive the dangers which will in¬ evitably result from a continuance of their former attitude, and to understand that in peace, as in war, civilization is at a tremen¬ dous disadvantage in the struggle for ex¬ istence unless armed by science, and that the future prosperity of the empire is ulti¬ mately dependent upon the progress of sci¬ ence, and very specially of chemistry. If, as one result of the war, our people are led to appreciate the value of scientific work, then perhaps we shall not have paid too high a price, high although the price must be. As concerns our own branch of science, i Address before the Chemical Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Sci¬ ence, Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1916. 436 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1135 we can not rest satisfied with anything less than full recognition of the fact that chem¬ istry is a profession of fundamental im¬ portance, and that the chemist is entitled to a position in no respect inferior to that of a member of any of the other learned professions. Reference to the annual reports of the association shows that former presidents of the Section have availed themselves to the full of the latitude permitted in the choice of a subject for their address, and that some have even established the precedent of dis¬ pensing with an address altogether. On the present occasion a topic for discussion seems to be clearly indicated by the cir¬ cumstances in which we stand, because, since the outbreak of the war, chemists have been giving more earnest considera¬ tion than before to the present position and future prospects of the chemical in¬ dustry of this country. It will, therefore, not be inappropriate if I touch upon some aspects of this question, even although un¬ able to add much to what is, or ought to be, common knowledge. The period which has elapsed since the last meeting of the Section in Newcastle has witnessed truly remarkable progress in every branch of pure and applied chemis¬ try. For fully fifty years previous to that meeting the attention of the great majority of chemists had been devoted to organic chemistry, but since 1885 or thereabouts, whilst the study of the compounds of car¬ bon has been pursued with unflagging energy and success, it has no longer so largely monopolized the activities of in¬ vestigators. Interest in the other elements, which had been to some extent neglected on account of the fascinations of carbon, has been revived with the happiest results, for not only has our knowledge of these ele¬ ments been greatly extended, but their number also has been notably increased by the discovery of two groups of simple sub¬ stances possessed of new and remarkable properties — the inert gases of the argon family and the radio-active elements. In addition, the bonds between mathematics and physics, on the one hand, and chemis¬ try, on the other, have been drawn closer, with the effect that the department of our science known as physical chemistry has now assumed a position of first-rate impor¬ tance. With the additional light provided by the development and application of physico-chemical theory and methods, we are beginning to gain some insight into such intricate problems as the relation be¬ tween physical properties and chemical constitution, the structure of molecules and even of atoms, and the mechanics of chem¬ ical change; our outlook is being widened, and our conceptions rendered more precise. Striking advances have also been made in other directions. The extremely difficult problems which confront the bio-chemist are being gradually overcome, thanks to the indefatigable labors of a band of highly skilled observers, and the department of biological chemistry has been established on a firm footing through the encouraging results obtained within the period under review. Further, within the last few years many of our ideas have been subjected to a revolutionary change through the study of the radio-active elements, those elusive sub¬ stances which occur in such tantalizingly minute quantities, and of which some ap¬ pear so reluctant to exist in a free and in¬ dependent state that they merge their identity in that of another and less retiring relative within an interval of time meas¬ ured by seconds. In truth, if a Rip Van Winkle among chemists were to awake now after a slumber of thirty years, his amaze¬ ment on coming into contact with the chem¬ istry of to-day would be beyond words. The more purely scientific side of our sci¬ ence can claim no monopoly in progress, for applied chemistry, in every department, September 29, 1916] SCIENCE 437 has likewise advanced with giant strides, mainly of course through the application of the results of scientific research to indus¬ trial purposes. An attempt to sketch in the merest outline the recent development of applied chemistry would, I fear, exhaust your patience, but I may indicate in pass¬ ing some of the main lines of advance. Many of the more striking results in the field of modern chemical industry have been obtained by taking advantage of the powers we now possess to carry out opera¬ tions economically, both at very high and at very low temperatures, and by the em¬ ployment on the manufacturing scale of electrolytic and catalytic methods of pro¬ duction. Thanks largely to the invention of the dynamo, the technologist is now able to utilize electrical energy both for the pro¬ duction of high temperatures in the differ¬ ent types of electric furnace and for elec¬ trolytic processes of the most varied description. Among the operations car¬ ried out with the help of the electric fur¬ nace may be mentioned the manufacture of graphite, silicon and phosphorus ; of chromium and other metals; of carbides, silicides and nitrides, and the smelting and refining of iron and steel. Calcium carbide claims a prominent place in the list, in the first place because of the ease with which it yields acetylene, which is not only used as an illuminant, and, in the oxy-acetylene burner, as a means of producing a temper¬ ature so high that the cutting and welding of steel is now a comparatively simple mat¬ ter, but also promises to serve as the start¬ ing-point for the industrial synthesis of acetaldehyde and many other valuable or¬ ganic compounds. Moreover, calcium car¬ bide is readily converted in the electric furnace into calcium cyanamide, which is employed as an efficient fertilizer in place of sodium nitrate or ammonium sulphate, and as a source of ammonia and of alkali cyanides. Among the silicides carborun¬ dum is increasingly used as an abrasive and a refractory material, and calcium sili- cide, which is now a commercial product, forms a constituent of some blasting ex¬ plosives. The Serpek process for the prep¬ aration of alumina and ammonia, by the formation of aluminium nitride from beauxite in the electric furnace and its sub¬ sequent decomposition by caustic soda, should also be mentioned. Further, the electric furnace has made possible the man¬ ufacture of silica apparatus of all kinds, both for the laboratory and the works, and of alundum ware, also used for operations at high temperature. Finally, the first step in the manufacture of nitric acid and of nitrites from air, now in operation on a very large scale, is the combustion of nitro¬ gen in the electric arc. In other industrial operations the high temperature which is necessary is obtained by the help of the oxy-hydrogen or the oxy- acetylene flame, the former being used, amongst other purposes, in a small but I believe profitable industry, the manufac¬ ture of synthetic rubies, sapphires and spinels. Also, within a comparatively re¬ cent period, advantage has been taken of the characteristic properties of aluminium, now obtainable at a moderate price, in the various operations classed under the head¬ ing alumino-thermy, the most important being the reduction of refractory metallic oxides, although, of course, thermite is use¬ ful for the production of high temperatures locally. The modern methods of liquefying gases, which have been developed within the period under review, have rendered pos¬ sible research work of* absorbing interest on the effect of very low temperatures on the properties and chemical activity of many substances, and have been applied, for instance, in separating from one another the members of the argon family, and in obtaining ozone in a state of prac- 438 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1135 tical purity. Moreover, industrial applica¬ tions of these methods are not lacking, amongst which I may mention the separa¬ tion of nitrogen and oxygen from air, and of hydrogen from water-gas — processes which have helped to make these elements available for economic use on the large scale. Electrolytic methods are now extensively employed in the manufacture of both inor¬ ganic and organic substances, and older processes are being displaced by these mod¬ ern rivals in steadily increasing number. It is sufficient to refer to the preparation of sodium, magnesium, calcium and alumi¬ num, by electrolysis of fused compounds of these metals; the refining of iron, copper, silver and gold; the extraction of gold and nickel from solution; the recovery of tin from waste tin-plate; the preparation of caustic alkalies (and simultaneously of chlorine), of hypochlorites, chlorates and perchlorates, of hydrosulphites, of per¬ manganates and ferricyanides, of persul- phates and percarbonates ; the regenera¬ tion of chromic acid from chromium salts ; the preparation of hydrogen and oxygen. As regards organic compounds, we find chiefly in use electrolytic methods of re¬ duction which are specially effective in the case of many nitro compounds, and of oxi¬ dation, as for instance the conversion of anthracene into anthraquinone. At the same time a number of other compounds, for example iodoform, are also prepared electrolytically. Within recent years there have been great advances in the application of cata¬ lytic methods to industrial purposes. Some processes of this class have, of course, been in use for a considerable time, for ex¬ ample the Deacon chlorine process and the contact method for the manufacture of sulphuric acid, whilst the preparation of phthalic anhydride (largely used in the synthesis of indigo and other dyestuffs), by the oxidation of naphthalene with sul¬ phuric acid with the assistance of mercuric sulphate as catalyst, is no novelty. More recent are the contact methods of obtain¬ ing. ammonia by the direct combination of nitrogen and hydrogen, and of oxidizing ammonia to nitric acid — both of which are said to be in operation on a very large scale in Germany. The catalytic action of met¬ als, particularly nickel and copper, is util¬ ized in processes of hydrogenation — for ex¬ ample, the hardening of fats, and of de¬ hydrogenation, as in the preparation of acetaldehyde from alcohol, and such me¬ tallic oxides as alumina and thoria can be used for processes of dehydration — e. g., the preparation of ethylene or of ether from alcohol. Other catalysts employed in industrial processes are titanous chloride in electrolytic reductions and cerous sul¬ phate in electrolytic oxidations of carbon compounds, gelatine in the preparation of hydrazine from ammonia, sodium in the synthesis of rubber, etc. Other advances in manufacturing chem¬ istry include the preparation of a number of the rarer elements and their compounds, which were hardly known thirty years ago, but which now find commercial applications. Included in this category are titanium, vanadium, tungsten and tantalum, now used in metallurgy or for electric-lamp fila¬ ments; thoria and ceria in the form of mantles for incandescent lamps ; pyrophoric alloys of cerium and other metals ; zirconia, which appears to be a most valuable re¬ fractory material ; and compounds of radium and of mesothorium, for medical use as well as for research. Hydrogen, to¬ gether with oxygen and nitrogen, are in demand for synthetic purposes, and the first also for lighter-than-air craft. Ozone is considerably used for sterilizing water and as an oxidizing agent, for example in the preparation of vanillin from isoeugenol and hydrogen peroxide, now obtainable September 29, 1916] SCIENCE 439 very pure in concentrated solution, and the peroxides of a number of the metals are also utilized in many different ways. The per- acids — perboric, percarbonic and per- sulphuric — or their salts are employed for oxidizing and bleaching purposes, and sodium hydrosulphite is much in demand as a reducing agent — e. g., in dyeing with in¬ digo. Hydroxylamine and hydrazine are used in considerable quantity, and the manufacture of cyanides by one or other of the modern methods has become quite an important industry, mainly owing to the use of the alkali salts in the cyanide proc¬ ess of gold extraction. These remarkable compounds, the metallic carbonyls, have been investigated, and nickel carbonyl is employed on the commercial scale in the ex¬ traction of the metal. Fine chemicals for analysis and research are now supplied, as a matter of course, in a state of purity rarely attained a quarter of a century ago. In the organic chemical industry similar continued progress is to be noted. Acces¬ sions are constantly being made to the al¬ ready enormous list of synthetic dyes, not only by the addition of new members to existing groups, but also by the discovery of entirely new classes of tinctorial com¬ pounds; natural indigo seems doomed to share the fate of alizarine from madder, and to be ousted by synthetic indigo, of which, moreover, a number of useful deriv¬ atives are also made. Synthetic drugs of all kinds — antipyrine and phenacetin, sulphonal and veronal, novacain and /3- eucaine, salol and aspirin, piperazine and adrenaline, atoxyl and salvarsan — are pro¬ duced in large quantities, as also are many synthetic perfumes and flavoring materials, such as ionone, heliotropine, and vanillin. Cellulose in the form of artificial silk is much used as a new textile material, syn¬ thetic camphor is on the market, synthetic rubber is said to be produced in consider¬ able quantity ; and the manufacture of materials for photographic work and of or¬ ganic compounds for research purposes is no small part of the industry. However, it would serve no useful purpose to extend this catalogue, which might be done almost indefinitely. British chemists are entitled to regard with satisfaction the part which they have taken in the development of scientific chemistry during the last three decades, as in the past,, but with respect to the progress of industrial chemistry it must be regret¬ fully admitted that, except in isolated cases, we have failed to keep pace with our com¬ petitors. Consider a single example. Al¬ though there still remain in South America considerable deposits of sodium nitrate which can be worked at a profit, it is clear that sooner or later other sources of nitric acid must be made available. The synthetic production of nitric acid from the air is now a commercial success ; several different processes are in operation abroad, and Germany is reported to be quite independ¬ ent of outside supplies. Electrical energy, upon the cost of which the success of the process largely depends, can be produced in this country at least as cheaply as in Ger¬ many, and yet we have done nothing in the matter, unless we count as something the appointment of a committee to consider pos¬ sibilities. This case is only too typical of many others. A number of different causes have contributed to bring about this state of affairs, and the responsibility for it is as¬ signed by some to the government, by others to the chemical manufacturers, and by still others to the professors of chemistry. I think, however, it will be generally ad¬ mitted that the root of the matter is to be found in the general ignorance of and in¬ difference to the methods and results of scientific work which characterize the peo¬ ple of this country. For many years past 440 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1135 our leaders in science have done all that lay in their power to awaken the country to the inevitable and deplorable results of this form of “sleeping sickness, ” but hitherto their reception has been much the same as that accorded to the hero of “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” as depicted in the fol¬ lowing passage : “He went on thus, even until he came at a bottom where he saw, a little out of the way, three Men fast asleep with Fetters upon their heels.” “The name of the one was Simple, an¬ other Sloth, and the third Presumption.” “Christian, then seeing them in this case, went to them, if peradventure he might awaken- them. And cried, You are like them that sleep on the top of a Mast, for the Dead Sea is under you, a Gulf that hath no bottom. Awake therefore and come away; be willing also, and I will help you off with your irons. He also told them, If he that goeth about like a Roaring Lion comes by, you well certainly become a prey to his teeth. ’ ’ “With that they lookt upon him, and began to reply in this sort: Simple said, I see no danger ; Sloth said, Yet a little more sleep ; and Presumption said, Every Vat must stand upon his own bottom . And they lay down to sleep again, and Christian went on his way.” I believe that a brighter day is dawning, and that, if only we rise to the occasion now, chemistry in this country will attain the position of importance which is its due. Meantime it is of no avail to lament lost opportunities or to indulge in unprofitable recrimination ; on the contrary, it should be our business to find a remedy for the “ar¬ rested development ’ ’ of our chemical indus¬ try, and the task of establishing remedial measures should be taken in hand by the state, the universities and the chemical manufacturers themselves. As regards another very large group of interested per¬ sons, the consumers of chemical products, or in other words the nation as a whole, it is surely not too much to expect that they have been taught by the course of events since the outbreak of the war the folly of depending solely upon foreign and possibly hostile manufacturers, even although fiscal and other advantages may enable the alien to undersell the home producer. Consider¬ ing that the future prosperity of the empire depends largely upon the well-being of its chemical industries, it is simply suicidal to permit these to be crippled or even crushed out of existence by competition on unequal terms. The government has taken a most signif¬ icant step in advance by appointing an ad¬ visory council for scientific and industrial research and providing it with funds ; inci¬ dentally, in so doing, it has recognized the past failure of the state to afford adequate support to scientific work. The advisory council has lost no time in getting to work and has already taken steps to allocate grants in support of a number of investiga¬ tions of first-rate importance to industry. In order to be in a position to do justice to the branches of industry concerned in pro¬ posed researches which have been submitted by institutions and individuals it has de¬ cided to appoint standing committees of experts and has already constituted strong committees in mining, metallurgy and in engineering; a committee in chemistry will no doubt be appointed in due course. The council also makes the gratifying intimation that the training of an adequate supply of research workers will be an important part of its work. It is safe to prophesy that the money ex¬ pended by the advisory council will sooner or later yield a goodly return, and this justifies the hope that the government will not rest satisfied with their achievement, September 29, 1916] SCIENCE 441 but will take further steps in the same direction. This desire for continued action finds strong support in the recommenda¬ tions made by a sub-committee of the ad¬ visory committee to the board of trade on commercial intelligence, which was ap¬ pointed to report with respect to measures for securing the position, after the war, of certain branches of British industry. Of these recommendations I quote the follow¬ ing: “1. Scientific Industrial Research and Training. — (a) Larger funds should be placed at the disposal of the new committee of the privy council, and also of the board of education, for the promotion of scientific and industrial training. ( b ) The univer¬ sities should be encouraged to maintain and extend research work devoted to the main industry or industries located in their re¬ spective districts, and manufacturers en¬ gaged in these industries should be encour¬ aged to cooperate with the universities in such work, either through their existing trade associations or through associations specially formed for the purpose. Such associations should bring to the knowledge of the universities the difficulties and needs of the industries, and give financial and other assistance in addition to that afforded by the state. In the case of non-localized industries trade associations should be ad¬ vised to seek, in respect of centers for re¬ search, the guidance of the advisory com¬ mittee of the privy council, (c) An au¬ thoritative record of consultant scientists, chemists and engineers and of persons en¬ gaged in industrial research, should be established and maintained by some suita¬ ble government department for the use of manufacturers only.” “2. Tariff Protection. — Where the na¬ tional supply of certain manufactured ar¬ ticles which are of vital importance to the national safety or are essential to other industries has fallen into the hands of manufacturers or traders outside this coun¬ try, British manufacturers ready to under¬ take the manufacture of such articles in this country should be afforded sufficient tariff protection to enable them to main¬ tain such production after the war.” (It is also recommended by the sub-committee that in view of the threatened dumping of stocks which may be accumulated in enemy countries, the government should take such steps as would prevent the position of in¬ dustries, likely to be affected, being en¬ dangered after the war.) “3. Patents. — (a) The efforts which have been made to secure uniformity of patent law throughout the empire should be con¬ tinued. (&) The provisions of the law as to the compulsory working of patents in the United Kingdom should be more rigorously enforced, and inspectors should be ap¬ pointed to secure that such working is com¬ plete and not only partial.” The adoption by the government of these weighty recommendations would go far to establish British chemical industry on a secure basis, and would undoubtedly, lead to the expansion of already existing branches and the establishment of new ones. Meanwhile, the Australian government has set an example which might be followed with great advantage. Shortly after the British scheme for the development of scientific and industrial research under the auspices of the advisory council had been made public, the prime minister of Aus¬ tralia determined to do still more for the commonwealth, with the object of making it independent of German trade and manu¬ factures after the conclusion of the war. He therefore appointed a committee repre¬ sentative of the state scientific departments, the universities, and industrial interests, and within a very short period the com¬ mittee produced a scheme for the estab- 442 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1135 lishment of a Commonwealth Institute of Science and Industry. The institute is to be governed by three directors, two of whom will be scientific men of high standing, while the third will be selected for proved ability in business. The directors are to be assisted by an advisory council composed of nine representatives of science and of industry; these representatives are to seek information, advice and assistance from specialists throughout Australia. The chief functions of the institute are (1) To ascer¬ tain what industrial problems are most pressing and most likely to yield to scien¬ tific experimental investigation, to seek out the most competent men to whom such re¬ search may be entrusted, and to provide them with all the necessary appliances and assistance. (2) To build up a bureau of scientific and industrial information, which shall be at the service of all concerned in the industries and manufactures of the commonwealth. (3) To erect, staff and control special research laboratories, the first of which will probably be a physical laboratory somewhat on the lines of our National Physical Laboratory. Other func¬ tions of the institute are the coordination and direction of research and experimental work with a view to the prevention of un¬ desirable overlapping of effort, the recom¬ mendation of grants of the commonwealth government in aid of pure scientific re¬ search in existing institutions, and the establishment and award of industrial re¬ search fellowships. This admirable scheme is more compre¬ hensive and more generous than that of our government, but it could be rivaled without much difficulty. We already possess an im¬ portant asset in the National Physical Labo¬ ratory, and there now exists the advisory council with its extensive powers and duties. What is lacking in our scheme, so far as chemistry is concerned, could be made good, firstly, by providing the ad¬ visory council with much larger funds, and, secondly, by the establishment of a National Chemical Laboratory — an insti¬ tute for research in pure and applied chem¬ istry — or by assisting the development of research departments in our universities and technical colleges (as is now being done in America), or, better still, by moving in both directions. With respect to the sec¬ ond alternative, I do not mean to suggest that research work is neglected in the chem¬ istry departments of any of our higher in¬ stitutions ; what I plead for is the provision of greater facilities for the prosecution of investigation not only in pure but also in applied chemistry. As things are at pres¬ ent, the professors and lecturers are for the most part so much occupied in teaching and in administration as to be unable to devote time uninterruptedly to research work, which demands above all things continuity of effort. The ideal remedy would be the institution of research professorships, but, failing this, the burden of teaching and ad¬ ministrative work should be lightened by appointing larger staffs. It has been suggested by Dr. Forster that the state could render assistance to chem¬ ical industry in another way, namely, by the formation of a Chemical Intelligence Department of the Board of Trade, which should be concerned with technical, com¬ mercial and educational questions bearing upon the industry. Under the first head the proposed department would have the duty (a) of collecting, tabulating and dis¬ tributing all possible information regarding chemical discoveries, patents, and manu¬ facturing processes, and (&) of presenting problems for investigation to research chem¬ ists, of course under proper safeguards and with suitable, remuneration. The more strictly commercial side of the department’s activities would be concerned with the September 29, 1916] SCIENCE 443 classification of the resources of the empire as regards raw materials, and of foreign chemical products in respect of distribu¬ tion throughout the world, with ruling prices, tariffs, cost of transport, and if pos¬ sible cost of production. On the educa¬ tional side it is suggested that the depart¬ ment should collect data regarding oppor¬ tunities for chemical instruction and re¬ search in various parts of the empire, and should consider possible improvements and extensions of these. The department would of course be in charge of a highly- trained chemist, with a sufficient number of chemical assistants. This proposal, which has been widely discussed and on the whole very favorably received by chemists, has much to recom¬ mend it; to mention only one point, the unrivalled resources of the Board of Trade would facilitate the acquisition of informa¬ tion which might otherwise be difficult to obtain, or which would not be disclosed ex¬ cept to a government department. The principal objections which have been raised are based upon the fear that the proposed department, however energetic and enter¬ prising it might be at the start, would soon be so helplessly gagged and bound down by departmental red tape as to become of little or no service. This danger, however, could be obviated to a great extent by the institu¬ tion of a strong advisory committee, repre¬ sentative of and elected by the societies con¬ cerned with the different branches of chemistry, which would keep closely in touch with the Chemical Intelligence De¬ partment on the one hand and with the in¬ dustry on the other, and which would act as adviser of the permanent scientific staff of the department. There is, I fear, little chance of seeing Dr. Forster’s proposal carried into effect unless all the societies concerned move actively and unitedly in the matter ; they must do the pioneer work and must submit a definite scheme to the government, if the desired result is to be attained. In the not improbable contin¬ gency that the board of trade will decline to take action, I trust that the scheme for the establishment of an Information Bu¬ reau — on lines similar to but somewhat less wide-reaching than those which I have just indicated — which has been under the care¬ ful consideration of the Council of the So¬ ciety of Chemical Industry, will be vigor¬ ously prosecuted. Difficulties, chiefly finan¬ cial, stand in the way, but these are not insuperable, especially if the sympathy and support of the government can be en¬ listed. Unless the conditions and methods which have ruled in the past are greatly altered it is hardly possible to hope that the future prospects of our chemical industry will be bright; it is essential that the representa¬ tives of the industry should organize them¬ selves in their own interest and cooperate in fighting the common enemy. More than ever is this the case when, as we are in¬ formed, three different groups of German producers of dyes, drugs and fine chemicals, who own seven large factories, have formed a combination with a capital of more than £11,000,000, and with other assets of very great value in the shape of scientific, tech¬ nical and financial efficiency. Hence it is eminently satisfactory to be able to record the active progress of a movement, origi¬ nated by the Chemical Society, which has culminated in the formation of an Asso¬ ciation of British Chemical Manufacturers. The main objects of the association are to promote cooperation between British chem¬ ical manufacturers; to act as a medium for placing before the government and govern¬ ment officials the views of manufacturers upon matters affecting the chemical indus¬ try; to develop technical organization and promote industrial research ; to keep in 444 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1135 touch with the progress of chemical knowl¬ edge and to facilitate the development of new British industries and the extension of existing ones; and to encourage the sym¬ pathetic association of British manufac¬ turers with the various universities and technical colleges. Needless to say, the progress of this im¬ portant movement will be assisted by every¬ one who is interested, either directly or in¬ directly, in the welfare of our chemical industry, and, moreover, the support of the scientific societies will not be lacking, for, as the result of a conference convened by the President and Council of the Royal Society, a Conjoint Board of Scientific So¬ cieties has been constituted, for the fur¬ therance of the following objects: Promo¬ ting the cooperation of those interested in pure or applied science ; supplying a means whereby scientific opinion may find effec¬ tive expression on matters relating to sci¬ ence, industry and education; taking such action as may be necessary to promote the application of science to our industries and to the service of the nation ; and discussing scientific questions in which international cooperation seems advisable. In an address given to the Society of Chemical Industry last year, I indicated another way in which chemical manufac¬ turers can help themselves and at the same time promote the interests of chemistry in this country. In the United States of America individual manufacturers, or asso¬ ciations of manufacturers, have shown themselves ready to take up the scheme originated by the late Professor Duncan for the institution of industrial research scholarships tenable at the universities or technical colleges, and the results obtained after ten years’ experience of the working of this practical method of promoting co¬ operation between science and industry have more than justified the anticipations of its originator. The scheme is worthy of adoption on many grounds, of which the chief are that it provides definite subjects for technical research to young chemists qualified for such work, that it usually leads to positions in factories for chemists who have proved their capacity through the work done while holding scholarships, and that it reacts for good on the profession generally, by bringing about that more intimate intercourse between teachers and manufacturers which is so much to be desired. In this connection the recent foundation of the Willard Gibbs chair of research in pure chemistry at the University of Pitts¬ burgh is extremely significant, for it shows that even in such a purely industrial com¬ munity as Pittsburgh it is recognized that the most pressing need of the day is the endowment of chemical research and the creation of research professorships. Mr. A. P. Fleming, who recently made a tour of inspection of research laboratories in the United States, points to the amount of work done by individual firms and the in¬ creased provision now being made for re¬ search in universities and technical insti¬ tutions. He reports that at the present time there are upwards of fifty corpora¬ tions having research laboratories, costing annually from £20,000 to £100,000 for maintenance, and states that “some of the most striking features of the research work in America are the lavish manner in which the laboratories have been planned, which in many cases enables large scale opera¬ tions to be carried out in order to deter¬ mine the best possible methods of manu¬ facturing any commodity developed or dis¬ covered in the laboratories; the increasing attention given in the research laboratories to pure science investigation, this being, in my opinion, the most important phase of industrial research; and the absorption of September 29, 1916] SCIENCE 445 men who have proved their capacity for industrial research in such places as the Mellon Institute, the Bureau of Standards, etc., by the various industries in which they have taken scientific interest.” It is evidently the view of American manufac¬ turers that industrial research can be made to pay for itself, and that to equip and maintain research laboratories is an excel¬ lent investment. It can not be too often reiterated that no branch of chemical industry can afford to stand still, for there is no finality in manu¬ facturing processes; all are capable of im¬ provement, and for this, as well as for the discovery and the application of new proc¬ esses, the services of the trained chemist are essential. Hence the training of chem¬ ists for industrial wmrk is a matter of su¬ preme importance. We may therefore con¬ gratulate ourselves that the opportunities for chemical instruction in this country are immensely greater than they were thirty years ago. The claims of chemistry to a leading position have been recognized by all our universities, even the most ancient, by the provision of teaching staffs, labo¬ ratories, and equipment on a fairly ade¬ quate if not a lavish scale, and in this re¬ spect many of the technical colleges fall not far behind. The evening classes con¬ ducted in a large number of technical insti¬ tutions are hardly fitted to produce fully trained chemists, if only because lack of the necessary time prevents the student from obtaining that prolonged practise in the laboratory which cannot be dispensed with, unless indeed he is prepared to go through a course of study extending over many years. At the same time these evening classes play a most important part, firstly in disseminating a knowledge of chemistry throughout the country, and secondly in affording instruction of a high order in special branches of applied chemistry. Finally, in a large and increasing number of schools a more or less satisfactory intro¬ duction to the science is given by well- qualified teachers. With our national habit of self-depreciation we are apt to overlook the steady progress which has been made, but at the same time I do not suggest that there is no room for improvement of our system of training chemists. Progress in every department of industrial chemistry is ultimately dependent upon research, and therefore a sufficient supply of chem¬ ists with practical knowledge and experi¬ ence of the methods of research is vital. This being so, it is an unfortunate thing that so many students are allowed to leave the universities in possession of a science degree but without any experience in in¬ vestigation. The training of the chemist, so far as that training can be given in a teaching institution, must be regarded as incomplete unless it includes some research work, not, of course, because every student has the mental gifts which characterize the born investigator, but rather because of the inestimable value of the experience gained when he has to leave the beaten track and to place more dependence upon his own initiative and resource. Consequently one rejoices to learn that at the University of Oxford no candidate can now obtain an honors degree without having produced evidence that he has taken part in original research, and that the General Board of Studies at Cambridge has also made pro¬ posals which, if adopted, will have the ef¬ fect of encouraging systematic research work. Perhaps it is too much to expect that practise in research will be made an indispensable qualification for the ordi¬ nary degree; failing this, and indeed in every case, promising students should be encouraged, by the award of research scholarships, to continue their studies for a period of at least two years after taking 446 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1135 the B.Sc. degree, and to devote that time to research work which would qualify for a higher degree. In this connection an ex¬ cellent object-lesson is at hand, for the out¬ put of research work from the Scottish universities has very greatly increased since the scheme of the Carnegie Trust for the institution of research scholarships has come into operation. Thanks to these scholarships, numbers of capable young graduates, who otherwise for the most part would have had to seek paid employment as soon as their degree courses were com¬ pleted, have been enabled to devote two or more years to research work. Of course it must be recognized that not every chem¬ ist has the capacity to initiate or inspire investigation, and that no amount of train¬ ing, however thorough and comprehensive, will make a man an investigator unless he has the natural gift. At the same time, whilst only the few are able to originate really valuable research work, a large army of disciplined men who have had training in the methods of research is required to carry out experimentally the ideas of the master mind. Moreover, there is ample scope in industrial work for chemists who, although not gifted with initiative as in¬ vestigators, are suitably equipped to super¬ vise and control the running of large-scale processes, the designing of appropriate plant, the working out on the manufac¬ turing scale of new processes or the im¬ provement of existing ones — men of a thor¬ oughly practical mind, who never lose sight of costs, output and efficiency, and who have a sufficient knowledge of engineering to make their ideas and suggestions clear to the engineering expert. Further, there has to be considered the necessity for the work of the skilled analyst in the exami¬ nation of raw materials and the testing of intermediate and finished products, al¬ though much of the routine work of the in¬ dustrial laboratory will advisedly be left in the hands of apprentices working under the control of the chemist. Lastly, for the buying and selling of materials there should be a demand for the chemist with the com¬ mercial faculty highly developed. There is, indeed, in any large industrial establish¬ ment room for chemists of several different types, but all of these should have had the best possible training, and it must be the business of our higher teaching institutions to see that this training is provided. On more than one occasion I have ex¬ pressed the opinion that every chemist who looks forward to an industrial post should receive in the course of his training a cer¬ tain amount of instruction in chemical engineering, by means of lectures and also of practical work in laboratories fitted out for the purpose. The practicability of this has been proved in more than one teaching institution, and experience has convinced me that chemists who have had such a course are generally more valuable in a works — whether their ultimate destination is the industrial research laboratory or the control of manufacturing operations — than those who have not had their studies di¬ rected beyond the traditional boundaries of pure chemistry. (I used the word “tradi¬ tional” because to my mind there is no boundary line between the domains of pure and of applied chemistry.) A course in chemical engineering, preferably preceded by a short course in general engineering and drawing, must, however, be introduced as a supplement to, and not as a substitute for, any part of the necessary work in pure chemistry, and consequently the period of undergraduate study will be lengthened if such a course is included; this is no dis¬ advantage, but quite the contrary. I am glad to say that the University of Glasgow has recently instituted a degree in applied chemistry, for which the curriculum in- September 29, 1916] SCIENCE 447 eludes chemical engineering in addition to the usual courses in chemistry, and I hope that a place will be found for this subject by other universities. On the whole, there is not much fault to be found with the training for chemists supplied by the universities and technical colleges, but there is still room for improve¬ ments which could and would be carried out if it were not that the scientific depart¬ ments of these institutions are as a rule hampered by lack of funds. The facilities for practical instruction with respect to accommodation and equipment are gen¬ erally adequate, but, on the other hand, the personnel could with advantage be largely increased, and at least the junior members of the staffs are miserably underpaid. It wrnuld doubtless be regarded as insanity to suggest that a scientific man, however eminent, should receive more than a frac¬ tion of the salary to which a music-hall “artiste” or a lawyer politician can as¬ pire; but if the best brains in the country are to be attracted towards science, as they ought to be, some greater inducement than a mere living wage should be held out. Hence no opportunity should be lost of im¬ pressing upon the government the neces¬ sity for increasing the grants to the scien¬ tific departments of our higher teaching institutions, and for the provision of re¬ search scholarships. It is much to be de¬ sired also that wealthy men in this country should take an example from America and acquire more generally the habit of devot¬ ing some part of their means to the endow¬ ment of higher education. The private donations for science and education made in the United States during the last forty- three years amount to the magnificent sum of £117,000,000, and recently the average annual benefactions for educational pur¬ poses total nearly £6,000,000. Of course there are few, if any, of the universities and colleges in this country which are not deeply indebted to the foresight and gen¬ erosity of private benefactors, but the lav¬ ish scale on which funds are provided in America leads to a certain feeling of ad¬ miring envy. After all, the chief difficulty which con¬ fronts those who are eager for progress in educational matters is that so many of our most famous schools are still conducted on medieval lines, in the sense that the “edu¬ cation” administered is almost wholly classical. Consequently, “though science enters into every part of modern life, and scientific method is necessary for success in all undertakings, the affairs of the coun¬ try are in the hands of legislators who not only have little or no acquaintance with the fundamental facts and principles sig¬ nified by these aspects of knowledge, but also do not understand how such matters can be used to strengthen and develop the state. Our administrative officials are also mostly under the same disabilities, on ac¬ count of their want of a scientific training. They are educated at schools where science can receive little encouragement, and they do not take up scientific subjects in the examinations for the civil service, because marks can be much more easily obtained by attention to Latin and Greek; and the re¬ sult of it all is that science is usually treated with indifference, often with contempt, and rarely with intelligent appreciation by the statesmen and members of the public serv¬ ices whose decisions and acts largely deter¬ mine the country’s welfare. The defects of a system which places the chief power of an organization which needs understanding of science in every department in the hands of people who have not received any training in scientific subjects or methods are obvious. ’ ’2 The remedy is also obvious. Here, again, the prospects are now ~ Nature, February 10, 1916. 448 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1135 brighter than ever before, because the warnings and appeals of men of science have at last, and after many years, begun to bear fruit, or perhaps it would be more correct to say the lessons of the war have begun to make an impression on the powers that be. Within the last few weeks it has been intimated that the government, giving ear to what has been uttered, incessantly and almost ad nauseam, with regard to British neglect of science, proposes to ap¬ point a committee to inquire into the posi¬ tion of science in our national system of education, especially in universities and sec¬ ondary schools. The duty of the committee will be to advise the authorities how to promote the advancement of pure science, and also the interests of trade, industries and professions dependent on the applica¬ tion of science, bearing in mind the needs of what is described as a liberal education. It is stated that the committee will include scientific men in whom the country will have confidence, some of those who appre¬ ciate the application of science to commerce and industry, and some who are able from general experience to correlate scientific teaching with education as a whole. I am sure that we may look forward with confi¬ dence to the recommendations of such a committee, and we shall hope, for the sake of our country, that their recommendations will be adopted and put in force with the least possible delay. G. G. Henderson NEW ARCHEOLOGICAL LIGHTS ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILIZATION IN EUROPE. II It is a commonplace of archeology that the culture of the Neolithic peoples through¬ out a large part of central, northern and western Europe — like the newly domesti¬ cated species possessed by them — is Eu- rasiatic in type. So, too, in southern Greece and the iEgean world we meet with a form of Neolithic culture which must be essentially regarded as a prolonga¬ tion of that of Asia Minor. It is clear that it is on this Neolithic foundation that our later civilization im¬ mediately stands. But in the constant chain of actions and reactions by which the history of mankind is bound together — short of the extinction of all concerned, a hypothesis in this case excluded — it is equally certain that no great human achievement is without its continuous ef¬ fect. The more we realize the substantial amount of progress of the men of the Late Quaternary Age in arts and crafts and ideas, the more difficult it is to avoid the conclusion that somewhere “at the back of behind” — it may be by more than one route and on more than one continent, in Asia as well as Africa — actual links of connection may eventually come to light. Of the origins of our complex European culture this much at least can be confi¬ dently stated : the earliest extraneous sources on which it drew lay respectively in two directions — in the valley of the Nile, on one side, and in that of the Euphrates, on the other. Of the high early culture in the lower Euphrates valley our first real knowledge has been due to the excavations of De Sarzec in the mounds of Tello, the ancient Lagash. It is now seen that the civiliza¬ tion that we call Babylonian, and which was hitherto known under its Semitic guise, was really in its main features an inheritance from the earlier Sumerian race — culture in this case once more domi¬ nating nationality. Even the laws which Hammurabi traditionally received from the Babylonian Sun God were largely mod¬ elled on the reforms enacted a thousand years earlier by his predecessor, Uruka- gina, and ascribed by him to the inspira- September 29, 1916] SCIENCE 449 tion of the City God of Lagash.10 It is hardly necessary to insist on the later in¬ debtedness of our civilization to . this cul¬ ture in its Semitized shape, as passed on, together with other more purely Semitic elements, to the Mediterranean world through Syria, Canaan and Phoenicia, or by way of Assyria, and by means of the increasing hold gained on the old Hittite region of Anatolia. Even beyond the ancient Mesopotamian region which was the focus of these influ¬ ences, the researches of De Morgan, Gau¬ tier and Lampre, of the French “Delega¬ tion en Perse,” have opened iip another independent field, revealing a nascent civ¬ ilization equally ancient, of which Elam — the later Susiana — was the center. Still fur¬ ther afield, moreover — some three hundred miles east of the Caspian — the interesting investigations of the Pumpelly Expedition in the mounds of Anau, near Ashkabad in southern Turkestan, have brought to light a parallel and related culture. The painted Neolithic sherds of Anau, with their geo¬ metrical decoration, similar to contempo¬ rary ware of Elam, have suggested wide comparisons with the painted pottery of somewhat later date found in Cappadocia and other parts of Anatolia, as well as in the North Syrian regions. It has, more¬ over, been reasonably asked whether another class of painted Neolithic fabrics, the traces of which extend across the steppes of southern Russia, and, by way of that ancient zone of migration, to the lower Danube and northern Greece, may not stand in some original relation to the same ancient province. The new discoveries, however, in the mounds of Elam and Anau have at most a bearing on the primitive phase of culture in parts of southeastern Europe that preceded the age when metal was generally in use. io See L. W. King, ‘ 1 History of Sumer and Akkad,” p. 184. Turning to the Nile Valley we are again confronted with an extraordinary revolu¬ tion in the whole point of view effected during recent years. Thanks mainly to the methodical researches initiated by Flind¬ ers Petrie, we are able to look back beyond the Dynasties to the very beginnings of Egyptian civilization. Already by the closing phase of the Neolithic and by the days of the first incipient use of metals the indigenous population had attained an ex¬ traordinarily high level. If, on the one hand, it displays Libyan connections, on the other, we already note the evidences of commercial intercourse with the Red Sea; and the constant appearance of large row¬ ing vessels in the figured designs shows that the Nile itself was extensively used for navigation. Flint-working was carried to unrivalled perfection, and special artistic refinement was displayed in the manufac¬ ture of vessels of variegated breccia and other stones. The antecedent stages of many Egyptian hieroglyphs are already traceable, and the cult of Egyptian divini¬ ties, like Min, was already practised. Whatever ethnic change may have marked the establishment of Pharaonic rule, here, too, the salient features of the old indige¬ nous culture were taken over by the new regime. This early dynastic period itself has also received entirely new illustration from the same researches, and the fresh¬ ness and force of its artistic works in many respects outshine anything produced in the later course of Egyptian history. The continuity of human tradition, as a whole, in areas geographically connected like Eurafrica, on the one side, and Eu¬ rasia, on the other, has been here postu¬ lated. Since, as we have seen, the Late Palaeolithic culture was not violently ex¬ tinguished but shows signs of survival, both north and south, we are entitled to trace elements of direct derivation from this source among the inherited acquire- 450 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1135 ments that finally led up to the higher forms of ancient civilization that arose on the Nile and the Euphrates. In many di¬ rections, we may believe, the flaming torch had been carried on by the relay runners. But what, it may be asked, of Greece itself, where human culture reached its highest pinnacle in the ancient world and to which we look as the principal source of our own civilization? Till within recent years it seemed almost a point of honor for classical scholars to re¬ gard Hellenic civilization as a Wonder- Child, sprung, like Athena herself, fully panoplied from the head of Zeus. The in¬ debtedness to Oriental sources was either regarded as comparatively late or confined to such definite borrowings as the alphabet or certain weights and measures. Egypt, on the other hand, at least till Alexandrine times, was looked on as something apart, and it must be said that Egyptologists, on their side, were only too anxious to pre¬ serve their sanctum from profane contact. A truer perspective has now been opened out. It has been made abundantly clear that the rise of Hellenic civilization was itself part of a wider economy and can be no longer regarded as an isolated phenom¬ enon. Indirectly, its relation to the greater world and to the ancient centers to the south and east has been now established by its affiliation to the civilization of prehis¬ toric Crete and by the revelation of the extraordinarily high degree of proficiency that was there attained in almost all de¬ partments of human art and industry. That Crete itself — the “ Mid-Sea land,” a kind of halfway house between three con¬ tinents — should have been the cradle of our European civilization was, in fact, a logical consequence of its geographical position. An outlier of mainland Greece, almost op¬ posite the mouths of the Nile, primitive intercourse between Crete and the further shores of the Libyan Sea was still further facilitated by favorable winds and cur¬ rents. In the eastern direction, on the other hand, island stepping-stones brought it into easy communication with the coast of Asia Minor, with which it was actually connected in late geological times. But the extraneous influences that were here operative from a remote period en¬ countered on the island itself a primitive indigenous culture that had grown up there from immemorial time. In view of some recent geological calculations, such as those of Baron De Geer, who by counting the number of layers of mud in Lake Ra- gunda has 'reduced the ice-free period in Sweden to 7,000 years, it will not be super¬ fluous to emphasize the extreme antiquity that seems to be indicated for even the later Neolithic in Crete. The Hill of Knossos, upon which the remains of the brilliant Minoan civilization have found their most striking revelation, itself re¬ sembles in a large part of its composition a great mound or tell — like those of Mesopo¬ tamia or Egypt — formed of layer after layer of human deposits. But the remains of the whole of the later ages represented down to the earliest Minoan period (which itself goes back to a time contemporary with the early Dynasties of Egypt — at a moderate estimate to b.c. 3400) occupy considerably less than a half — 19 feet, that is, out of a total of over 45. Such calcula¬ tions can have only a relative value, but, even if we assume a more rapid accumula¬ tion of debris for the Neolithic strata and deduct a third from our calculation, they would still occupy a space of over 3,400 years, giving a total antiquity of some 9,000 years from the present time.11 No Neolithic section in Europe can compare in extent with that of Knossos, which itself can be divided by the character of its con- ii For a fuller statement I must refer to my forthcoming work, ‘ ‘ The Nine Minoan Periods ’ ’ (Macmillans), Yol. I.: Neolithic Section. September 29, 1916] SCIENCE 451 tents into an Early, Middle and Late phase. But its earliest stratum already shows the culture in an advanced stage, with care¬ fully ground and polished axes and finely burnished pottery. The beginnings of Cretan Neolithic must go back to a still more remote antiquity. The continuous history of the Neolithic Age is carried back at Knossos to an earlier epoch than is represented in the deposits of its geographically related areas on the Greek and Anatolian side. But sufficient materials for comparison exist to show that the Cretan branch belongs to a vast prov¬ ince of primitive culture that extended from southern Greece and the iEgean is¬ lands throughout a wide region of Asia Minor and probably still further afield. An interesting characteristic is the ap¬ pearance in the Knossian deposits of clay images of squatting female figures of a pronouncedly steatopygous conformation and with hands on the breasts. These in turn fit on to a large family of similar images which recur throughout the above era, though elsewhere they are generally known in their somewhat developed stage, showing a tendency to be translated into stone, and finally — perhaps under extrane¬ ous influences both from the north and east — taking a more extended attitude. These clearly stand in a parallel relation¬ ship to a whole family of figures with the organs of maternity strongly developed that characterize the Semitic lands and which seem to have spread from there to Sumeria and to the seats of the Anau cul¬ ture. At the same time this steatopygous fam¬ ily, which in other parts of the Mediter¬ ranean basin ranges from prehistoric Egypt and Malta to the north of mainland Greece, calls up suggestive reminiscences of the similar images of Aurignacian Man. It is especially interesting to note that in Crete, as in the Anatolian region where these primitive images occur, the worship of a Mother Goddess predominated in later times, generally associated with a divine child — a worship which later survived in a classical guise and influenced all later re¬ ligion. Another interesting evidence of the underlying religious community be¬ tween Crete and Asia Minor is the diffusion in both areas of the cult of the Double Axe. This divine symbol, indeed, or “Labrys,” became the special emblem of the Palace sanctuary of Knossos itself, which owes to it its traditional name of Labyrinth. I have already called attention to the fact that the absorptive and disseminating; power of the Roman Empire brought the cult of a male form of the divinity of the Double Axe to the Roman Wall and to the actual site on which Newcastle stands. The fact should never be left out of sight that the gifted indigenous stock which in Crete eventually took to itself, on one hand and the other, so many elements of exotic culture, was still deep-rooted in its own. It had, moreover, the advantages of an insular people in taking what it wanted and no more. Thus it was stimulated by foreign influences but never dominated by them, and there is nothing here of the ser¬ vility of Phoenician art. Much as it assimi¬ lated, it never lost its independent tradi¬ tion. It is interesting to note that the first quickening impulse came to Crete from the Egyptian and not from the Oriental side — the eastern factor, indeed, is of com¬ paratively late appearance. My own re¬ searches have led me to the definite conclu¬ sion that cultural influences were already reaching Crete from beyond the Libyan Sea before the beginning of the Egyptian dynasties. These primitive influences are attested, amongst other evidences, by the forms of stone vessels, by the same esthetic tradition in the selection of materials dis¬ tinguished by their polychromy, by the ap- 452 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1135 pearance of certain symbolic signs, and the subjects of shapes and seals which go back to prototypes in use among the “Old Race” of the Nile Valley. The impression of a very active agency indeed is so strong that the possibility of some actual immi¬ gration into the island of the older Egyp¬ tian element, due to the conquests of the first Pharaohs, can not be excluded. The continuous influence of Dynastic Egypt from its earliest period onwards is attested both by objects of import and their indigenous imitations, and an actual monu¬ ment of a middle empire Egyptian was found in the Palace Court at Knossos. More surprising still are the cumulative proofs of the reaction of this early Cretan civilization on Egypt itself, as seen not only in the introduction there of such beautiful Minoan fabrics as the elegant polychrome vases, but in the actual impress observable on Egyptian art even on its religious side. The Egyptian griffin is fitted with Minoan wings. So, too, on the other side we see the symbols of Egyptian religion impressed into the service of the Cretan Nature God¬ dess, who in certain respects was partly as¬ similated with Hathor, the Egyptian Cow- Goddess of the Underworld. My own most recent investigations have more and more brought home to me the all- pervading community between Minoan Crete and the land of the Pharaohs. "When we realize the great indebtedness of the succeeding classical culture of Greece to its Minoan predecessor the full signifi¬ cance of this conclusion will be understood. Ancient Egypt itself can no longer be re¬ garded as something apart from general human history. Its influences are seen to lie about the very qradle of our own civili¬ zation. The high early culture, the equal rival of that of Egypt and Babylonia, which thus began to take its rise in Crete in the fourth millennium before our era, flourished for some two thousand years, eventually domi¬ nating the JEgean and a large part of the Mediterranean basin. To the civilization, as a whole, I ventured, from the name of the legendary king and law-giver of Crete, to apply the name of ‘ 4 Minoan, ’ ’ which has received general acceptance ; and it has been possible now to divide its course into three ages — Early, Middle and Late, an¬ swering roughly to the successive Egyptian kingdoms, and each in turn with a triple subdivision. It is difficult indeed in a few words to do adequate justice to this earliest of Euro¬ pean civilizations. Its achievements are too manifold. The many-storeyed palaces of the Minoan priest-kings in their great days, by their ingenious planning, their success¬ ful combination of the useful with the beautiful and stately, and, last but not least, by their scientific sanitary arrange¬ ments, far outdid the similar works, on however vast a scale, of Egyptian or Baby¬ lonian builders. What is more, the same skilful and commodious construction re¬ curs in a whole series of private mansions and smaller dwellings throughout the is¬ land. Outside 4 4 broad Knossos” itself, flourishing towns sprang up far and wide on the country sides. New and refined crafts were developed, some of them, like that of the inlaid metal-work, unsurpassed in any age or country. Artistic skill, of course, reached its acme in the great pal¬ aces themselves, the corridors, landings and porticoes of which were decked with wall paintings and high reliefs, showing in the treatment of animal life not only an extra¬ ordinary grasp of nature, but a grandiose power of composition such as the world had never seen before. Such were the great bull-grappling reliefs of the Sea Gate at Knossos and the agonistic scenes of the great palace hall. The modernness of much of the life here revealed to us is astonishing. The elabora- September 29, 1916] SCIENCE 453 tion of the domestic arrangements, the staircases story above story, the front places given to the ladies at shows, their fashionable flounced robes and jackets, the gloves sometimes seen on their hands or hanging from their folding chairs, their very mannerisms as seen on the frescoes, pointing their conversation with animated gestures — how strangely out of place would it all appear in a classical design! No¬ where, not even at Pompeii, have more liv¬ ing pictures of ancient life been called up for us than in the Minoan Palace of Knossos. The touches supplied by its clos¬ ing scene are singularly dramatic — the little bath-room opening out of the Queen’s parlor, with its painted clay bath, the royal draught-board flung down in the court, the vessels for anointing and the oil- jar for their filling ready to hand by the throne of the Priest-King, with the benches of his Con¬ sistory round and the sacred griffins on either side. Religion, indeed, entered in at every turn. The palaces were also temples, the tomb a shrine of the Great Mother. It was perhaps owing to the re¬ ligious control of art that among all the Minoan representations — now to be num¬ bered by thousands — no single example of indecency has come to light. A remarkable feature of this Minoan civ¬ ilization can not be passed over. I remem¬ ber that at the Liverpool meeting of this association in 1896 — just before the first results of the new discoveries in Crete were known — a distinguished archeologist took as the subject of an evening lecture “Man before Writing,” and, as a striking ex¬ ample of a high culture attained by “ Anal fab eti,” singled out that of My¬ cenae — a late offshoot, as we know now, from Minoan Crete. To such a conclusion, based on negative evidence, I confess I could never subscribe — for had not even the peo¬ ple of the Reindeer Age attained to a con¬ siderable proficiency in expression by means of symbolic signs? To-day we are able to trace the gradual evolution on Cretan soil of a complete system of writing from its earliest pictographic shape, through a conventionalized hieroglyphic to a linear stage of great perfection. In addi¬ tion to inscribed sealings and other records some two thousand clay tablets have now come to light, mostly inventories or con¬ tracts; for though the script itself is still undeciphered the pictorial figures that often appear on these documents supply a valuable clue to their contents. The nu¬ meration also is clear, with figures repre¬ senting sums up to 10,000. The inscribed sealings, signed, counter-marked and coun¬ ter-signed by controlling officials, give a high idea of the elaborate machinery of government and administration under the Minoan rulers. The minutely organized legal conditions to which this points confirm the later tra¬ ditions of Minos, the great law-giver of pre¬ historic Crete, who, like Hammurabi and Moses, was said to have received the law from the God of the Sacred Mountain. The clay tablets themselves were certainly due to Oriental influences, which make them¬ selves perceptible in Crete at the begin¬ ning of the Late Minoan Age, and may have been partly resultant from the reflex action of Minoan colonization in Cyprus. From this time onwards eastern elements are more and more traceable in Cretan cul¬ ture, and are evidenced by such phenom¬ ena as the introduction of chariots — them¬ selves perhaps more remotely of Aryan- Iranian derivation — and by the occasional use of cylinder seals. Simultaneously with -its eastern expan¬ sion, which affected the coast of Phoenicia and Palestine as well as Cyprus, Minoan civilization now took firm hold of mainland Greece, while traces of its direct influence are found in the west Mediterranean basin — in Sicily, the Balearic Islands and Spain. 454 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1135 At the time of the actual conquest and dur¬ ing the immediately succeeding period the civilization that appears at Mycenae and Tiryns, at Thebes and Orchomenos, and at other centers of mainland Greece, though it seems to have brought with it some al¬ ready assimilated Anatolian elements, is still in the broadest sense Minoan. It is only at a later stage that a more provincial offshoot came into being to which the name Myce¬ naean can be properly applied. But it is clear that some vanguard at least of the Aryan Greek immigrants came into contact with this high Minoan culture at a time when it was still in its most flourishing condition. The evidence of Homer itself is conclusive. Arms and armor described in the poems are those of the Minoan prime, the fabled shield of Achilles, like that of Herakles de¬ scribed by Hesiod, with its elaborate scenes and variegated metal-work, reflects the masterpieces of Minoan craftsmen in the full vigor of their art; the very episodes of epic combat receive their best illustra¬ tion on the signets of the great days of Mycenas. Even the lyre to which the min¬ strel sang was a Minoan invention. Or, if we turn to the side of religion, the Greek temple seems to have sprung from a Minoan hall, its earliest pediment schemes are adaptations from the Minoan tympa¬ num — such as we see in the Lions’ Gate — the most archiac figures of the Hellenic Goddesses, like the Spartan Orthia, have the attributes and attendant animals of the great Minoan Mother. Some elements of the old culture were taken over on the soil of Hellas. Others which had been crushed out in their old centers survived in the more eastern shores and islands formerly dominated by Minoan civilization, and were carried back by Phoenician or Ionian intermediaries to their old homes. In spite of the overthrow which about the twelfth century before our era fell on the old Minoan dominion and the onrush of the new conquerors from the north, much of the old tradition still survived to form the base for the fabric of the later civilization of Greece. Once more, through the darkness, the lighted torch was carried on, the first glimmering flame of which had been painfully kindled by the old Cave dwellers in that earlier Palaeolithic world. The Roman Empire, which in turn ap¬ propriated the heritage that Greece had received from Minoan Crete, placed civili¬ zation on a broader basis by welding to¬ gether heterogeneous ingredients and pro¬ moting a cosmopolitan ideal. If even the primeval culture of the Reindeer Age em¬ braced more than one race and absorbed extraneous elements from many sides, how much more is that the case with our own which grew out of the Greco-Roman ! Civilization in its higher form to-day, though highly complex, forms essentially a unitary mass. It has no longer to be sought out in separate luminous centers, shining like planets through the surrounding night. Still less is it the property of one privi¬ leged country or people. Many as are the tongues of mortal men, its votaries, like the Immortals, speak a single language. Throughout the whole vast area illumined by its quickening rays, its workers are in¬ terdependent, and pledged to a common cause. We, indeed, who are met here to-day to promote in a special way the Cause of Truth and Knowledge, have never had a more austere duty set before us. I know that our ranks are thinned. How many of those who would otherwise be engaged in progressive research have been called away for their country ’s service ! How many who could least be spared were called to return no more! Scientific intercourse is broken, and its cosmopolitan character is obscured by the death struggle in which whole continents are locked. The concen¬ tration, moreover, of the nation and of its September 29, 1916] SCIENCE 455 government on immediate ends has dis¬ tracted it from the urgent reforms called for by the very evils that are the root cause of many of the greatest difficulties it has had to overcome. It is a lamentable fact that beyond any nation of the west the bulk of our people remains sunk not in compara¬ tive ignorance only — for that is less diffi¬ cult to overcome — but in intellectual apathy. The dull incuria of the parents is reflected in the children, and the desire for the acquirement of knowledge in our schools and colleges is appreciably less than elsewhere. So, too, with the scientific side of education, it is not so much the ac¬ tual amount of science taught that is in question — insufficient as that is — as the in¬ stillation of the scientific spirit itself — the perception of method, the sacred thirst for investigation. But can we yet despair of the educa¬ tional future of a people that has risen to the full height of the great emergency with which they were confronted ? Can we doubt that, out of the crucible of fiery trial, a New England is already in the moulding ? We must all bow before the hard neces¬ sity of the moment. Of much we can not judge. Great patience is demanded. But let us, who still have the opportunity of doing so, at least prepare for the even more serious struggle that must ensue against the enemy in our midst, that gnaws our vitals. We have to deal with ignor¬ ance, apathy, the non-scientific mental atti¬ tude, the absorption of popular interest in sports and amusements. And what, meanwhile, is the attitude of those in power — of our government, still more of our permanent officials? A cheap epigram is worn threadbare in order to justify the ingrained distrust of expert, in other words of scientific, advice on the part of our public offices. We hear, in¬ deed, of “Commissions” and “Enquiries,” but the inveterate attitude of our rulers towards the higher interests that we are here to promote is too clearly shown by a single episode. It is those higher interests that are the first to be thrown to the wolves. All are agreed that special treasures should be stored in positions of safety, but at a time when it might have been thought de¬ sirable to keep open every avenue of popu¬ lar instruction and of intelligent diversion, the galleries of our National Museum at Bloomsbury were entirely closed for the sake of the paltriest saving — three minutes, it was calculated, of the cost of the war to the British treasury! That some, indeed, were left open elsewhere was not so much due to the enlightened sympathy of our politicians, as to their alarmed interests in view of the volume of intelligent protest. Our friends and neighbors across the Chan¬ nel, under incomparably greater stress, have acted in a very different spirit. It will be a hard struggle for the friends of science and education and the air is thick with mephitic vapors. Perhaps the worst economy to which we are to-day re¬ duced by our former lack of preparedness is the economy of truth. Heaven knows ! — it may be a necessary penalty. But its re¬ sults are evil. Vital facts that concern our national well-being, others that even affect the cause of a lasting peace, are constantly suppressed by official action. The negative character of the process at work which conceals its operation from the masses makes it the more insidious. We live in a murky atmosphere amidst the suggestion of the false, and there seems to be a real danger that the recognition of truth as itself a tower of strength may suffer an eclipse. It is at such a time and under these ad¬ verse conditions that we, whose object it is to promote the advancement of science, are called upon to act. It is for us to see to it that the lighted torch handed down to us 456 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1135 from the ages shall be passed on with a still brighter flame. Let us champion the cause of education, in the best sense of the word, as having regard to its spiritual as well as its scientific side. Let us go forward with our own tasks, unflinchingly seeking for the truth, confident that, in the eternal dis¬ pensation, each successive generation of seekers may approach nearer to the goal. Magna est veritas, et prcevaleiit. Arthur Evans University of Oxford THE IMPORTANCE OF SCIENTIFIC RE¬ SEARCH TO THE INDUSTRIES America is in the throes of preparedness and many are the remedies offered for quick deliverance. These remedies are of two varieties, namely, genuine and quack; and at times it may be difficult to dissociate one from the other. Schemes of all kinds are offered purport¬ ing to be of immediate and direct value in the program of national defense, but when sifted to the bottom are found to be, either wholly valueless, or detrimental to the cause. On the other hand, the national awakening to the necessity of providing adequate defense has been productive of measures and plans which, if carried through, would result in permanent assets to the country. The conclusion seems to be warranted, that the major efforts in our preparedness program should be directed toward the im¬ provement of industrial conditions. In the final analysis, war is a contest between the industries of the belligerents. Therefore, a country whose resources are exploited, whose industries and commerce are well developed, and whose systems of business, education and research have reached a high plane of efficiency would be incalculably better off in the case of a long exhausting war than if reliance had been placed on the military equipment alone. Preparedness means, not only the opti¬ mum military and naval forces for repell¬ ing the initial onslaughts of the enemy, but also the power to quickly adapt one’s self to the changing conditions brought about by war and to render available the latent resources in the shortest period of time. It is the organization and development of these latent resources that should de¬ mand our attention at this time, as much as the preparation of war equipment for immediate use. This form of preparedness can not lead to militarism, for the results attained will be of as much value in time of peace as in time of wTar. Militarism is the great danger confronting our democ¬ racy at the present time, and war is its in¬ evitable result. To war the course of empire takes its way and the route is : scaredness — preparedness — assuredness — war, but a word to the wise is sufficient. As a nation we are not sufficiently appre¬ ciative of the value to industrv of research in pure science. In order to credit certain experimentation, we must see a well-estab¬ lished connection between the work in hand and the end sought. A clear and definite series of results pointing toward a certain conclusion must be produced before we are in a mood to consider the possible impor¬ tance of the investigation. Few of our manufacturers have realized the significance of a well-equipped research department in connection with their indus¬ tries. This statement, however, does not apply to the testing laboratory, whose value has long been recognized and has its place in the factory. The expenditure of a cer¬ tain percentage of the profits for launch¬ ing investigations into unexplored fields is another matter. Some of our manufacturers are still con- September 29, 1916] SCIENCE 457 tent to make their products like their grandfathers used to make them, as long as the industries pay a reasonable margin of profit. The story is told of a large paint manu¬ facturing company, where the superin¬ tendent had made repeated but unavail¬ ing recommendations to the board of directors for the establishment of a re¬ search laboratory in connection with the business. They could see no immediate re¬ turns accruing from such an expenditure, but finally yielded to the wishes of the superintendent and voted that a research chemist be employed not to exceed $75.00 per month, and that he be instructed to report to the head paint-mixer. This attitude on the part of manufac¬ turers has undergone a marked change and they are becoming more and more appre¬ ciative of the value in dollars and cents of scientific research. Whatever else may be the results of the European war, one thing is certain, and that is the inevitable stim¬ ulus to research in the industries. The in¬ fluence that this division of science is hav¬ ing upon the progress of the war is exem¬ plified on every hand. A profounder testimony would be diffi¬ cult to find than where the integrity of the Teutonic powers has been maintained for two years against a world at arms by the utilization of the results of one man’s re¬ searches on the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen. Numerous other elements have, of course, contributed, but if nitric acid could not have been obtained in such enor¬ mous quantities, the war would probably have been at an end long before this. The latest developments of the Haber process will probably not be known outside of Ger¬ many until after the war, and it seems to me that this is one of the more important fields for research in this country at the present time. Why spend millions of dol¬ lars upon plants designed to employ an antiquated process, when it is known that other countries are now using a more effi¬ cient one? The temper of the American people is such that millions can be had for defense along known lines, but only a meager sum for research. Almost every industry presents well-nigh infinite possibilities for improvement. The ne plus ultra of to-day will be scrapped to¬ morrow. What is required is an enter¬ prising leader who dares to venture out into the woods on either side of the beaten path of factory routine. The force of this statement becomes ap¬ parent the moment we awake from our lethargic sleep and begin to look about us. We find that the leaders in the industries are those who maintain research depart¬ ments, for in that way they are able to keep ahead of their competitors by either supply¬ ing superior articles at equal cost or as good articles at less cost. Germany’s dominating world industry in dye products has been built upon chemical research, its scientific instrument industry upon physical research. The perfume, drug and wine industries of France have been founded upon years of painstaking research. Our own world industries of manufac¬ tured articles, such as photographic goods, oil and packing house products, machinery, steel products, electrical appliances, etc., all take root in research departments, and it is no chance coincidence that the industries supporting the most extensive research de¬ partments are those in the highest stages of development. Now it is financially impossible for the vast majority of our ’industries to main¬ tain research departments. They are as incapable of aiding their industries in this way as the individual farmers of the coun¬ try would be in acquiring single handed the latest developments in agriculture as 458 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1135 worked out in the various agricultural ex¬ periment stations. Efficiency points to centralization and coordination. The government has stepped in and aided the farmer wdiere he was unable to get the results alone, but the government has not yet deemed it prudent to intervene in be¬ half of the small manufacturing industries so as to improve their products and put them on a higher plane of efficiency. This could be done by the establishment of a large government institution for chemical and physical research, with departments at least as numerous as the different industries to be aided. Instead of the industries being helped by the government, they are actually hin¬ dered to a certain extent, especially in so far as unsatisfactory patent laws act prej- udically against them. The vast majority of researches carried out in the universities are of such a nature that they have no bear¬ ing whatever upon present-day industries, and the essential results obtained in pri¬ vate research laboratories are kept secret so that the small manufacturer will ulti¬ mately be forced to the wall, unless he can surreptitiously acquire the processes of his wealthier rival. Discovery is the aim of research even as it is the aim of all forms of experimenta¬ tion. Discovery and invention may result upon the most superficial tests which in no sense could be classed as research. In fact, many important and far-reaching discov¬ eries have been made as results of the crudest form of experimentation, but these are the singular exceptions. The rule is, that any important scientific or industrial advance has been made at the expense of years of experimentation and research along that line, coupled with the knowledge derived from countless other lines of work. One industry dovetails into another like the walls of a house and one science blends into another so that it is no longer possible to draw the dividing line. Even as the sciences are developed by the contributions of thousands of workers, so each industry must depend for its advance¬ ment upon the labors and researches of a large number. What an enormous amount of research along many lines must have been carried out to bring the photographic industry to its present high plane of per¬ fection ! From the time that Scheele, Niepce and Daguerre made systematic studies of the actinic properties of silver salts, there has been an uninterrupted search for the hidden treasures in this field. The researches have extended into actinometry, organic and inorganic chem¬ istry, colloid chemistry, electro chemistry, radioactivity, gelatine, glass, optics, heat, metal plating, mechanics, etc. No man is the discoverer or inventor of modern photography. The men who do the pioneer work are usually railed at by the populace as im¬ practical dreamers and scarcely ever live to see the full fruition of their labors. If Daguerre could have had a vision of the tremendous industry that has been reared upon the meager results of his research or if Clerk Maxwell and Hertz could have realized that their theoretical deductions furnished the basis for wireless correspond¬ ence across oceans, they could have met the attacks of their critics with a compla¬ cent smile. As an example of one man’s contribution to industry, Pasteur is per¬ haps the most illustrious. His thoroughgoing researches discovered the cause and pointed out the remedy for the souring and spoiling of beer, wine and fruit juices, and thus benefited France and other countries to the extent of millions of dollars. He also saved the French silk in¬ dustry from certain destruction by the pebrine disease of the silkworm. He dis- September 29, 1916] SCIENCE 459 covered the cause and cure for rabies and anthrax, but greatest of all established the germ theory of disease and laid the founda¬ tion for serum therapy, an incalculable con¬ tribution to humanity. In commemora¬ tion of this notable work, his disciples will drink pasteurized milk for generations to come. Pasteur had his critics, too, even as formidable ones as the great German chem¬ ist Liebig who once wrote : As to the opinion which explains putrefaction of animal substances by the presence of microscopic germs, it may be compared to that of a child who would explain the rapidity of the Rhine current by attributing it to the violent movement of the nu¬ merous mill wheels of Mayence. When the criticisms of thoroughgoing re¬ search come from the outside, they are not serious and vital, for time and subsequent work will establish the facts, but when criticisms come from the inside, from un¬ trained officials in charge of the work, then it is they become serious. What a mass of promising research work has been ruthlessly beheaded by conscien¬ tious superintendents, and directors in the name of “practical” results! How can we distinguish between prac¬ tical and theoretical research? What ap¬ pears to the superintendent as being of no value whatever may have the germ of enor¬ mous practical returns in it, while the “practical” work he decides upon has such an immediate and superficial character that no appreciable gain, either for science or for the industry, will be made. This question of “practical research” is vital to the wel¬ fare of the American industries and should be given thoughtful consideration. Neither science nor industry can make material advance until the basic laws and fundamental principles governing the same are understood, and the prime object of scientific research is to discover and verify these basic laws, while the purpose of a testing laboratory is to apply the laws al¬ ready known to definite projects and indus¬ tries. What meager advance our electro-chem¬ ical industries could have made if it had not been for the discovery of the underlying principles by Faraday, Van’t Hoff and Arrhenius. Modern explosives owe their terribleness to the work of Sobrero, Pelouze, Eder, Schischkoff and Nobel. The soap industry is largely indebted to the painstaking re¬ searches of Chevreul ; and the dye industry to Perkin, Hoffman, Fischer, Louth and Beyer. Radium therapy was made possible by the discoveries of Mme. Curie and the mul¬ tifarious applications of the X-ray rest upon the work of Crooks and Rontgen. The theoretical researches of De Vries and Pfeffer were of inestimable value to Bur¬ bank’s plant-breeding experiments. Like¬ wise, the “impractical” discoveries of cer¬ tain rare gases in the atmosphere by Lord Rayleigh and Sir William Ramsay have now been made use of in the manufacture of the most powerful and economical incandescent lamps. In this day and age no sane person would dare to say that a certain piece of funda¬ mental research will be of no practical value for a hundred years to come. In a few years it might mean the cornerstone of an industry or a science. At this time and in this connection, it might be well for us to ponder the words of the great French chemist, Dumas, when, in a speech delivered immediately after the close of the Franco-Prussian war, he said: The future belongs to science; woe to the na¬ tions who close their eyes to this fact. Let us call to our aid on this neutral and pacific ground of natural philosophy, where defeats cost neither blood nor tears, those hearts which are moved by their country’s grandeur; it is by the exaltation of science that France will recover her prestige. C. Alfred Jacobson University of Nevada 460 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1135 SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS The fifty-third meeting of the American Chemical Society and the second National Ex¬ position of Chemical Industries are being held in New York City this week. The address of the president, Dr. Charles H. Herty, of the University of North Carolina, was on “ Ex¬ panding Relations of Chemistry in America.” This address we hope to have the privilege of printing in Science, and the official abstracts of papers presented before the divisions of the society will, as usual, be printed here. In the presence of Secretary Daniels and with appropriate ceremonies twenty members of the Civilian Navy Consulting Board, headed by Thomas A. Edison, took the oath of allegiance to the United States on September 19, as officers of the federal government. They were later entertained at a luncheon at the Army and Navy Club by Secretary Dan¬ iels. At the subsequent meeting the indus¬ trial survey of the country and the naval re¬ search laboratory were among the questions discussed. Those present besides Mr. Edison were Messrs. M. R. Hutchinson, W. R. Whit¬ ney, L. H. Baekeland, Frank J. Sprague, R. S. Woodward, Arthur G. Webster, A. M. Hunt, Spencer Miller, William Leroy Emmet, Mat¬ thew B. Sellers, Hudson Maxim, P. C. Hewitt, Thomas Robins, Howard E. Coffin, Andrew L. Riker, Elmer A. Sperry, W. L. Saunders, Law¬ rence Addicks and Bion J. Arnold. The American Fisheries Society will hold its forty-sixth annual meeting in New Or¬ leans, La., on October 16 to 19, inclusive. As this is the first meeting of the society to he held in any of the Gulf states, special consid¬ eration will be given to the problems and con¬ ditions of fisheries and fish culture in these states. Professor Jacob Reighard, of the Uni¬ versity of Michigan, is president of the so¬ ciety. Dr. Charles W. Pilgrim, superintendent of the Hudson River State Hospital, Poughkeep¬ sie, N. Y., has been appointed by Governor Whitman to serve as president of the New York State Lunacy Board. Dr. James Y. May, former head of the board, resigned some time ago to accept a similar position in the state of Massachusetts. Dr. Alexander Johnson, for thirteen years secretary of the National Conference of Char¬ ities and Correction, has been selected as the expert for the Colorado State Survey Com¬ mission to investigate and make recommen¬ dations concerning the care of mental defec¬ tives and insane in the state, and the charities and corrections departments of the state. Professor E. M. Lehnerts, of the depart¬ ment of geography of the University of Minne¬ sota, has succeeded D. Lange as president of the Minnesota Forestry Association. Dr. William H. Welch, of the Johns Hop¬ kins University, sailed from England on Sep¬ tember 20. Dr. Welch left for England five weeks ago to obtain data in connection with the organization of the Institute of Hygiene, which was made possible through a gift from the Rockefeller Foundation. Dr. F. J. H. Merrill, from 1899 until 1904 state geologist of New York, has moved to Los Angeles, where he will resume consultant practise in geology and mining engineering. For the academic year 1916-17, an exchange has been arranged between Professor Cassius J. Keyser, of the department of mathematics of Columbia University, and Professor Mellen W. Haskell, of the department of mathematics of the University of California. Dr. M. C. Tanquary, assistant professor of entomology, Kansas State Agricultural Col¬ lege, who was granted a leave of absence in 1913 to accompany the Crocker Land Expedi¬ tion, has returned to the Kansas Agricultural College and will continue his work in the college and experiment station. Dr. Donald Reddick, professor of plant pathology, Cornell University, and chairman of the editorial board of Phytopathology , has been granted sabbatic leave and will spend the ensuing academic year in special work in the laboratory of plant physiology, Johns Hop¬ kins University. Matters pertaining to Phytopathology should be addressed to him at Baltimore until June 1, 1917. September 29, 1916] SCIENCE 461 Professor H. Maxwell Lefroy has been on special duty with the British army in Mesopotamia connected with fly investigations. The John B. Murphy Memorial Associa¬ tion has been incorporated in Illinois by Drs. William A. Evans, James E. Keefe, Allan B. Kanavel, Erank H. Martin and Erank Crozier. It is planned to raise half a million dollars for a memorial to the distinguished surgeon. The two requisites of the memorial are said to be that it be permanent and that it be a “ living power making for the advancement of surgery on both the scientific and moral sides.” LeRoy Clark Cooley, emeritus professor of physics in Vassar College, where he was head of the department from 1874 to 1907, died on September 20, at the age of eighty-three years. Joseph Hoeing Kastle, director of the ex¬ periment station of the University of Kentucky, died in Lexington, Ky., on September 23, aged fifty-three years. Dr. Kastle became chief of the division of chemistry in the hygienic labo¬ ratory of the United States Health and Marine Service in 1905 and remained in that position until 1909, when he accepted a call as pro¬ fessor of chemistry at the University of Vir¬ ginia. Sir T. Lauder Brunton, F.R.S., distin¬ guished for his work in pharmacology and therapeutics, died September 16, at the age of seventy-two years. Dr. Enrique Nunezy Palomina, secretary of sanitation in the government of Cuba, and professor of medicine in the University of Havana, died in New York on September 15, aged forty-four years. A. F. Eminson has been killed in action while serving with the British army. Mr. Eminson had recently carried out some valu¬ able investigations into the bionomics of Glossina morsitans in northern Rhodesia. Dr. W. Zurhellen, assistant at the Royal Observatory, Berlin, died on July 15, aged thirty-six years. It is noted in the Observa¬ tory that Dr. Zurhellen was one of the mem¬ bers of the Eclipse Expedition from the Ber¬ lin Observatory to the Crimea to observe the total eclipse of 1914, August 21. The last news which we had obtained of this expedi¬ tion was that Zurhellen, being of military age, had been interned in Russia, whilst the older members of the expedition were allowed to re¬ turn to Germany. After a year in Russia, Zurhellen was allowed to return to Germany; he joined the Bonn contingent, and was killed in the fighting in north France. The Electrical World quotes from an article in the Electrician , by F. G. Donnan, in which he urges a separate department of state to be called the “ Ministry of Science.” Some of the functions of this department are to estab¬ lish national laboratories and “ bureaus ” for the purpose of undertaking extensive investi¬ gations; to guide the domestic and foreign policy of the cabinet by having ready at a moment’s notice complete and detailed infor¬ mation concerning every question relating to science; to foster, endow and promote the teaching and investigation of science in the universities of the country by giving much larger grants of money to the scientific labor¬ atories. The establishment of a great national bank is also suggested, whose special concern would be the fostering of new and old indus¬ tries based on scientific method and scientific research. The United States Senate on August 29 ratified the treaty with Canada extending to all migratory birds the same protection on both sides of the Canadian border. The American Game Protective and Propagating Association, of which Mr. Edward F. Quarles is vice-president, drew up the provisions for that treaty, recommended them to congress and urged them in Canada. According to the New York Sun Mr. Quarles said that the regu¬ lations approved by the Canadian government provide for exactly the same degree of pro¬ tection for migratory birds that is insured to * them within the borders of the United States. By the act of congress, approved March 4, 1913, all migratory birds — wild geese, wild swans, wild ducks, snipe, woodcock, rail and all other migratory game and insectivorous birds — which, as the act reads, in their northern mi¬ grations pass through or do not remain per- 462 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1135 manently within the borders of any state or territory, shall be deemed to be within the custody and protection of the government of the United States and shall not be destroyed or taken contrary to regulations provided for by that government. The act which was passed in 1913 has been amended and the regulations drawn up by the Department of Agriculture for the enactment of the provi¬ sions went into final effect on August 21, 1916, when President Wilson publicly proclaimed the regulation. According to Mr. Quarles, the treaty will secure protection all over the North American continent for some 1,022 species and sub-species of birds, and the law is of prime importance to farmers, for it means that insectivorous birds will get the protec¬ tion they deserve. All migratory birds, game and insectivorous, will be completely pro¬ tected in the spring flights, during the breed¬ ing season, and the open season on the winter migration south will be curtailed in a great many species. The rulings as to open and closed season in each state have been made with due regard to the state’s relative posi¬ tion in the great sweep of migration, north and south, and with provisions for the special pro¬ tection of certain species in those localities where they have suffered under the old law, or where the farmer needs, for example, the presence of certain insectivorous birds. The following series of Saturday afternoon lectures are being given in the Museum build¬ ing of the New York Botanical Garden, at four o’clock: September 2 — ‘ ‘ Plants of the Danish Islands, St. Croix, St. Thomas and St. John,” by Dr. N. L. Britton. September 9 — "Across Mexico from Yera Cruz to Colima,” by Dr. W. A. Murrill. September 16 — "Farming in the Middle West,” by Dr. G. C. Fisher. September 23 — ‘ ‘ Through the Mountains of Utah and Colorado,” by Dr. F. W. Pennell. September 30 — "Flowers for Fall Planting,” by G. Y. Nash. October 7 — "Botanical Cruises in the Ba¬ hamas,” by Dr. M. A. Howe. October 14 — "Destructive Fungi,” by Dr. F. J. Seaver. October 21 — "Autumn Coloration,” by Dr. A. B. Stout. October 28 — "The Potato Family,” by Dr. H. H. Rusby. November 4 — "The New York Botanical Gar¬ den,” by Dr. Britton. November 11 — "Planning Next Year’s Flower Garden,” by Mr. Nash. The value of tar, ammonia and benzol prod¬ ucts recovered in the manufacture of artificial gas in municipal plants and at by-product coke ovens in 1915 was nearly $25,000,000. Statistics recently compiled by C. E. Lesher, of the United States Geological Survey, De¬ partment of the Interior, show that more than 51,340,000 gallons of tar were obtained in con¬ nection with the manufacture of oil and water gas, that nearly 48,000,000 gallons of tar was recovered at coal-gas plants, 138,400,000 gal¬ lons of tar was obtained in connection with the manufacture of by-product coke, and that the total quantity of tar produced in the United States in 1915 was more than 237,400,000 gal¬ lons, valued at $6,260,000. The oil and water gas tar had an average value of 2.2 cents a gallon, the coal-gas tar a value of 2.03 cents a gallon and the by-product tar a value of 2.6 cents a gallon. Approximately 50,700 tons of ammonium sulphate was obtained from the coal-gas plants and about 197,000 tons from by-product coke plants, a total of about 198,- 000 tons. The value of this ammonia was more than $11,175,000. The coal-gas plants pro¬ duced and sold 336,213 gallons of benzol, drip oil and holder oil, valued at $28,281, an aver¬ age value of 8.4 cents a gallon. Benzol prod¬ ucts recovered in connection with the manu¬ facture of by-product coke amounted to 16,600,857 . gallons, valued at $7,337,371, an average of 44.2 cents a gallon. It is thus seen that coal-gas plants are negligible as a source of supply of benzol products. Nearly 223,000 pounds of naphthalene, valued at $3,565, was obtained and sold from the coal-gas plants as compared with 465,865 pounds, valued at $46,- 959, from the by-product plants. More than 27,000 tons of retort carbon, valued at $183,- 170, an average of $6.73 a ton was obtained from the oil and water-gas plants and 1,696,- 366 tons of gas coke, valued at $7,222,744, or September 29, 1916] SCIENCE 463 an average of $4.25 a ton, was obtained and sold from the coal-gas plants in 1915. In¬ cluding by-product, the output of which in 1915 was 14,072,895 tons, valued at $48,558,- 325, the coke and retort carbon produced in the United States was 15,796,461 tons, valued at $55,964,239. The value of the tar, ammonia, benzol products, naphthalene and coke pro¬ duced in the United States in 1915 was $80,- 816,975. The Electrical World notes that the great scarcity of potash has almost crippled many of the industries in this country, notable among others being the glass industry. The glass used in making incandescent electric lamp bulbs is a very special kind that must with¬ stand sudden changes of temperature and also great pressure. Heretofore it has been thought that only glass made with a certain amount of potash was suitable for the lamp industry. The outbreak of the war two years ago cut off all supply of potash from Germany and threat¬ ened the supply of glass. The research chem¬ ists of the General Electric Company, how¬ ever, succeeded in producing a glass for ma¬ king incandescent electric lamp bulbs by re¬ placing potash with soda in the glass mixture. This glass, it has been stated, has proved su¬ perior to the old potash glass; so much so, in¬ deed, that from now on potash glass will no longer be used. The world supply of potash comes almost entirely from Stassfurt in Ger¬ many, because the natural deposits there have been cheaper to work than any other known source. The sources of supply in the United States have proved utterly inadequate to meet the great demand of the industries. Soda, on the other hand, is produced from ordinary table salt, great natural deposits of which are to be found in different parts of the country. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS Dr. Thomas F. Holgate, professor of mathe¬ matics in Northwestern University and dean of the college of liberal arts, has been elected by the trustees ad interim president of the university, on the recommendation of the coun¬ cil of deans. Dr. James R. Clemens has been elected dean of the John A. Creighton Medical College, Omaha. Dr. A. I. Ringer, formerly assistant pro¬ fessor of physiological chemistry at the Uni¬ versity of Pennsylvania, has been appointed professor of clinical medicine (diseases of metabolism) at the Eordham University School of Medicine, New York. Dr. Leon F. Shackell, of Washington Uni¬ versity, has been appointed an instructor in physiology at the University of Utah Medical School, Salt Lake City. Donald W. Davis, Ph.D., of De Pauw Uni¬ versity, has been appointed professor of biol¬ ogy in the College of William and Mary, and is succeeded at De Pauw University by Har¬ din R. Glascock. At the State University of Iowa, George Bain Jenkins has been appointed professor of anatomy, and Vive Hall Young, assistant pro¬ fessor of botany. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE THE SONG OF FOWLER’S TOAD (BUFO FOWLERI) Various observers have described the voice of Fowler’s toad. All descriptions indicate that only its characteristic, weird, droning scream has been heard. Allen, speaking of the common toad in New Hampshire, believed that the toad’s song changed from a prolonged trill to the weird note produced by Fowler’s toad. He says: After the breeding season the toad ’s song changes from a prolonged pipe to a shorter, lower- toned note that, at night, has a peculiar wierdness and almost reaches a wail.i Until recently the writer was convinced that Fowler’s toad possessed but one song, the un¬ mistakable, weird, wailing scream which ad¬ vertises its presence throughout its range. It is now known that some individuals produce a i Allen, Grover M., “Notes on the Reptiles and Amphibians of Intervale, New Hampshire,” Proc. of the Boston Soc. of Nat. Hist., Vol. 29, No. 3, 1899, p. 71. 464 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1135 prolonged trill resembling the characteristic song of the common toad. While living at Clarendon, Ya., near Yinson Station, the writer every spring has heard the steady, trilling monotone of a toad which he believed to be the common toad, Bufo americanus. These notes were among the first batrachian voices to be noted in springtime and were uttered more or less intermittently throughout the greater part of May. On May 2, 1916, the writer established the identity of the toad producing these trilling notes. Sev¬ eral2 of these toads were captured in the filthy stream just north of Steele’s Barn, near Yin¬ son Station; others were captured in the stag¬ nant pools along Tort Avenue, near Maple Street. These toads produced the steady, trilling monotone resembling the song of Bufo americanus as it is heard in Mew England. Although the trill of Bufo americanus some¬ times continues for 30 seconds or longer, the trill of the toads captured near Yinson Sta¬ tion lasts only from 10 to 20 seconds. Al¬ though very variable in size, markings and general coloration, these toads are unques¬ tionably Fowler’s toads and can not be dis¬ tinguished from individuals producing the typical, droning scream which lasts only for 2 to 3 seconds. Individuals producing these notes were captured at the same time and in the same localities. The iris of both forms is bronze. Although Miller and Chapin3 are of the opinion that the iris of Bufo americanus is bronze and the iris of Bufo fowleri is silvery in color, it is evi¬ dent that such distinctions can not be relied upon in the diagnosis of the two toads. It is hard to explain why some individuals of Bufo fowleri produce a steady, trilling note while others produce a brief, droning scream. These vocal differences, however, are in some manner correlated with fundamental differ¬ ences of physiology and habit, since the trill- 2 These toads are now in the collection of the U. S. National Museum under accession number 59692. s Miller, W. De W., and Chapin, James, “The Frogs of the Northeastern United States,” Sci¬ ence, N. S., Vol. 32, No. 818, September 2, 1910. ing form is first to appear in spring and is rarely heard when the typical mating song of Bufo fowleri begins. In 1915, the brief, droning scream of Bufo fowleri was not heard at Clarendon, Ya., until May 2. The trilling form is always heard early in April, several weeks before this period. After May 15 the trilling form is rarely heard, while the form with the brief, droning scream is heard until August. The range of Fowler’s toad has yet to be clearly established. The writer found this toad extremely common at Thompson’s Mills, in northern Georgia. Whether or not this toad occurs in the Coastal Plain region of this state, or extends its range into the Gulf States, is not known. The westward distribution of Fowler’s toad has also to be determined. Noth¬ ing definite is known concerning the relation¬ ship of this toad to Bufo americanus in the north, or to Bufo lentiginosus in the south. H. A. Allard Washington, D. C. BETTER COORDINATION OF UNDERGRADUATE COURSES To the Editor of Science : A questionnaire recently circulated among alumni by the Uni¬ versity of Minnesota (J. B. Johnson, dean), includes a call for suggestions as to the better preparation of students for public service. As the following proposal is not really limited to that application, but appears to be of a char¬ acter to which the columns of Science have been open, I respectfully submit it for publica¬ tion or other disposition as may to you seem fit : Provide, in undergraduate courses and even at great expense, for “ laboratory ” use of that modern language elected by any group of stu¬ dents carrying at the same time (say) French or German and (say) physics, chemistry, ani¬ mal biology, or history of European diplomacy. When in college, the undersigned was not alone in wishing that the assistants in charge of laboratory hours would give their directions in, e. g., French — resorting to English only as might be rendered necessary by a student’s failure otherwise to comprehend. The carry¬ ing out of this proposal would of course re- September 29, 1916] SCIENCE 465 quire that pamphlets of laboratory instructions be in general published in three languages , and it would appear that the most advantage¬ ous plan would be to use a three-column page — with a polyglot repetition of all material always before each student. This program (as to the absolute novelty of which no ade¬ quate investigation has been made) would at least soon enable the men to use one selected foreign language for scientific purposes, and it would at the same time invite a cursory ac¬ quaintance with another. Those students taking, e. g., French and physics, would, of course, on this basis, meet for laboratory work in physics separately from those taking German and physics ; but the plan would seem worthy of trial even if it were found impracticable to hire as laboratory as¬ sistants in all the respective sciences mainly men capable of fluently speaking French or German. The plan could of course be intro¬ duced in an experimental way in connection with but one science and but one of the mod¬ ern languages. Bert Russell Washington, D. C. SYLVESTER AND CAYLEY On page 484 of the third edition of Ball’s “ Short Account of the History of Mathe¬ matics ” occurs the sentence : He [Sylvester] too was educated at Cambridge, and while there formed a life-long friendship with Cayley. The two words “ while there ” seem inad¬ vertently to have slipped in. Without them, Ball’s sentence states two facts. With them, it seems capable of the paraphrase, Cayley and Sylvester were students at Cam¬ bridge at the same time and formed then a lifelong friendship. Both of these statements are errors, and readily proved erroneous. Thus in the Pro¬ ceedings of the Royal Society, May 9, 1898, page xii, we read: In 1831, at the age of seventeen, Sylvester was entered at St. John’s College, Cambridge. He came out first in his first year. In the same Proceedings, July 13, 1895, page ii, we read of Cayley: Accordingly, he went to Cambridge. He was entered at Trinity College on 2d May, 1838, as a pensioner, and began residence in the succeeding October at the unusually early age of seventeen. He thus entered Cambridge at the same age as Sylvester, seventeen, but seven long years after him, and Sylvester had previously de¬ parted forever, never again to reside in Cam¬ bridge. In the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Yol. LXIIL, Ho. 393, page xii, we read of Sylvester : He pursued his studies till January, 1837, when he came out Second Wrangler. Being unwilling to sign the Thirty-nine Articles, he was unable to take a degree, to obtain a Fellowship, or to compete for one of the Smith’s prizes. On the death of Dr. Ritchie in the same year he became a candi¬ date for the Chair of Natural Philosophy in the London University College. He was appointed to the Chair at University College in the session 1837-38. He had some difficulty in drawing dia¬ grams on the black-board to illustrate his lectures. Sylvester left London for America to accept a professorship in the University of Virginia, but in 1844, when the foundations of the theory of invariants had been laid by Boole, Sylvester was back in London. For years he resided at 28 Lincoln’s Inn Fields. In the Proceedings, LVIII., Ho. 347, p. vi, we read of Cayley: He was unwilling to take holy orders. In con¬ sequence, it became necessary to choose some pro¬ fession. Cayley selected the law, left Cambridge in 1846, entered at Lincoln’s Inn. And on page viii : It can hardly be that 2, Stone Court, proved an inspiration to mathematical researcn. Thus separately thrown upon the rocky courts of the law, and by the same cause, the religious disbarments of Cambridge, the two were brought together. The biography in Sylvester’s Collected Works feelingly refers to their fateful meeting. The ensuing union of their congenial and complementary minds en¬ dured without break. Sylvester presented the first of Cayley’s series of Royal Society Papers, and, inversely, Sylvester told me that if he wanted to know anything, he asked Cayley. In the Proceed- 466 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1135 ings, LVIIL, No. 347, page viii, Forsyth says: I have heard Cayley describe how Sylvester and he walked round the courts of Lincoln’s Inn dis¬ cussing the theory of invariants and covariants. Sylvester told me that the only time he ever saw the placid Cayley beside himself was when in the midst of a discussion on the theory of forms a fat bundle of legal papers was brought in to him. Cayley dashed the plethoric bundle on the floor in an access of chagrin. Thus London was the birthplace of this unique friendship, not the Cambridge which, before ever the gentle Cayley came, had sent out Sylvester without even a degree. George Bruce Halsted Greeley, Colo. SCIENTIFIC BOOKS A Laboratory and Text-booTc of Embryology. By Charles W. Prentiss, A.M., Ph.D., Pro¬ fessor of Microscopic Anatomy in the North¬ western University Medical School, Chi¬ cago. Octavo of 400 pages with 368 illus¬ trations, many of them in colors. Philadel¬ phia and London, W. B. Saunders Company. In this new manual of embryology an effort has been made, as stated in the preface, “ to combine brief descriptions of the vertebrate embryos which are studied in the laboratory with an account of human embryology adapted especially to the medical student.” The subject-matter of the book, following an introduction, is divided into twelve chapters. The introduction presents the scope of human embryology, emphasizes its importance to the medical student and includes a resume of the history of the science and a brief statement of the principles of growth and differentiation of the embryo. After a discussion of the meth¬ ods of study, in which the dissection of em¬ bryos as a class-room practise is strongly recommended, this section of the book is con¬ cluded by a short list of carefully selected titles of journals and other works of reference dealing with embryology. Chapter I. is de¬ voted mainly to a review of those fundamental facts which are usually learned by the student in connection with the biological studies of his premedical preparation. The description of the human ovum, which is too brief, and the good account of the morphology and develop¬ mental cycle of the human spermatozoon should have formed part of one of the later chapters dealing specially with the human embryo. The reviews of the subjects of cell division, maturation, fertilization and the questions concerning heredity, sex determina¬ tion and twinning may be amplified, if the student so desires, by consulting a number of original sources and well-known books, to which he is referred by citations in the text. In Chapter II. the topics of segmentation and the origin of the germ layers are treated from a comparative embryological standpoint, am- phioxus, lizard, chick, bat and rabbit serving as representative types. The study of chick embryos is the subject of the third chapter. Here the text and figures are adapted to work in the laboratory. Directions are given for the preparation of specimens for study; de¬ scriptions of whole embryos and sections in three stages of development are presented. Descriptive embryology is resumed in Chapter IV., which discusses the subjects “ fetal mem¬ branes and early human embryos.” Here again the comparative method of exposition is employed with good effect. The main feature of Chapter V., which deals with the structure of small embryos of pig, is the full and careful description of the anatomy of the 10-12 mm. embryo as revealed by study of the surface form, dissections and sections. As this part is adapted primarily for use in the labora¬ tory, the explanation given in the next chap¬ ter of the technical methods involved in the preparation of specimens, might better have been included in the present one. The tech¬ nique of the dissection of embryos evolved in the Harvard Medical School for class practise is described in detail. In the same chapter (VI.) this method is advocated in the study of the face, palate, tongue, salivary glands and teeth. The remaining five chapters (VII.-XIL), comprising more than half of the book, are an account of the development of the organs and organic systems which the student may consult in connection with the more strictly laboratory work represented by September 29, 1916] SCIENCE 467 preceding chapters. The subject-matter is di¬ vided as follows : Chapter VII., entodermal canal; Chapter VIII., urogenital system; Chapter IX., vascular system; Chapter X., histogenesis, skin and muscles; Chapter XI., central nervous system; Chapter XII., periph¬ eral nervous system. Ductless glands are de¬ scribed in Chapters VII., IX., XI. It will be seen from this statement of the contents of the book that the subject-matter of embryology is broadly represented. The treat¬ ment of topics is in general proportioned to their importance in the understanding of em¬ bryology, as means for scientific training and practical application. Descriptions are in the main concise and clear. If we should classify the book on the basis of material used in the text and figures it would be a “ mammalian embryology ” ; yet in order to meet the re¬ quirements of the medical student of to-day, examples of developmental processes from lower forms are necessarily brought forward. The directions for class-room dissection is a most commendable addition to a laboratory book on embryology since it will encourage the adoption of this valuable method. While the subject of histogenesis is extensively discussed in text-books of histology it has not had a con¬ spicuous place in the works on embryology which are in common use among medical stu¬ dents; Prentiss’s book is an exception to this case and the step taken in devoting a section to the phenomena of differentiation of cells and tissues will be appreciated. Another fea¬ ture of this work for which the instructor will be grateful is the large number of references to original papers aptly dropped into the text. Incidentally, a review of the names re¬ ferred to brings out the fact that American embryologists have taken no small part in con¬ tributing to the science of development. The book is amply illustrated by figures for the most part well chosen. Many original draw¬ ings are included, but the larger number com¬ prises very properly figures taken from orig¬ inal papers. The color work, as a whole, is un¬ usually good. Mechanical errors are not as common as might be expected in a first edition: a few may be indicated. On page 87, “ convexity ” is printed evidently for “ concavity ” ; at the bottom of page 234, “ scroti ” should be itali¬ cized to conform with the type of “ septum ” ; the adjective for “ tear ” is spelled in some places “ lachrymal,” in others, “ lacrymal.” The presswork is excellent throughout and the choice of different type for the most part ef¬ fective and in good taste. One exception might be pointed out : in the selection of type, the use of fine print in Chapter VI. in the description of sections gives the impression of secondary importance to this subject which is unfortunate. Whereas the attention to sub¬ jects is in general carefully proportioned, as already stated, there are some instances of inadequate treatment. The discussion of the spleen is too brief and the same is true regard¬ ing the origin of leucocytes. Almost nothing is to be found in the book concerning the de¬ velopment of the skeleton. Works on anatomy usually include accounts of the ossification but not of the early developmental processes. Surely a text-book of embryology should pre¬ sent the essential facts of the blastemal and chondrogenous stages of the skeleton. A chap¬ ter, or part of a chapter, might have been given over to a consideration of growth and postnatal development in order to emphasize the importance of these subjects which are represented by statements throughout the book in connection with the description of organs. Likewise the subject of histogenesis is not, from a pedagogical standpoint, presented with best effect coupled as it is in the same chapter with subjects quite foreign to it. If we examine the author’s method of treat¬ ment of the whole subject of embryology in presenting it to medical students, it is evident that his book fits the peculiar needs of the present time and to some degree points the ways in which the science is growing. Through- * out, it inculcates the idea of the incomplete¬ ness of our knowledge of embryology and the need of working to gain fuller understanding of developmental phenomena. The text is descriptive of structure primarily, but also largely of the processes of development. More space could profitably have been given to phys- 468 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1135 iological aspects of organs. For example, the questions on the functions of the corpus luteum in the light of many researches, should have generous treatment in our text-books. The same can be said for the results of re¬ search in, and for theories on the mechanics of development, experimental embryology and of the field of heredity which is of highest interest to the physician. While these meth¬ ods and new territories will receive more at¬ tention in the future, Prentiss’s book probably deals sufficiently with them at this time. E. J. T. CONCERNING THE SPECIES AMCEBA PROTEUS While carrying on some experimental work during the past several years with the larger fresh-water amebas, I became convinced of the existence of considerable confusion con¬ cerning the description of Amoeba proteus, generally regarded as the commonest species of the larger amebas occurring in our fresh waters. In order to be sure of the exact nature of the organisms I was working on, which is of course essential in experimental work, I de¬ cided to look carefully into the matter of species description with the hope of removing, if possible, the confusion I was sure existed here. This work was completed some months ago, but on account of disturbances incident to the great war, the manuscript and drawings reporting the results of this work have appar¬ ently missed their intended destination — at any rate their present whereabouts are un¬ known. Since it is uncertain when the manu¬ script and drawings will be found again, I have thought that the publication at this time of a brief summary of my findings would be welcomed by other investigators of the larger amebas, who also must have felt the need of a reexamination of the specific characters of A. proteus. Leidy in 1879 described in detail several species of amebas and to one of these species he applied the name Amoeba proteus , resur¬ recting Pallas’s (1766) old specific name which had been dropped through the influence of Ehrenberg. Leidy described the nucleus of proteus as “ a thick discoid body, with the broad surfaces somewhat convex, flat, or slightly depressed, and the border rounded.”1 Most of his figures show the nucleus a con¬ cave discoid. Penard described Amoeba proteus as possess¬ ing “ always an ovoidal nucleus.”2 Now a discoid differs fundamentally from an ovoid. A discoid is a solid generated by revolving a semi-ellipse around its short diam-' eter as an axis, while an ovoid is a solid gen¬ erated by revolving a semi-ellipse around its long diameter. Penard’s proteus is not at all the same species as Leidy’s proteus. The question therefore is, Is Leidy’s descrip¬ tion adequate ? It is adequate. All his figures show discoid nuclei, as may be seen by inspec¬ tion or by reading the descriptions, with one possible exception, perhaps two: Figs. 3 and 4, Plate II. In these two figures the round or polar view of the nuclei is shown. Al¬ though these two figures resemble Penard’s proteus more closely than they resemble Leidy’s typical proteus , there is not sufficient evidence to enable one to be quite sure of their correct species reference. There can be no question then but that Leidy considered the proteus to have typically a discoid nucleus. Penard described an A. nitida with a much folded or crushed-in nucleus and says3 that Leidy’s drawing of the proteus nucleus (Fig. 9, Plate II.) “ represents so characteristically ” the folded nucleus of his nitida. But Penard misinterpreted Leidy’s figure entirely. Leidy’s figure does not show a folded nucleus, but one with a smooth surface, a discoid with slightly concave sides. Moreover, the folded nucleus of Penard’s nitida I have found represents an old-age stage of the smooth discoid nucleus of Leidy’s proteus. The ectoplasmic ridges and grooves described by Penard as canals in the endoplasm of nitida were also observed by Leidy in proteus. Penard’s nitida represents therefore old (or abnormally large) individ- i”Rhizopods of North America,” 1879, p. 41. 2”Faune Rhizopodique, ” 1902, p. 58. 3 Loc. tit., p. 61. September 29, 1916] SCIENCE 469 uals of Leidy’s proteus , or probably a varietal strain of this species in which the nucleus readily becomes folded. (Penard does not dis¬ cuss anywhere to my knowledge the fact that Leidy speaks repeatedly of a discoid nucleus in A. proteus .) According to the rules of priority of the In¬ ternational Code, therefore, Leidy’s (really Pallas’s) name proteus must stand for the ameba possessing a discoid nucleus and longi¬ tudinal ectoplasmic ridges and grooves on the pseudopods. This leaves Penard’s proteus — the ameba with an ovoid nucleus — without a name, the name proteus having been pre¬ empted by Pallas and Leidy. I therefore pro¬ pose the name dubia for this species. This then clears up the confusion arising out of observations and descriptions relating to A. proteus as recorded by Leidy and Penard; but in the progress of my work in this connec¬ tion some new observations were made which may properly be incorporated in this summary. To wit: I found that the species proteus as Leidy described it may be divided into two species, one of which is larger than the other and always exhibits more or less conspicuous longitudinal ridges and grooves on the pseudo¬ pods and frequently shows folds on the nu¬ cleus ; while the other and smaller species never shows ridges or grooves on the pseudo¬ pods nor is the nucleus ever folded. From Leidy’s figures and descriptions it is evident that the former species — the one showing ridges and grooves — was considered by him the typical proteus, and this name should therefore be retained for this ameba according to the code. For the other species I propose the name discoides. Amoeba proteus then is recognized readily by the presence of longitudinal ridges and grooves on the pseudopods. A. dubia is easily recognized by the possession of an ovoid nucleus. A. discoides is recognized by a dis¬ coid nucleus and the absence of folds and grooves on the pseudopods. Any ameba in normal condition belonging to either of these three species may be readily recognized in the living condition under 360 diameters’ magni¬ fication, according to the characters here enu¬ merated. Of these three species proteus and dubia are the larger and the more common, while discoides is somewhat smaller and less common, so far as my experience goes. These findings are based on individual pedi¬ grees running for upwards of a hundred gen¬ erations each for proteus and dubia and for about forty generations of discoides, includ¬ ing always a number of collateral lines. Nu¬ merous individuals from wild cultures from various localities were examined and com¬ pared with the pedigreed stock. There is much greater permanency in the so-called proto¬ plasmic characters than is commonly realized. This is a brief and doubtless somewhat un¬ satisfactory summary of the work on these amebas, but for fuller details and drawings reference must be made to the original paper, which I hope may soon be found and published. A. A. Schaeffer University of Tennessee ZUNI INOCULATIVE MAGIC There are many varieties of sympathetic magic at Zuni. I shall give only instances of that subdivision of the homeopathic variety which may be called magical inoculation. It is a form, as it were, of discharming. Instead of applying a bit of the analogous thing to produce an analogy, the direct form of home¬ opathy, a bit is applied to overcome the anal¬ ogy, the principle obviously of inoculation. Birthmarks and malformations are accounted for by the Zuni as due to parental, for the most part paternal, carelessness during the pregnancy, the result of the expectant father taking part in a ceremonial or hunting rab¬ bits or prairie dogs or other animals or killing a snake. The child will be marked in some way like the ceremonial mask or spotted like a snake or according to the injury suffered by the quarry, blinded or maimed. A medicine member of the Ne'wekwe or Galaxy Fraternity told me that at birth the forehead and chest of his son had had the print of an entrail — preoccupation with the entrails of animals is a characteristic of the Ne'wekwe Fraternity, and this man had in fact taken part in a fra- 470 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1135 ternity ceremonial before the birth of bis son. The head of the daughter of this once birth- marked man was a bit flattened on one side. It was flattened, believed her grandfather, be¬ cause her father would go prairie-dog hunt¬ ing before her birth and he always shot his prairie-dogs in the head. Now the cures for birthmarks or malforma¬ tions are, the cause being a ceremonial, to put on the ceremonial mask in question and dance hard in the presence of the child, subsequently rubbing the sweat of one’s body on to the child; and, the cause being a hunted animal, to hunt the same animal and rub its blood on the child. Similarly, to cure an infant of cry¬ ing incessantly — it cries because its back pains and its back pains because before its birth its father has overdriven his horses, belaying them presumably on the back — to cure it one must drive a team hard and rub on to the child’s back the sweat from under their collar or some piece of their harness. If a child becomes deaf — cases of deafness at birth are unknown — it is because during her pregnancy its mother stole. To cure the child she must steal again and burning the object stolen puts its ashes into the ears of the child. If the cord of a new-born infant u runs,” it is because one who has been bitten by a snake has been present in the room. That person should be found and then four times he should wave some ashes around the heads of mother and child. Otherwise the child will die. The deer-hunter who sees a buck and doe together and the buck mount the doe, knows that by this token the deer are “ telling ” him of what is happening at home. His faithless wife is far from “ staying still ” in the house she should leave but once, at noon time, for water, while her husband is off hunting. It becomes his business, therefore, to shoot the deer and take out their hearts. On his re¬ turn home he will find his wife and her lover sick. To cure them, if he pity them, he will have to rub them with deer heart made up into a ball with meal, rubbing the woman with the heart of the doe, the man with the heart of the buck. Should a person be struck or shocked by lightning, he or she must be given some rain water of that same storm to drink, rain water plus black beetle and suet. Otherwise the person will “ dry up ” and die.1 About three years ago a certain house on the south side of the river was struck. The three women in it neglected to take the prescribed drink. To-day the three are dead, two dying a year or two ago, the third this summer. Should a person in dying “ frighten ” any one, from the head of his corpse a lock of hair is cut. The hair is burned and the smoke of it is inhaled by the person who has been upset. This practise, however, is uncommon.2 Elsie Clews Parsons SPECIAL ARTICLES THE IMPORTANCE OF LATERAL VISION IN ITS RELATION TO ORIENTATION It is a well-established principle that binoc¬ ular vision gives to human beings a means of determining the relative distances between near-by objects, as well as the distances of these objects from the observer. The basis of this power lies in seeing the objects from two points of view, giving a stereoscopic effect, which, however, is decreasingly effective as the objects are removed from the eyes. It is ap¬ parently partly the decreasing stereoscopic ef¬ fect with increasing distance which forms the basis of measurement; and partly a judgment of distance in some way through the muscular movements of the eyes, and those governing the accommodation of the lenses. The power of measuring distance by binocular vision is, however, scarcely effective at distances greater than four or five hundred feet. It is entirely 1 The experience qualifies a survivor for becom¬ ing a doctor. One of the present tenientes or members of the governor’s staff or council is a lightning-struck doctor. 2 Mrs. Stevenson ’s description of this practise is somewhat different, remaining, however, one may infer, an illustrative of inoculation magic. “If a person takes a bit of hair of a deceased friend, burns it, and inhales the smoke he will have good health and not die, but go to sleep and thus pass on to Ko'thluwa'la” (“The Zuni Indians,’’ p. 309, XXIII. (1901-02), Am. Eep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol.). September 29, 1916] SCIENCE 471 lacking beyond fourteen hundred feet, accord¬ ing to Gleichen.1 In the case of a man moving through a for¬ est or any maze-like region, owing to the fron¬ tal position of his eyes, the axis of his vision is parallel to his motion; hence the apparent displacement of the trees of the forest as seen by him, due to his forward motion, is a mini¬ mum. The effect is similar to that when a person is riding on a railway and looking out from a front window of a car straight at the track and its immediate surroundings. It is obvious that relative displacement of objects near the track in the retinal picture due to motion of the observer is very slight. In frontal vision, as in man, a displacement of the head sidewise affords a powerful means of measurement of distance, as has been pointed out, probably first by Helmholtz. The eyes of most birds, fish and reptiles are so situated in the skull that only lateral vision is possible. A number of species of birds, however, have the ability to turn the eyes so as to give binocular vision at will, and some species have two distinct vision foveae, “ yellow spots,” in each eye, for distinct sight for the two types of vision. Other species have two of the round and one streak-like foveae; particu¬ larly certain ground-feeding birds of the snipe family, etc.-2 Some of the mammalia have lateral vision, some have their eyes so placed that the retinal pictures partially overlap and binocular vision is possible; others have fron¬ tal vision as in man. It is interesting to con¬ sider in what manner the lateral position of the organs of vision enters into the determina¬ tion, for example, by a bird, of the distances of surrounding objects. It is an important question, owing to the intimate connection of such determinations with the “ sense of direc¬ tion” problem. There seems to be good evidence that those living creatures having side vision have a de¬ cided advantage over man in their ability to gauge or measure the relative distances of i A. Gleichen, 1 ‘ Die Theorie der Modernen Optischen Instrumente, ” p. 184. 2 ‘ ‘ Lehrbuch der Vergleichenden mikroskopi- schen Anatomic,” Part 7, pp. 82-84. their surroundings, owing to the lateral posi¬ tion of the eyes. When a bird or a mammal, etc., with its eyes so placed, moves forward, the principal visual axis is perpendicular to its motion. This gives the maximum apparent displacement of objects with every forward motion of the creature. This displacement of surrounding objects gives to the animal having lateral vision a means of a continual register of the relative distances apart of surrounding objects. To use the analogy of a person riding on a rail¬ way, it is as if one was looking out of a side window of a car. There is the additional ad¬ vantage for the animal, since it may be said to be looking out of two side windows, one on each side. There is, moreover, the possibility, in the case of creatures having lateral vision, of a differential effect, since a change in the direction of the head while in the forward mo¬ tion would be registered on the retina of each eye. The advantages of lateral vision for measuring the relative distance of surround¬ ing objects is illustrated as follows: The arrows in Figs. 1 and 2 are meant to represent a man moving forward along a straight path 15 feet, and a bird also moving forward 15 feet respectively. Both observe trees (the crosses) at 100 feet distance from A, the starting-point. The trees are in front, nearly, of the man in the one case, and at the side of the bird in the other. The angles a and b are the angular measures of apparent displacements in the two cases, due to the forward movements. With the distances given in Figs. 1 and 2, these angular measurements are as 5 is to 1 in favor of the bird, but this is assuming that the man has only one eye. For distances within a few hundred feet of the man, as in Figs. 1 and 2, binocular vision is a means of measurement of distances, and hence the bird’s advantage is less than the ratio given. It is, in fact, hardly possible to state a true measure of the ad¬ vantage. In Fig. 1 it is necessary to place the trees considerably to one side of the man’s path; otherwise there would be no angular displace¬ ment of the trees for the man whatever. 472 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1135 Figs. 1 and 2. These diagrams show the parallax (displacement) of objects as viewed in frontal vision and in lateral vision. The ratio of b to a, with distances given in the text, is 5 to 1. In order to give figures showing the ad¬ vantage of lateral vision over frontal vision at greater distances due to motions forward, two cases were selected where the objects are two trees, one at 1,000 feet and the other 2,000 feet distant, respectively, from the observer (man and bird), the trees being approximately in the axis of vision in each case. To obtain any values it is necessary (as in Fig. 1) to place the two objects observed (trees) out of line of the direction of the man’s motion ; that is, to one side of his path. The results in Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 were obtained from a graphical construction which is omitted. Fig. 3 is an equal parallax curve and it shows the distance that a man and bird must each move forward to give the same apparent displacement of trees against the horizon. In the figure the points are plotted as they were found from the graphical construction, and show a slight irregularity. Fig. 4 is a curve constructed from Fig. 3, and it illustrates the decided advantage of the bird over the man. The bird’s advantage is obtained by divid¬ ing the distance that the man must move forward by the distance that the bird moves forward to obtain equal displacement of the objects viewed. For example, at the point M, the man has moved forward 20 feet and the bird’s advantage is 12 to 1. At point N the man has moved forty feet, and the bird’s ad¬ vantage is 10 to 1, etc. The distances of one thousand and two thou¬ sand feet were taken as a basis for the curves in Figs. 3 and 4 because binocular vision is not a means of measurement at these dis¬ tances, and hence the advantages for the bird are as they have been given in the figures. This method of demonstrating the advantage of lateral vision serves chiefly to give some numerical expression of the value of that type of vision for the measurement of the distances apart of objects in the field of view. In conclusion it may be stated then that an animal having only lateral vision, if at rest , has no means of measuring the relative dis¬ tance of surrounding objects, except by com¬ parison of the various size of objects, and September 29, 1916] SCIENCE 473 Pig. 3. Equal parallax curve, showing the distances a man and a bird must move forward to give the same apparent displacement of objects against the horizon. Pig. 4. Advantage curve. The bird’s advantage is obtained by dividing the distance that the man must move forward by the distance that the bird moves forward to obtain the same displace¬ ment of objects viewed. At M, the advantage is 12 to 1; at N, 10 to 1, etc. through accommodation, etc. An animal hav¬ ing binocular vision (man, ape, cat, etc.), if at rest , has such a means for the measurement of objects that are not more than a few hundred feet distant. If creatures having each type of vision are moving forward, then there is a distinct ad¬ vantage in favor of the one having lateral vision. This is especially the case if the ob¬ jects viewed are in the middle ground (500 to 1,500 feet away), or at greater distances, since binocular vision furnishes little, if any, means 474 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1135 for measuring the relative position of objects at these distances. Thus an animal with lateral vision, when moving forward, has a stereoscopic view of the landscape, owing to the excessive relative displacement of objects. A person looking out of a side window of a moving railway car sees the landscape in the same way. This power of measuring surrounding dis¬ tances due to lateral vision is important in its bearing on the “ sense of direction ” problem because the orientation of a bird with respect to points of reference about it depends on the subconscious summing up of the space rela¬ tions immediately about the bird as it moves here and there through the woods or through any familiar or unfamiliar region. This sub¬ conscious summation on the part of the bird is greatly aided by any means which measures the relative distances of minor reference points in its immediate vicinity as it passes on its way. The writer is not aware that the power that animals having lateral vision seem to possess of measuring the distances in their surround¬ ings has been pointed out hitherto. That there is such advantage over frontal vision, as in man, appears to be evident. In any case, the relation of lateral vision to near-by orientation has not been properly emphasized. This short paper is a part of an investigation on “ sense of direction ” in animals, which has been aided by the Herman Fund of the Hew York Acad¬ emy of Sciences. C. C. Trowbridge Phcenix Physical Laboratory, Columbia University THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE- SECTION B, PHYSICS The biggest and the best of the several meet¬ ings the American Physical Society holds every year is always that one held jointly with Section B of the American Association for the Advance¬ ment of Science. There are of course very few active members of this section who are not also active members of the Physical Society and there¬ fore it might seem that there could be no ad¬ vantage in holding joint meetings. Indeed it might even be argued that the Physical Society had better meet at some other place where there were none but physicists — no distracting remind¬ ers of other sciences and other interests. But, as just stated, the uniform experience is strongly in favor of the joint meetings. And one thing that makes the amiual meeting so delightful and so profitable is the frequent, even if more or less casual, conversations with scientists whose chief interests are in other subjects — delightful because of the charming acquaintances formed and profitable because of the new interrelations one is quite certain to see between his own and other sciences. The recent meeting at Columbus, Ohio, at which President R. A. Millikan, of the Physical Society and Vice-president E. P. Lewis, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, alter¬ nately presided, was one of these pleasant and profitable occasions. The address of the retiring vice-president of the association and chairman of Section B, Dr. Anthony Zeleny, was a well-deserved tribute to the designer and the maker of instruments of pre¬ cision upon whom advancement in science so greatly depends. It appeared in full in Science for February 11. The symposium — always a delightful feature of these joint meetings — was on the behavior of sub¬ stances at very high pressures. Dr. P. W. Bridg¬ man gave a most interesting summary of the nu¬ merous discoveries he has made of the properties of substances at enormously heavy pressures — properties stranger than fiction and of great im¬ portance. At present the officers of Section B are as fol¬ lows: Vice-president and Chairman of the Section: H. A. Bumstead, Yale University. Secretary: W. J. Humphreys, Washington, D. C. Member of Council: A. L. Foley, University of Indiana. Sectional Committee : Vice-president, San Fran¬ cisco and Columbus, E. P. Lewis; Vice-president, New York, H. A. Bumstead; Secretary, W. J. Humphreys; Preceding Secretary, Alfred D. Cole; T. C. Mendenhall, one year; Dayton C. Miller, two years; George W. Stewart, three years; Robert R. Tatnall, four years; W. S. Franklin, five years. Ex-officio : R. A. Millikan, President, American Physical Society; Alfred D. Cole, Secretary, Amer¬ ican Physical Society. Member of General Committee : G. B. Pegram, Columbia University. W. J. Humphreys, Secretary SCIENCE Friday, October 6, 1916 CONTENTS The American Chemical Society: — The Expanding Relations of Chemistry in America: Dr. Chas. H. Herty . 475 The British Association for the Advance¬ ment of Science: — On the Analysis of Living Matter through its Reactions to Poisons: Professor A. E. Cushney . 482 Field Meetings of the Association of Amer¬ ican State Geologists: Professor Herd- man P. Cleland . 488 Newcastle Meeting of the British Associa¬ tion . 490 Scientific Notes and News . 490 University and Educational News . 494 Discussion and Correspondence: — Atmospheric Transmission: Dr. C. G. Abbot. A Remarkable Auroral Display: Professor C. C. Nutting. Increasing Depth of Focus with the Swing-Back : Dr. Lancaster D. Burling . 495 Scientific Books: — Dacque’s Grundlagen und Methoden der Paleogeographie : Dr. Bailey Willis. Hall’s Plant Life: Professor Charles J. Chamberlain . 498 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sci¬ ences: Professor Edwin Bidwell Wilson. 500 Special Articles: — Imbibitional Swelling of Plants and Col¬ loidal Mixtures: Dr. D. T. MacDougal. The Theory of Autonomous Folding in Embryogenesis: Dr. O. C. Glaser . 502 Societies and Academies: — The American Mathematical Society: Pro¬ fessor F. N. Cole . 509 MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended for review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison- On-Hudson, N. Y. THE EXPANDING RELATIONS OF CHEMISTRY IN AMERICA1 After a year of such strenuous service as characterized that through which we have just passed, it is well that we are again assembled for report on the work of our laboratories and for helpful conference concerning future growth and broader service. A large part of the past year’s work has, through the suddenness of the call, been necessarily individualistic; the assemblage of this week furnishes the means for planning more coordinated effort for mutual counsel and for deepening that spirit of cooperation which is so essential if we are to worthily meet our full respon¬ sibilities. It is again incumbent upon me to address you. In seeking a subject I have put aside the temptation to lay before you statistics illustrative of marvelous growth during the past year, and, in spite of our belief in spe¬ cialization, it has not seemed suitable to select any one line of development for tra¬ cing in thorough detail. This period is still too formative and the demands upon you too many-sided for such restricted discus¬ sion. I have therefore selected the broader topic “The Expanding Relations of Chem¬ istry in America,” using the present par¬ ticiple advisedly as indicative of growth and as mandatory of greater effort if the widening circles of chemical influence are to reach the broad shores of full-fledged accomplishment. The dynamic center of this movement is 1 Address of the President of the American Chemical Society read at the New York meeting, September 26, 1916. 476 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1136 the American Chemical Society, which now consists of 8,136 members, a net growth of more than one thousand during the year just ended. This splendid growth is not only a tribute to the energetic activities of our efficient secretary, but is an evidence of increased activity in chemistry and of a quickened realization of the need of the strongest possible national organization. The strength of this organization, however, is not measured so much by numbers as by the loyal and unselfish response of its mem¬ bers to every call made in its name. To this I can abundantly testify. In considering the expanding relations of chemistry in America let me group these under four heads — the relations to univer¬ sity administrations, to the national gov¬ ernment, to our daily needs and to national thought. RELATIONS TO UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATIONS Without doubt university executives have gained during the past year a clearer conception of the fundamental value of chemistry to the nation. Aside from our own exhortations, this conception has been easy of obtainment through the increased publicity given by the daily press and by periodicals to matters chemical, through the difficulty of purchase of certain needed supplies, through the feverish activity to meet these unexpected demands, and through the call for young chemists from university laboratories. Has the concep¬ tion, however, been translated by the makers of university budgets into deeds which will insure an adequate response by the universities to the increased demand which is to be made upon them for chem¬ ists possessed of the best possible training? I have neither purpose nor desire to criti¬ cize, nor even to attempt answer, but I do not hesitate to suggest that in these ab¬ normal times the demands upon chemistry departments are unusually great and should be generously met if we are to view the future with equanimity. The bounds of the service of chemistry to the nation are pre¬ scribed by the character and extent of the training given in our universities. Phys¬ ical equipment must be increased and bet¬ tered, and staffs must be maintained ade¬ quate in number to allow full opportunity for research along with teaching duties. The stimulus of these remarkable times upon the minds of the students is plainly evident, but here lies a danger. The ex¬ pansion of existing industrial plants and the creation of new lines of endeavor in chemical industry call for many young men to serve in control work, and the call is often very alluring. It would be a great misfortune if the filling of these new posi¬ tions should be at the expense of the gradu¬ ate students of the future. We can not afford an abridgment of the number of young men thoroughly trained in our uni¬ versities in the methods of research. Grad¬ uate fellowships in largely increased num¬ ber should be provided, for without such aid the door of’ opportunity will be closed to many whose full mental potentialities will be needed in the future. The danger of losses from university ranks, however, is not confined to graduate students: already there are strong indica¬ tions of a considerable raid by the indus¬ tries upon the staffs of universities, and the question of professorial emolument is there¬ fore not one for leisurely future considera¬ tion, but belongs to the immediate present. To sum up the university budget for chemistry needs prompt and decided ex¬ pansion. In the matter of cooperation between uni¬ versities and industries definite progress has been made. Four important matters typify this progress. The New York Section has conducted October 6, 1916] SCIENCE 477 throughout its winter meetings a symposium on this subject, and these discussions re¬ sulted in a request of the society that a permanent committee be appointed to carry forward vigorously such cooperation. The General Chemical Company an¬ nounced the formulation of a new policy in the creation of an advisory staff of uni¬ versity professors. The Massachusetts Institute of Technol¬ ogy announced a master’s course in chem¬ ical engineering, including a school of chemical engineering practise. Through the cooperation of industrial plants a half year of systematic plant experience and training is added to the curriculum with¬ out sacrifice of thorough foundation work or training in research. In return for the privileges offered by the plants, the research facilities and the faculty of the institute will be available for the study of special problems connected with each plant. A joint meeting of the Puget Sound Sec¬ tion and the Seattle Chamber of Commerce aroused great enthusiasm and resulted im¬ mediately in the creation of industrial fel¬ lowships in the University of Washington for the study of the problems of the north¬ west. Such illustrations furnish proof that earnest thought is being given to this phase of cooperation and it is inspiring to note how quickly such thoughts are being trans¬ lated into definite action. RELATIONS TO THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT Forty-nine members of the society, repre¬ senting the several states and Alaska, on appointment, responded to the request of the President of the United States that the chemical industries be mobilized under the program of the organization for industrial preparedness. Publication of the corre¬ spondence in connection with these ap¬ pointments would furnish lasting testimony to the loyal and unselfish patriotism of the membership of our organization. In response to the invitation of the Na¬ tional Academy of Sciences our representa¬ tives are now cooperating in the organiza¬ tion of the research facilities of the nation and in questions connected with the estab¬ lishment of the government nitrate plant. If we are to promptly and intelligently proceed with the development of a diversi¬ fied and comprehensive chemical industry we must know the detailed character and amounts of chemical importations. The statistics now published by the government are inadequate in their itemization. The formulation of the character of the infor¬ mation needed is our responsibility. This is the work of the committee on government statistics, of which committee Dr. B. C. Hesse is chairman. The inauguration of the work has unfortunately but necessarily been delayed. It is now well under way, and for its full consummation I beg to urge the thoughtful aid of every member of the society, and the cooperation of each of the local sections. We have never undertaken any more important or fundamental work than this. If, as a result of this inventory, we are able to state in exact terms the spe¬ cific character of the information needed by the chemical industries, in order to render this country independent of foreign sources of supply, we will then have a right to ex¬ pect with confidence the sympathetic co¬ operation of the federal authorities. May I, under this heading, make two sug¬ gestions to the’ national authorities: First, Provision should be made in the immediate future for the storage of large quantities of government-owned toluene. With the cessation of European war orders for explosives, and with the rapid increase of by-product retort ovens for coke manu¬ facture we will eventually have a large over-production of toluene, with conse- 478 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1136 quent lowering of price. The potential value of this hydrocarbon in munitions is too great to allow its sacrifice as a fuel or as an illuminant, and its storage involves no unusual difficulties. The moral effect alone of its known presence in our midst would in itself justify the investment as a preparedness measure. Second, Modern warfare is largely de¬ pendent upon the successful work of chem¬ ists, not alone in the direct production of munitions, but, through research, in hus¬ banding the resources of the country, and in increasing knowledge which in times of stress may be vital to the nation. In view of the now well recognized fundamental character of such work the military author¬ ities should formulate a definite policy in regard to the chemist, whereby in times of war his services may best be applied to the advantage of his country. The lack of such a policy during the recent enlistment of the National Guard has in several cases inter¬ rupted lines of research whose successful outcome would prove much more vital to the power of the army than the presence of the individuals bearing arms. England somewhat tardily recognized that her chem¬ ists were more needed at home than at the front and therefore recalled them. RELATIONS TO OUR DAILY NEEDS The economic developments of the past two years have emphasized the close rela¬ tion between normal daily needs and the activity of chemists, particularly through certain shortages which have brought eco¬ nomic distress. Among these shortages three stand out preeminent — motor fuel, potash for fertilizer and coal tar products, particularly synthetic dye-stuffs. Let me discuss the first and second of these briefly and the third somewhat more at length. Motor Fuel. — The enormous annual in¬ crease of motors using gasoline as fuel, together with the largely increased ex¬ port of this material, has resulted in greatly increased price of this product. To meet the situation chemists have nat¬ urally turned their attention to the “crack¬ ing” of the residues of crude petroleum, furnishing thus some relief. In view, how¬ ever, of the uncertainty of petroleum supply such efforts can not prove the ulti¬ mate solution of the problem. With the cessation of the war further aid may be expected from the benzol recovered in the by-product coke oven plants. With this at its maximum, however, it is estimated that it would equal only ten per cent, of the motor fuel now consumed. Plainly we must look further for the permanent supply, and that seems to me to be alcohol. I am fully aware that there is nothing orig¬ inal in this suggestion. It is mentioned rather for the purpose of urging greater consideration of the problem by chemists, who must solve the problem, by manufac¬ turers of motors who have such great inter¬ ests at stake, and by lumbermen who, in their mill waste alone, possess the raw material from which, by processes in opera¬ tion to-day, alcohol could be produced equal in volume to forty per cent, of our present gasoline consumption. What striking advance in this line could be confidently expected if the automobile manufacturers and lumbermen of the na¬ tion would join forces with chemists in the creation of a great research laboratory where the problems of motor fuel could be vigorously attacked, not by the “green powder” method of recent notoriety, but by common sense, scientific investigation, conducted by the ablest of chemists and chemical engineers, unfettered by tradition and filled with the conviction that the day of genuine new things will never end. Potash. — To meet our present shortage of this valuable fertilizer constituent we October 6, 1916] SCIENCE 479 have sought relief feverishly through the kelp fields of the Pacific coast, the alunite deposits of Utah, the feldspars, blast fur¬ nace and cement works waste, and have as yet obtained but slight relief. Something noteworthy may yet result from these earn¬ est efforts, especially through the aid of the appropriation of $175,000 by congress for further investigation of kelp, but at present we seem to have adopted the gen¬ eral policy of waiting until the war is ended. Let me, in this connection, remind you of the old problem, namely, the rendering available in situ the potash now in the fields in the form of silicates. The records of the U. S. Bureau of Soils show that the average weight of a foot acre of the sandy soil of the cotton belt is 1,750 tons, and it contains an average of .1 of 1 per cent, potash, or If tons K,0 per acre, while the clay soils average in weight 2,000 tons per foot acre, and show an average potash con¬ tent of 1.68 per cent, or 33.6 tons K20 per acre. Prom this material nature slowly supplies available potash for plant food through the action of the soil solution upon the potash-bearing silicates, but the process is too slow. Many lines of research are in daily progress in our laboratories whose ob¬ ject is the discovery of ‘ ‘ accelerants ” for certain chemical reactions. Does not the importance of this problem and its alto¬ gether normal character demand of us greater effort to find a suitable accelerant for this world wide process. The problem is easy to state, its solution has as yet proved impracticable. May we not hope that the activities of physical chemists through studies of the soil solution and its action upon the mineral constituents of the soil will ultimately be successful? Coal Tar Dyestuffs. — It is unnecessary for me to remind you at this time of the great disturbance of our industrial life which resulted from the cessation of im¬ ports of German dyestuffs, nor of the rapid extension of the by-product coke oven whereby we are now assured of a far more than adequate supply of raw material for an American dyestuff industry sufficient for American needs. It is a pleasure to testify to the energy and resourcefulness of our dyestuff manufacturers who, in spite of competition with the munitions industry for coal tar crudes and for necessary acids and with uncertainty as to the future con¬ stantly dogging their steps, nevertheless, have notably contributed to the relief of the dyestuff famine. It is my purpose, however, to trace, for the sake of the record, the efforts made during the past two years to obtain legis¬ lative assurance of a fair start in the up¬ building of a well-rounded permanent in¬ dustry, and to point out the character of the legislation which on the last day of the present session of congress became a law of the land. It is a distressing story, humiliating to all who wish for our coun¬ try freedom in every possible form. Here is the story. Immediately after the outbreak of the war the New York Section of this society, foreseeing economic distress from possible shortage of dyestuffs, appointed a repre¬ sentative and politically non-partisan com¬ mittee to report on the prerequisites of an adequate self-contained American dye¬ stuff industry. The report, unanimously adopted by this the largest of our local sections, recommended congressional enact¬ ment of protective duties amounting to thirty per cent, ad valorem and 7-J cents per pound specific on finished dyestuffs, one half these amounts on intermediates and an effective anti-dumping clause. The protective rates of this report formed the basis of the Hill bill, introduced in the house on the opening day of Congress by 480 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1136 Representative Ebenezer J. Hill, of Con¬ necticut. In January, 1915, hearings were held on this bill and there was presented the unusual sight of both producers and consumers urging the Ways and Means Committee to report the bill favorably. In spite of this unanimity the report was not forthcoming. Public demand for such legislation, however, increased and finally, after a conference between leading mem¬ bers of the controlling party in both the Senate and the House of Representatives of a large number of producers and con¬ sumers, a form of legislation was proposed lay the congressional representatives which ■embodied the ad valorem rates of the New York Section but reduced the specific duties by one third, such specific duties to con¬ tinue in full force for a period of only five years, after which time they were to decrease twenty per cent, annually. Another feature was the proviso that if at the expiration of five years American dye¬ stuff factories were not producing sixty per cent, of the values (note this carefully) of American consumption, the specific duties were to be immediately and com¬ pletely repealed by Presidential procla¬ mation. In spite of the lowered specific duties this agreement, confirmed by authorized interviews from Washington, led to in¬ creased activity by many producers. It is not difficult to imagine, therefore, the amazed surprise which greeted the appear¬ ance of the dyestuff section of the general revenue bill, which, while it contained all of the above, showed one other totally un¬ expected feature, namely, the exclusion of indigo and alizarin and their derivatives from the benefit of the special duty of 5 cents per pound. Such an exception was fatal to the purposes of the bill. The ad valorem duty alone would not suffice to promote and encourage the manufacture of synthetic indigo and alizarin. No scien¬ tific or technical justification existed for discrimination against these two coal tar dyes, which constitute 29 per cent, of the values of our consumption. Furthermore, the manufacture of at least 10 per cent, of dyestuffs could not for the present be at¬ tempted in this country because of existing foreign patents. Such considerations show that the possibility of expansion of the home industry within the five-year period to 60 per cent, of the values of consump¬ tion would be precluded by the terms of the bill itself. Consequently the duration of the special duty for any dyestuff would be restricted to the initial five-year period. Evidently our lawmakers had surpassed the skill of the alchemists, in that they had demonstrated their ability to transform at least bricks into gold. Pressed for a justification of the exclu¬ sion of indigo and alizarin, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee made explanation on the floor of the house in a speech which by previous agreement was to conclude the debate. In this speech refer¬ ence was made to the satisfactory character of the conference with the representatives of the industries ; individual manufactur¬ ers were referred to as not desiring full protection for indigo and alizarin; and no justification on scientific or technical grounds was attempted. Then the dyestuff section of the bill was adopted by a party vote. Immediately briefs were filed with the subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Finance in charge of this section of the House bill. These brief s ( included letters and telegrams from the individuals re¬ ferred to in the house debate refuting the statements made by the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Moreover they pointed out clearly that the exception of indigo and alizarin was not in accord¬ ance with the original conference agree¬ ment and would prove disastrous to the entire industry. The Senate subcommittee October 6, 1916] SCIENCE 481 was convinced and accordingly struck from the bill the objectionable exceptions and in addition included natural indigo and coal-tar medicinals and flavors, addi¬ tions in every sense logical, and giving to the classifications of the bill a thoroughly comprehensive character. With the appearance of the printed hearings and briefs an interesting exhibit was made by the plea of a large consumer of indigo located at Greensboro, North Carolina. Not content with the discrimi¬ nation given indigo in the measure as passed by the house, he urged its complete removal to the free list. No other con¬ sumer of indigo joined in this request. The subcommittee rejected his plea. The completed section of the revenue bill was then endorsed by the full com¬ mittee and by the majority-party confer¬ ence, and was adopted by the senate. In the last hours of the session the section emerged from the joint conference of the majority-party conferees from both sen¬ ate and house with indigo and alizarin ex¬ cluded from the special duty, and carry¬ ing along with them, as a sort of legislative by-product, medicinals and flavors. As no record is published of the proceedings of conference committees we are left to as¬ sumptions as to the influence which pre¬ vailed to give the section its final form; but in the light of the history of the legis¬ lation and the personnel of the conferees, as published in the Congressional Record, it is not difficult to imagine whose influence was determinative in maintaining the dis¬ criminatory feature of the original house legislation, against which united protest had been made save for the voice of one consumer. The section in this disastrous form was then adopted by both senate and house and is now the law. Such is the answer of the present con¬ gress to the nation-wide (with one excep¬ tion) call for adequate protective duties for the encouragement and upbuilding of this much needed industry. The claims of this industry, upon non-partisan legisla¬ tive aid are reasonable, because of initial difficulties in manufacture and the charac¬ ter of the competition to be met after the war. These claims are also commanding, through the intimate connection of the in¬ dustry with adequate munitions for our army and navy. Nevertheless, the meas¬ ure professedly enacted for its upbuilding stands to-day stamped with the evidence either of the most specialized form of leg¬ islation for special interests; or of stupid¬ ity, as a tax placed upon the consumer without the benefit of an assured home in¬ dustry; or of stubborness in maintaining a wrong position rather than admit an error in judgment. I do not believe the citizens of this nation will set the seal of their ap¬ proval upon such legislation. RELATIONS TO NATIONAL THOUGHT In the light of the activities of the past year let us ask ourselves frankly — what is the position of chemistry to-day in the thought of the nation? No one can doubt that it occupies a much more prominent place. This is due in part to the superb response American chemists have given to the sudden call upon their resources and ingenuity, in part to the advertisement through the press of the important role of the German chemist in the industrial up¬ building of that nation, and to the con¬ stant repetition of the phrase that “mod¬ ern war is largely a matter of chemistry and engineering.” Concrete evidence of increased apprecia¬ tion of chemistry is furnished by the Sec¬ ond National Exposition of Chemical In¬ dustries now in progress. Its exhibitors are more than double those of last year; its exhibits show many new products, born of the exigencies of the year: its underly¬ ing thought has been broadened to include 482 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1136 a more systematic showing of the impor¬ tance of chemistry to the wise use of nat¬ ural resources ; and its purposes have gained a far wider and more appreciative understanding by our people as a whole. Again we find evidence in the recent is¬ suance of a special chemistry edition by a prominent trade journal, The Manufac¬ turers Record. The purpose of that un¬ usual issue was not merely to emphasize the advantages of a great section of the country for the upbuilding of chemical in¬ dustries, hut of far greater importance it sought to vitalize the thought of the peo¬ ple of that section as to the fundamental character of chemistry among the factors of industrial development. Furthermore, it must be noticeable to all that slowly but surely an educational campaign is getting under way in the daily press and in periodical literature which will eventually result in the arousal of our people to a full comprehension of the value of chemistry as a national asset. These are simply signs of the times. We can not, however, feel that the national thought has as yet grasped in its entirety the all pervading influence of chemistry so long as Cornell University, with its strong chemistry staff, must delay the replace¬ ment of its burned laboratory through lack of funds; so long as Johns Hopkins University, the cradle of American chem¬ ical research, must undergo such struggle for the means to erect a new laboratory on the beautiful new site of that institution; so long as members of congress view chem¬ ists and chemical manufacturers as fit sub¬ jects for hard bargaining; so long as rail¬ way presidents feel that chemistry has no part in the development of the natural re¬ sources of the sections traversed by their lines; and so long as waste in any form is allowed to continue unheeded. Further expansion of the relations of chemistry to the national thought in¬ volves — First. Continued educational effort through the press. Plans for such are be¬ ing evolved, and these plans are meeting the quickened sympathy of the leaders of the press. Each of us must cooperate in this work. As a class we are not qualified to write in popular style, and in the past we have not troubled ourselves very much about such matters ; but we can furnish facts and sound opinion to those who have the work and responsibility of popular presentation, and we should stand ready, each in his own community, to share in such cooperative effort. Second. An awakening of the financial interests of the country to the fact that the ways of chemistry are not mysterious but applied common sense which constitutes a sure guide. Third. Continued worthiness of our own efforts. This is our direct responsi¬ bility. Thoroughness of training, untiring zeal in work, aggressive conservatism in counsel, courage in new undertakings, in¬ dependence in thought, generous coopera¬ tion, constant search for truth — these must surely lead us to that vantage ground where we can best serve this our country. Chas. H. Herty ON THE ANALYSIS OF LIVING MATTER THROUGH ITS REACTIONS TO POISONS1 I am told that the chair of Section I has not been held by a pharmacologist for many years, and I wish to express the pleasure I feel in the honor that has been done me personally, and even more in the recogni¬ tion vouchsafed to one of the youngest handmaidens of medicine. Pharmacology i Address before the Physiological Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Newcastle-on- Tyne, 1916. October 6, 1916] SCIENCE 483 has too often shared the fate of the bat in the fable: when we appeal for support to the clinicians we are told that we represent an experimental science, while when we at¬ tempt to ally ourselves with the physiol¬ ogists we are sometimes given the cold shoulder as smacking too much of the clinic. As a matter of fact, we should have a footing in each camp, or, rather, in each division of the allied forces. And the more recent successes in the application of pharmacology to diseased conditions are now beginning to gain it a rather grudging recognition from clinicians, while the alli¬ ance with the biological sciences is being knit ever more closely. The effect of chem¬ ical agents in the living tissues has assumed a new and sinister aspect since the enemy lias resorted to the wholesale use of poisons against our troops, hut I must leave this for the discussion to-morrow. I wish to-day to discuss an aspect of pharmacological investigation which has not been adequately recognized even by the pharmacologists themselves and which it is difficult to express in few words. In re¬ cent years great advances have been made in the chemical examination of the complex substances which make up the living organ¬ ism, and still greater harvests are prom¬ ised from these analytic methods in the future. But our progress so far shows that while general principles may be reached in this way, the chemistry of the living organ, like the rainbow’s end, ever seems as distant as before. And, indeed, it is appar¬ ent that the chemistry of each cell, while possessing general resemblances, must differ in detail as long as the cell is alive. No chemistry dealing in grams, nor even micro¬ chemistry dealing in milligrams, will help us here. We must devise a technique deal¬ ing with millionths to advance towards the living organism. Here I like to think that our work in pharmacology may perhaps contribute its mite; perhaps the action of our drugs and poisons may be regarded as a sort of qualitative chemistry of living matter. For chemical investigation has very often started from the observation of some qualitative reaction, and not infre¬ quently a good many properties of a new substance have been determined long before it has been possible to isolate it completely and to complete its analysis. For example, the substance known now as tryptophane was known to occur in certain substances and not in others long before Hopkins suc¬ ceeded in presenting it in pure form. And in the same way it may be possible to deter¬ mine the presence or absence of substances in living tissues, and even some of their properties, through their reaction to chem¬ ical reagents, that is, through the study of the pharmacology of these tissues. A simple example may render the point clearer : It is possible that if the toxicity of the saponins to different cells were accu¬ rately known, the relative importance of the lecithins in the life of these cells might be estimated, and this might give a hint to the chemist in approaching their analysis. I do not claim that pharmacological inves¬ tigation can at present do much more than the qualitative testing of the tyro in the chemical laboratory, but even a small ad¬ vance in the chemistry of living matter is worthy of more attention than this has re¬ ceived hitherto. All forms of living matter to which they have free access are affected by certain poi¬ sons, and some of these have obvious chem¬ ical properties which suggest the method of their action ; thus the effects of alkalies and acids and of protein precipitants hardly need discussion. Others such as quinine and prussic acid, which also affect most living tissues, have a more subtle action. Here it is believed that the common factor in living matter which is changed by these 484 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1136 poisons is the ferments, and quinine and prussic acid may therefore be regarded as qualitative tests for the presence of some ferments, notably those of oxidation, and, in fact, have been used to determine whether a change is fermentative in char¬ acter or not. Formaldehyde was stated by Loew to be poisonous to living matter through its great affinity for the NH2 group in the proteins, a suggestion which has per¬ haps not received enough attention of late years, during which the importance of this group in proteins has been demonstrated. The toxicity of other general poisons, such as cocaine, is more obscure. But what has been gained already in this direction en¬ courages further investigation of the action of the so-called general protoplasm poisons and further efforts to associate it with the special constituents of the cell. In other poisons the action on the central nervous system is the dominating feature, and among these the most interesting group is that of the simple bodies used as an¬ esthetics and hypnotics, such as ether, chloroform and chloral. The important use of this group in practical medicine has perhaps obscured the fact that they act on other tissues besides the central nervous system, though we are reminded of it at too frequent intervals by accidents from an¬ esthesia. But while they possess this gen¬ eral action, that on the nervous tissues is elicited more readily. Not only the nerve¬ cell, but also the nerve-fiber react to these poisons, as has been shown by Waller and others. And even the terminations are more susceptible than the tissues in which they are embedded, according to the ob¬ servations of Gros. The selective action on the nervous tissues of this group of sub¬ stances has been ascribed by Overton and Meyer to the richness in lipoid substances in the neurons, which leads to the accumu¬ lation of these poisons in them, while cells containing a lower proportion of lipoid are less affected. In other words, Overton and Meyer regard these drugs as a means of measuring the proportion of lipoids in the living cell. This very interesting view has been the subject of much discussion in re¬ cent years, and, in spite of the support given it by several ingenious series of ex¬ periments by Meyer and his associates, no longer receives general acceptance. Too many exceptions to the rule have to be ex¬ plained before the action of these bodies can be attributed wholly to their coefficients of partition between lipoids and water. At the same time the evidence is sufficient to justify the statement that the property of leaving water for lipoid is an important factor in the action of the bodies, although other unknown properties are also involved in it. And whatever the mechanism of the characteristic action, these substances in certain concentrations may be regarded as tests for the presence of nervous structures and have been employed for this purpose. Other bodies acting on the nervous sys¬ tem have a much narrower sphere. Mor¬ phine and strychnine, for example, appear to be limited to the region of the nerve-cells, but there is still doubt whether they affect the cell-body alone or the synapses between certain of its processes. They have not been shown to act on peripheral nervous structures in vertebrates, nor on any but specific regions of the central nervous sys¬ tem. Nor has it been established that they affect invertebrates. The substance with which they react is obviously limited by very narrow boundaries around the nerve¬ cell. More interest has been displayed in re¬ cent years in the alkaloids which act on the extreme terminations of various groups of nerves. These are among the most specific reagents for certain forms of living matter which we possess. Thus, if an organ reacts October 6, 1916] SCIENCE 485 to adrenaline, we can infer that it contains the substance characteristic of the termina¬ tions of sympathetic fibers, with almost as great certainty as we infer the presence of a phenol group from the reaction with iron. And this sympathetic substance can be fur¬ ther analyzed into two parts by means of ergotoxine, which reacts with the substance of the motor sympathetic ends, while leav¬ ing that of the inhibitory terminations un¬ affected. Similarly the endings of the para¬ sympathetic nerves are picked out with some exceptions by the groups represented by atropine and pilocarpine, and here again there must be some definite substance which can be detected by these reagents. Further, some light has been thrown on, at any rate, one aspect of these nerve-end substances by the observation that they all react to only one optical isomer in each case. Thus the dextro-rotatory forms are ineffec¬ tive in both atropine and adrenaline, and this suggests strongly that the reacting body in the nerve-ends affected by these is itself optically active, though whether it bears the same sign as the alkaloid is unknown. This very definite differentiation between two optical isomers is not characteristic of all forms of living matter. For example, the heart muscle seems to react equally to both hevo- and dextrocamphor. The cen¬ tral nervous system contains substances which react somewhat differently to the isomers of camphor and also of atropine, but the contrast is not drawn so sharply as that in the peripheral nerve-ends. Another test alkaloid is curarine, the active principle of curare, which in certain concentrations selects the terminations of the motor nerves in striated muscle as defi¬ nitely as any chemical test applied to deter¬ mine the presence or absence of a metal. The tyro in the chemical laboratory is not often fortunate enough to be able to determine his analysis with a single test. He finds, for example, that the addition of ammonium sulphide precipitates a consid¬ erable group of metals, which have then to be distinguished by a series of secondary reactions. The pharmacologist, as an ex¬ plorer in the analysis of living matter, also finds that a single poison may affect a num¬ ber of structures which appear to have no anatomical or physiological character in common. But as the chemist recognizes that the group of metals which react in the same way to his reagent have other points of resemblance, so perhaps we are justified in considering that the effects of our poison on apparently different organs indicate the presence of some substance or of related substances in them. A great number of in¬ stances of this kind could be given, and in many of these the similarity in reaction extends over a number of poisons, which strengthens the view that the different organs involved have some common reacting substance. One of the most interesting of these is the common reaction of the ends of the motor nerves in striated muscle and of the peripheral ganglia of the autonomic system. It has long been known that curare and its allies act in small quantities on the ter¬ minations of the motor nerves in ordinary muscle, while larger amounts paralyze con¬ duction through the autonomic ganglia. More recently it has been developed by the researches of Langley that nicotine and its allies, acting in small quantities on the ganglia, extend their activities to the motor ends in large doses. Some drugs occupy intermediate positions between nicotine and curare, so that it becomes difficult to assign them to either group.’ These observations appear to leave no question that there is some substance or aggregate common to the nerve-ends in striated muscle and to the autonomic ganglia. As to the exact an¬ atomical position of this substance, there 486 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1136 is still some difference of opinion. For¬ merly it was localized in the terminations of the nervous fibers in the muscle and ganglia, but Langley has shown that in the latter the point of action lies in the ganglion-cell itself, and his researches on the antagonism of nicotine and curare in muscle appear to show that the reacting substance lies more peripherally than was supposed, perhaps midway between the anatomical termination of the nerve and the actual contractile sub¬ stance. Another analogy in reaction has been shown to exist between the ganglia and the terminations of the post-ganglionic fibers of the parasympathetic, for Marshall and Dale have pointed out that a series of substances, such as tetramethyl-ammonium, affect each of these in varying degrees of intensity. The specific character of the re¬ action is shown by the fact that while it is possessed by the tetramethyl-ammonium salts, the tetraethyl-ammonium homologues are entirely devoid of it. Another close relationship is shown by the reaction of the glucosides of the digitalis series on the heart and vessels. These all act on the muscle of the heart, and in higher concentration on that of the vessel-walls. There must therefore be a common base in these which is affected by the drugs. And the existence of this is perfectly intelligible in view of the fact that the heart is devel¬ oped from the vessels. A more obscure relationship is shown by the reaction of this group to the inhibitory cardiac center in the medulla, which is thrown into abnor¬ mal activity by their presence in the blood, as has been shown alike by clinical and ex¬ perimental observations. A similar relation is shown by the common reaction of the heart-muscle and the vagus center to aconi¬ tine and some other related alkaloids. On the other hand, the saponin series, which shows a closer relationship to the digitalis bodies in the heart-muscle, is devoid of its characteristic action on the medulla. The reacting substance in the heart is thus capable of responding to digitalis, saponin and aconitine, while that in the vagus cen¬ ter can associate only the first and last and is not affected by the saponins ; the common reactions indicate that the two are related, while the distinctive effect of saponin shows that they are not identical. A similar rela¬ tionship may be drawn from the action of morphine and the other opium alkaloids on pain sensation, on respiration, and on the movements of the alimentary tract. Exact determinations of the relative power of these alkaloids in these regions are not at our disposal as yet, but sufficient is known to suggest that while morphine affects a common substance in the medullary center and the intestinal wall, the other members of the series act more strongly in one or other position. It was long ago pointed out that caffeine affects both kidney and muscle-cell, and Schmiedeberg has attempted to correlate the intensity of action of the purine bodies at these points and to measure the prob¬ able diuretic action by the actually ob¬ served effect on the contraction of muscle. Other reactions of the kidney suggest a rela¬ tionship to the wall of the bowel. For ex¬ ample, many of the heavy metals and some other irritant bodies act strongly on the kidney and bowel, and again, according to one view of renal function, many of the simple salts of the alkalies affect the kidney in exactly the same way as the bowel-wall. This last may, however, be due to the phys¬ ical properties of the salts, and the likeness in reaction to those of kidney and bowel, which is striking enough, may arise from a likeness in function of the epithelium rather than from any specific relationship to the salts which is not common to other forms of living matter. October 6, 1916] SCIENCE 487 Many other examples might be cited in which organs which are apparently not related, either morphologically or in func¬ tion, react to poisons in quantities which are indifferent to the tissues in general. And this reaction in common can only be interpreted to mean that there is some sub¬ stance or group of related substances com¬ mon to these organs. The reaction may differ in character; thus a drug which ex¬ cites one organ to greater activity may de¬ press another, but the fact that it has any effect whatever on these organs in prefer¬ ence to the tissues in general indicates some special bond between them, some quality which is not shared by the unaffected parts of the body. I have, therefore, not differ¬ entiated between excitation and depression in discussing this relation. One is tempted to utilize the nomenclature introduced by Ehrlich here and to state that the common reaction is due to the presence of hapto- phore groups while the nature of the re¬ action (excitation or depression) depends on the character of the toxophore groups. But while these terms may be convenient when applied to poisons whose chemical composition is altogether unknown, they merely lead to confusion when the question concerns substances of ascertained struc¬ ture. Thus, as Dale has pointed out, it is impossible to suppose that such substances as tetramethyl-ammonium and tetraethyl- ammonium owe the difference in reactions to specific haptophore groups in the one which are absent in the other. It seems more probable that in this instance and in others the difference in the effect of these bodies in the tissues arises from differences in the behavior of the molecule as a whole than in differences in the affinities of its special parts; that is, that the action of these poisons is due to their physical prop¬ erties rather than to their chemical struc¬ ture, although this, of course, is the final determining cause. In the same way the common reaction of tissues, which I have so far ascribed to their possessing some substance in common, may arise from community of physical relation¬ ship, and I wish to avoid the implication borne by the word “substance,” which I have used in the widest sense, such as is justified perhaps only by its historical em¬ ployment in theological or philosophical controversy. The reaction of living tissue to chemical agents may arise from a specific arrangement in its molecule, but may equally be attributed to the arrangement of the molecules themselves. And the curious relationships in the reactions of different tissues may indicate, not any common chemical factor, but a common arrange¬ ment of the aggregate molecules. We are far from being able to decide with even a show of probability which of these alterna¬ tives is the correct one, and my object to¬ day has been to draw attention to these rela¬ tionships rather than to attempt their elu¬ cidation. Hitherto the speculative pharma¬ cologist has been much engaged in com¬ paring the chemical relationship of the drugs which he applies to living tissues; much useful knowledge has been inciden¬ tally acquired, and the law has been formu¬ lated that pharmacological action depends directly on, and can be deduced from chem¬ ical structure. This view, first elaborated in this country, has in recent years shared the fate of other English products in being advertised from the housetops and prac¬ tically claimed as the discovery of more vociferous investigators. On examining the evidence, old and new, one can not help feeling that attention has been too much directed to those instances which conform to the creed, while the far more numerous cases have been ignored in which this so- called rule fails. The difficulties are very 488 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1136 great; for example, what chemical consid¬ erations can be adduced to explain why the central nervous tissues react differently to bromide and chloride, while to the other tissues these are almost equally indifferent ; or how can the known chemical differences between potassium and sodium be brought into relation with the fact that they differ in their effects in almost every form of living tissue? Less attention has been paid to the other factor in the reaction, the properties of the living tissue which lead one cell to react to a poison, while another fails to do so. I have pointed out some curious relations be¬ tween different organs, hut much needs to be done before any general view can be ob¬ tained. Further detailed examination of the exact point at which poisons act, and much greater knowledge of the physical characters of the drugs themselves and of the relation of colloid substances to these characters, are needed. We must attempt to classify living tissues in groups not determined by their morphological or even functional characters, but by their ability to react to chemical agents. Advance is slow, but it is continuous, and if no general at¬ tack on the problem is possible as yet, our pickets are at any rate beginning to give us information as to the position of the dif¬ ferent groups to be attacked. And when a sufficient number of these qualitative re¬ actions have been ascertained for any form of living matter, it may be possible for some Darwin to build a bridge from the struc- t tural chemistry of the protein molecule to the reactions of the living cell. We can only shape the bricks and mix the mortar for him. And my purpose to-day has been to indicate how the study of the effects of drugs on the living tissue may also con¬ tribute its mite towards the great end. A. R. Cushney FIELD MEETINGS OF THE ASSOCIA¬ TION OF AMERICAN STATE GEOLOGISTS The state geologists of Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, North Caro¬ lina, Ohio, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Wis¬ consin, the director and chief geologist of the Federal Survey, together with the staff of the New York Geological Survey and a few invited guests were in attendance on some or all of the field meetings of the Association of American State Geologists on September 4 to 9. The meetings were held in New York state by invitation of the director of the New York Geological Survey, Dr. John M. Clarke. September 4—5. The field meetings began September 5 after a preliminary meeting on the previous evening in the office of the di¬ rector in the State Museum at Albany. The first excursion was by autobus to the Indian Ladder of the Helderberg escarpment, where the classic Helderberg section is well devel¬ oped. The more refined subdivisions were pointed out by Dr. J. M. Clarke, Dr. R. Ruede- mann and Dr. E. O. Ulrich, and the reasons for the subdivisions and for some recent changes in nomenclature were discussed. Contacts between the Indian Ladder beds (Hudson River) and Brayman shales, and be¬ tween the Brayman shales and Manlius lime¬ stone were studied and the cause of the brec- ciated character of the beds was considered. The karst topography developed where the Onondaga limestone reaches the surface was seen as the party motored to Thompson’s Lake. This lake is believed to rest in a solution basin from which the water drains through under¬ ground passages. At Altamont the party was most agreeably entertained at tea by Mrs. John Boyd Thacher, donor to the state of New York of the Helder¬ berg escarpment, of which the Indian Ladder is the most picturesque portion and which is known as the John Boyd Thacher Park. In the evening the party assembled in the office of the director of the New York Survey for a conference. September 6. Wednesday morning the party went by train to Saratoga Springs, where it October 6, 1916] SCIENCE 489 was met by the superintendent, Mr. Jones, the engineer, Mr. Anthony, and Dr. Ferris, of the Mineral Springs Reservation, under whose guidance the various springs and the fault along which they occur were seen. The struc¬ tural features of the region and the relation of the fault to the underground water was pointed out by members of the Mew York Geo¬ logical Survey. The party then proceeded to the remarkable Cryptozoan ledge (property of the State Museum) which is a glaciated algal reef consisting of several beds of cab¬ bage-like, calcareous algae in the Hoyt lime¬ stone (Upper Cambrian). A delightful luncheon was tendered the geologists by Mrs. J. Townsend Lansing at Saratoga. In the afternoon a visit was made to historic Crown Point on Lake Champlain with its ruins of Fort St. Frederic (1731) and Fort Amherst (1759), the latter being one of the most important colonial fortifications, said to have cost 2,000,000 pounds. On the parade grounds and in near-by exposures Ordovician rocks with their contained fossils were studied. September 7. Thursday morning was spent at Mineville where, through the courtesy of the Witherbee, Sherman Co., the members of the party were given an opportunity to visit some of the underground workings of the great magnetite deposits. The magnetite bodies occur in lenses, sheets and pods, surrounded by light-colored gneiss and syenite, and yield both concentrating and high-grade ores, with low and high phosphorus content. The out¬ put of the mines is more than 1,000,000 tons a year, not including apatite, which as a by¬ product is manufactured for fertilizer. In the afternoon exposures of the Pre- cambrian showing faulting, folding and other complexities of structure were seen under the direction of Assistant State Geologist D. II. Uewland. The complex relations of the vari¬ ous gneisses and schists, Grenville limestones, syenite, gabbro and trap dikes were studied in most extraordinary exposures along the Dela¬ ware and Hudson railroad track. At an informal meeting Friday evening at Port Kent, among other questions of general interest, the following topics were discussed: the advisability of encouraging technical schools to require a more adequate training in geology for civil engineers; the necessity of bringing to the attention of the officers of the regular army and militia the importance of a thorough understanding of topographic maps as an essential preparation for military maneuvers; the desirability of offering to the government the services of the state surveys in preparations for national defense. September 8. The party left Port Kent, where the night had been spent, for the pic¬ turesque Ausable Chasm, a post-glacial gorge in Potsdam sandstone, whose course has been determined in large measure by faulting and jointing. By invitation of the Rt. Rev. Mgr. John P. Chidwick, president of the Catholic Summer School at Cliff Haven on Lake Champlain, the geologists were guests of the school for lunch¬ eon at the Champlain Club. An interesting fourchite dike near the sum¬ mer school and fine exposures of the Chazy and Beekmantown limestones occupied the time of the party until it was taken by Pro¬ fessor G. H. Hudson to Valcour Island. Under his guidance it was made possible to see the results of his investigations of the fault problems of the island. Interformational breccias, storm tossed reef masses, and tor¬ nado records are also among the interesting geological features shown. Professor and Mrs. Hudson gave a camp supper to the members of the party, a feature which added a partic¬ ularly enjoyable evening to a day full of pleasure and profit. At its close the party went to Plattsburg, where the night was spent aboard the steamer Vermont, preparatory to the trip to Burlington in the morning. September 9. At Burlington, Vermont, the party broke up, some returning home and some remaining with Professor G. H. Perkins, under whose guidance they saw the great overthrust fault on the shore of Lake Cham¬ plain near Burlington, in which light-colored Cambrian sandstones overlie black Utica shales; the buildings and museum of the Uni¬ versity of Vermont; and finally the great 490 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1136 marble quarries at West Rutland, to which they were taken in automobiles furnished through the courtesy of the Vermont Marble Company. The great success of these field meetings was due not only to the region traversed, which is unusually interesting geologically and his¬ torically, but also to the care with which every detail was planned and executed, and the pains which the director of the New York State Geological Survey and his staff took to provide for the comfort and pleasure of the party. This report was written at the request of the busy secretary of the association, Dr. W. O. Hotchkiss, by the undersigned guest of the association. Herdman F. Cleland William stown, Mass. THE NEWCASTLE MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION We learn from the account of the meeting in Nature , that the attendance was 626, the smallest since the first meeting held in York in 1831. It is said, however, that the attend¬ ance at the meetings of the sections was quite up to the average. The general committee adopted a recom¬ mendation of the council that research com¬ mittees should have power to report through organizing committees of sections to the council at any time when the association is not in annual session. Hitherto research com¬ mittees have had to await the annual meet¬ ing before presenting their reports, even when their conclusions call for early action. Under the new rules this will no longer be necessary if the organizing committee to which a re¬ search committee presents its report considers it desirable to report direct to the council. Another alteration of the rules of the asso¬ ciation makes it possible for the council to include upon research committees persons who are not members of the association, but “ whose assistance may be regarded as of spe¬ cial importance to the research undertaken.’’ The general treasurer has reported to the council that Mr. M. Deshumbert proposed to leave a legacy of about £5,000 to the associa¬ tion, subject to the condition that his wife and her sister should receive the interest dur¬ ing their lifetime. The new members of council elected by the general committtee are Mr. R. A. Gregory, Dr. S. F. Ilarmer, Dr. E. J. Russell, Dr. A. Strahan and Professor W. R. Scott. An in¬ vitation to meet in Cardiff in 1918 was unan¬ imously and gratefully accepted by the com¬ mittee. The total grants of money appropriated by the general committee for purposes of research committees proposed by the various sections amounted to £602. The subjects and grants are as follows: Section A. — Seismological observations, £100; annual tables of constants, £40 ; mathematical tables, £20; gravity at sea, £10. Section B. — Dynamic isomerism, £15; Eu- calypts, £30; absorption spectra, etc., of organic compounds, £10. Section C. — Red Sandstone rocks of Kiltorcan, £4; Paleozoic rocks, £20. Section T). — Biology of the Abrolhos Islands, £6; inheritance in silkworms, £20. Section F. — Fatigue from an economic point of view, £40; replacement of men by women in in¬ dustry, £20; effects of war on credit, etc., £10. Section G. — Stress distributions, £40. Section E. — Artificial islands in the lochs of the Highlands of Scotland, £5; physical characters of ancient Egyptians, £2, 12s. (unexpended balance) ; Paleolithic site in Jersey, £30; excavations in Malta, £20; distribution of Bronze age imple¬ ments, £1, 14s. (unexpended balance). Section I. — Ductless glands, £15; psychological war research, £10. Section K. — Physiology of heredity, £45; ecol¬ ogy of fungi, £8. Section L. — School bookr and eyesight, £5; work of museums in education and research, £15; ef¬ fects of * ‘ f ree-place ” system upon education, £15; science teaching in secondary schools, £10; mental and physical factors involved in education, £10. Corresponding Societies’ Committee. — For prep¬ aration of report, £25. SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS Sir Charles Parsons, the engineer, has been elected president of the British Associa¬ tion for the meeting to be held at Bourne¬ mouth in September next. October 6, 1916] SCIENCE 491 The executive committee of the Pacific Divi¬ sion of the American Association for the Ad¬ vancement of Science has elected Dr. John Casper Branner, president emeritus of Stan¬ ford University, as president of the division for the year 1916-17. The executive com¬ mittee includes in addition to the president of the division, the vice-president, Dr. D. T. MacDougal, director of the department of botanical research, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Tucson, Arizona, who is chair¬ man of the committee, and the following elected members: E. C. Franklin, professor of chemistry, Stanford University; T. C. Frye, professor of botany, University of Washing¬ ton, Seattle; C. E. Grunsky, consulting engi¬ neer and former member of the Panama Canal Commission, San Francisco; G. E. Hale, director of the Mount Wilson Solar Observa¬ tory, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Pasadena; V. L. Kellogg, professor of ento¬ mology, Stanford University, now with the commission for relief in Belgium, Brussels; A. C. Lawson, professor of mineralogy and geology, University of California; and E. P. Lewis, professor of physics, University of California. The American Chemical Society will hold an adjourned meeting in affiliation with the American Association for the Advancement of Science in New York City during convoca¬ tion week. The society originally planned to meet with the association at that time, but finally decided that it was best to meet simul¬ taneously with the National Exposition of Chemical Industries, which it was necessary to hold in September. The next annual meet¬ ing of the society will be held in Boston in September, 1917. Dr. E. G. Love, of New York City, has been elected treasurer of the society, to succeed Dr. A. B. Hallock, who has acted as treasurer for the past twenty-five years. Dr. Charles IT. Herty, head of the department of chemistry in the University of North Carolina and the present president of the American Chemical Society, has been elected editor and manager of the Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. Dr. Herty will take up this work in New York City on January 1. The journal has hitherto been edited by Professor M. C. Whittaker, in charge of industrial chemistry at Columbia University, who is unable to give his entire time to the work. We learn from Nature that the fourth an¬ nual meeting of the Indian Science Congress will be held at Bangalore on January 10-13, with Sir Alfred Bourne as president. The fol¬ lowing sectional presidents have been ap¬ pointed: Mr. J. MacKenna (Pusa), agricul¬ ture and applied chemistry; the Rev. D. Mackichan (Bombay), physics; Dr. Zia Ud- din Ahmad (Aligarh), mathematics; Dr. J. L. Simonsen (Madras), chemistry; Mr. K. Ramunni Menon (Madras), zoology; Mr. C. S. Middlemiss (Calcutta), geology. Professor J. G. Sanders, the newly ap¬ pointed Pennsylvania State Economic Zoolo¬ gist, has begun his work. He has been visiting the agricultural region with Governor Brum¬ baugh and has taken up the reorganization of his division. Dr. William H. Davis, of Boston, has been appointed chief statistician, division of vital statistics, United States Bureau of the Cen¬ sus. Dr. Davis has been the vital statistician of the Boston Health Department for some years, and was appointed to his present office on the basis of a civil service examination. Dr. Sidney D. Jones has been placed in charge of the Fort Dodge (Iowa) Clinical and Roentgen-Ray Laboratory, succeeding Dr. Thomas H. Glenn. Dr. Walter Dill Scott, professor of psy¬ chology at Northwestern University, is on leave of absence for the current year acting as director of the Bureau of Salesmanship Re¬ search in the Carnegie Institute of Technol¬ ogy, Pittsburgh, Pa. Professor George H. Whipple, professor of sanitary engineering at’ the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and secretary of the School for Health Officers, has been retained by the New York State Board of Health as scientific adviser in the matter of the garbage nuisance on Staten Island. Here the plant of a private contractor was licensed and 492 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1136 erected despite the protests of the citizens, and on an appeal to the state an investigation was set on foot. Professor Whipple is as¬ sociated with Theodore H. Horton, chief engi¬ neer of the state department. Nature reports that the king in council has appointed Mr. Arthur Henderson, M.P., a member of the committee of the privy council for the organization and development of scien¬ tific and industrial research. The other non¬ official members of the committee are Lord Haldane, the Right Hon. A. H. D. Acland, and the Right Hon. J. A. Pease, M.P. Mr. Henderson was the president of the board of education when the government’s research scheme was published in July of last year. As such he was a member of the committee, which includes also, as official members, the lord president of the privy council, the chan¬ cellor of the exchequer, the secretary for Scotland, the president of the board of trade, and the chief secretary for Ireland. Professor C. T. Brues, of the Bussey Insti¬ tution, Harvard University, has been investi¬ gating the possible role of insects in the trans¬ mission of infantile paralysis during the epi¬ demic of this disease in Hew York City. These studies are being carried on under the auspices of the Hew York city board of health. General W. C. Gorgas, U. S. A., chairman of the Yellow Fever Commission of the Rocke¬ feller Foundation, with other members of the commission arrived in Hew York last week, from San Juan. The commission visited Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Panama and was obliged to return to Hew York to take a steamship for Para, Rio de Janeiro and Santos. Besides General Gorgas, who got four months’ leave of absence from the army to aid the investigation, the commission in¬ cludes Dr. Henry R. Carter, United States Public Health Service, clinician; Dr. Juan Guiteras, head of Public Health Service of Cuba, clinician and general adviser; Dr. C. C. Lyster, clinician; Dr. Eugene R. Whit¬ more, pathologist, and Dr. William D. Wrightson, sanitation engineer. Sir Ernest Shackleton is said to be now hastening the settlement of matters in con¬ nection with the Weddell Sea party of his ex¬ pedition so as to get over to Australia at the earliest possible moment. Through the gener¬ osity of the commonwealth and Hew Zealand governments the Aurora is being repaired and refitted to go south to rescue the ten men of Lieutenant Mackintosh’s party marooned at the Ross Sea base. Dr. J. H. Rose, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, left on October 4 for another trip to the deserts of South America. This time he will visit the coasts of Venezuela, where many new species of cactuses have been collected and described. Dr. Christen Lundsgaard left Copenhagen on September 21 for Hew York. He is the first Danish physician to receive an allowance from the Hiels Poulsen American- Scandinav¬ ian Foundation. He will study at the Rocke¬ feller Institute and later will travel and pur¬ sue research work at other institutions in the United States. At Harvard University an “Infantile Paral¬ ysis Commission ” for the treatment and study of infantile paralysis has been ap¬ pointed consisting of Robert Williamson Lovett, A.B., M.D., chairman, professor of or¬ thopedic surgery; Milton Joseph Rosenau, M.D., A.M., professor of preventive medicine and hygiene; Francis Weld Peabody, A.B., M.D., assistant professor of medicine, and Roger Pierce, A.B., secretary. The annual autumn meeting of the British Institute of Metals was held on September 20, in the rooms of the Chemical Society, Lon¬ don, Sir George T. Beilby presiding. A memorial research laboratory is proposed to the memory of Dr. Earl C. Peck, first as¬ sistant resident physician at the Philadelphia Hospital for Contagious Diseases, who died recently from anterior poliomyelitis. A biography of the late Professor James Geikie, of Edinburgh University, is in course of preparation, and it would be a great favor if those who have letters or communications of general interest from him would forward October 6, 1916] SCIENCE 493 these to Dr. Marion Newbigin, Royal Scottish Geographical Society, Synod Hall, Castle Ter¬ race, Edinburgh. They would be carefully preserved, and returned after being copied. Correspondence is also invited from American men of science and others who came into con¬ tact with Professor Geikie in the course of his visits to the states. Dr. C. T. Clough, for forty years a member of the British Geological Survey, died on Au¬ gust 27, having been run over by a train while • examining rock explosives in Scotland. Professor H. Mohn, the meteorologist, of Christiania, died on September 12, at eighty years of age. Eric Warr Simmons, a recent graduate of University College, London, a geologist of promise, has been killed in the war. Dr. Ferdinand Fischer, professor of chemi- ical technology in the University of Gottingen, has died at the age of seventy-four years. Henri Fischer, the French student of mala¬ cology, has died at the age of fifty years. The death is announced at the age of sixty- one years of Dr. Francesco Bassani, professor of geology in the University of Naples. The Hospital for Deformities and Joint Diseases, New York, has received from Mr. Herbert Kauffman, of Pittsburgh, through Dr. H. D. Frauenthal, a gift of one million dollars, to be used for the erection of a new building and as an endowment fund. Before the Tax Budget Committee of the New York City Board of Estimate it was re¬ ported that the attendance at the Metropoli¬ tan Museum of Art for the year ending June 30, 1916, was 635,206, as against 778,024 for the previous year. The paid admissions for 1916 were 31,617, as against 40,311. The com¬ mittee voted $200,000, the same amount as last year, although the request was for $250,- 000. On the other hand, the American Mu¬ seum of Natural History showed an increase in attendance, and Cleveland H. Dodge, ap¬ pearing for the trustees, said this was due to school teachers taking their classes to the museum. The attendance for the year ended June 30 was 870,000, as against 664,215 for 1915. Last year the museum received $212,- 999, and this year requested $222,000, but only $212,700 was recommended. The following resolution was unanimously passed at the Dyestuff Conference held during the meeting of the American Chemical Society on Tuesday afternoon in Rumford Hall, the hall being crowded to its utmost capacity. Whereas, the revenue bill (title, Y. Dyestuffs) which recently passed the Senate after hearings of representatives of producers and consumers, ac¬ corded to all classes of dyestuffs without excep¬ tion an ad valorem duty of 30 per cent, and a specific duty of five cents per pound, and Whereas, in the final conference between the House Ways and Means Committee, and the Fi¬ nance Committee of the Senate, and without further hearings, “Natural and Synthetic Ali¬ zarin and Dyes Obtained from Alizarin, Anthra¬ cene and Carbazol, Natural and Synthetic Indigo and All Indigoides whether or not obtained from Indigo, and Medicinals and Flavors” were made exceptions and to carry no specific duty and to have only the 30 per cent, ad valorem duty. The Dyestuff Conference of the American Chemical Society, in a meeting held in New York, Sep¬ tember 27, without a single dissenting vote, con¬ demns the exception of these dyestuffs from this specific duty, as this exception undermines the very foundation upon which it was hoped that the American dyestuff industry might be built. It makes it impossible for the American manufac¬ turer to meet the requirements of this Bill “if, at the expiration of five years from the date of the passage of the Act, the President finds that there is not being manufactured or produced within the United States as much as 60 per cent, in value of the domestic consumption of these articles, he shall by proclamation so declare, whereupon the special duty imposed by the Sec¬ tion on such articles shall no longer be assessed, levied, or collected.” And Whereas the value of these excepted classes of dyes amounts tp approximately 30 per cent, of the dyes consumed in the U. S. A., with¬ out considering the dyes patented by foreign manufacturers, Therefore be it resolved, that we condemn the removal of these dyestuffs from the special tariff accorded to them by the Senate as detrimental to the establishment and development of the Ameri- 494 SCIENCE [N. S. Yol. XLIV. No. 1136 can dyestuff industry and subversive of the best interests of the American people. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS At the September meeting of the Yale Cor¬ poration the treasurer reported further dis¬ tribution of about $685,000 from the estate of the late Justus S. Hotchkiss of New Haven. Other gifts include approximately $10,000 additional for the Hepsa Ely Silliman Lec¬ tureship Fund, from the estate of the late Augustus E. Silliman; $15,000 for the Charles W. Goodyear Memorial Scholarship Fund in the School of Forestry; and $5,000 more from Mrs. Helen Newberry Joy and Messrs. John S. and Truman Newberry for the work of re¬ building and enlarging the Newberry organ in Woolsey Hall. The Journal of the American Medical Asso¬ ciation announces that one of the final trans¬ actions of the merger of the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania, the Medico- Chirurgical College, and Jefferson Medical College was consummated, September 21, when the real estate holdings of the Medico-Chirur- gical College were transferred to the trustees of the university. The college buildings, assessed at $375,550, and two four-story houses, assessed at a total of $54,000, were conveyed for a nominal consideration. These will even¬ tually be conveyed to the city by the university and the buildings demolished, as they are in the line of the new parkway. The department of botany of the Massa¬ chusetts Agricultural College and Experiment Station has been reorganized with the follow¬ ing personnel: A. Vincent Osmun, professor and head of the department; George H. Chap¬ man, research physiologist; P. J. Anderson, associate professor and associate pathologist; Orton L. Clark, assistant professor and assist¬ ant physiologist; F. A. McLaughlin, instruc¬ tor; G. W. Martin, instructor. Tufts Medical School announces several changes in the faculty. Andrew H. Ryan, M.D. (Washington University), will take charge of the department of physiology. Charles H. Baily, M.D. (Harvard), has been made associate professor of histology. R. Har¬ mon Ashley, Ph.D. (Yale), will take charge of the department of chemistry in the dental and pre-medical school. Arthur L. Chute, M.D., has been advanced from assistant pro¬ fessor to associate professor of surgery, and Gilmore C. Dickey, D.M.D., from instructor to assistant professor of crown and bridge work. Northwestern University has appointed the following instructors : In the department of mathematics : Rutherford Erwin Gleason, B.A., Charles Edwin Wilder, Ph.D., Frank Edwin Wood, B.A., and Irwin Romans, M.A. ; in the department of chemistry: Martin Wil¬ liam Lisse, M.S. (University of Washington), and Wallace Jennings Murray, Sc.D. (Geneva, Switzerland), instructors in chemistry; Louis Wade Currier, B.S. (Mass. Tech.), instructor in mining and metallurgy. The following promotions have also been made : George Vest McCauley, Ph.D. (Wisconsin), becomes assistant professor of physics, and Chester Henry Yeaton, Ph.D. (Chicago), assistant pro¬ fessor of mathematics. Henry Andrews Bab¬ cock, Ph.D. (Northwestern), has been ap¬ pointed an instructor in physics. Frederick Lyons Brown, of Northwestern University, has been appointed instructor in astronomy for the Dearborn Observatory. Dr. S. Morgulis, of the department of phys¬ iological chemistry, college of physicians and surgeons, Columbia University, has been ap¬ pointed professor of physiology in the Creighton University Medical College, Omaha, Nebraska. Under the general direction of Mr. A. G. Perkin, who is a son of Sir W. H. Perkin and brother of Professor Perkin, of Oxford, a new staff has been appointed to the dyeing depart¬ ment of the University of Leeds. Some of the members will give special attention to the exclusive requirements of British Dyes (Limited), but most of them will devote their services to work which may best meet the needs of other firms. In addition to the scien- October 6, 1916] SCIENCE 495 tific investigation of anilines, the working out of processes, and the study of the constitution « of color, particular regard is to be paid to coal tar distillation and the industrial application of cellulose. Another feature will be an experi¬ mental dyehouse. Mr. G. H. Frank, M.Sc., and Dr. Oesch, a Swiss expert, are retained on the staff, and with them will be associated Mr. P. E. King, Lieutenant A. E. Woodhead, M.Sc., Professor E. R. Watson, D.Sc., of Daeca College, and, as outside lecturers, Mr. H. P. Hird and Mr. C. F. Cross, both special¬ ists engaged in allied industries. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE ATMOSPHERIC TRANSMISSION To the Editor of Science: On page 168 of your issue of August 4, 1916, Mr. Very is un¬ fair to himself, to your readers, and to me. He points out that the Smithsonian Mount Wilson observations of September 20 and September 21, 1914, indicate greater transparency of the atmosphere for the complete, complex solar beam made up of energy of all wave-lengths the greater the air mass. From this he tries to lead your readers into the conclusion that the atmosphere gradually decreased in clear¬ ness during our period of observations. No¬ body knows better than Mr. Very of Langley’s mathematical proof that a complex beam traversing a medium the transmissive power of which varies with the wave-length must nec¬ essarily behave in this manner even though the medium is perfectly homogeneous. Pure water or glass would show the same effect. The transmission would continually increase for each successive layer traversed. This is because the less transmissible rays are con¬ tinually becoming a smaller proportion of the intensity of the whole complex beam the far¬ ther it goes through the medium. If our pyrheliometric observations had not shown the phenomenon which Mr. Very mentions they would have proved that the sky was growing clearer. The question then only remains whether the effect they do show is of the right magnitude or not. This is settled affirm¬ atively by the results obtained with the spectro-bolometer. For monochromatic rays the atmospheric transmission should be constant for all air masses, if the atmosphere neither grows clearer nor more opaque. Our spectro-bolometric work shows that this condition was closely fulfilled on the two days in question, as Mr. Very well knows. Having no comfort from the spectro- bolometric work, he omits mention of it, and tries to carry his point with the uninformed by paradoxing. Mr. Very, however, draws attention to the increase of atmospheric humidity during the observations as indicated by Fowle’s measure¬ ments. It may be remarked that between air- masses 11.0 and 7.2 on September 20 no appre¬ ciable change • occurred. Yet that part of the observations gives the same result as the rest, showing that the effect of such small increase of humidity as occurred during the rest of the morning was negligible. Those who consult the original derivation of Fowle’s method of estimating atmospheric humidity, are, how¬ ever, aware that it rests on laboratory experi¬ ments extending only to 5 millimeters of pre- cipitable water. For the exceptionally large air masses occurring on September 20 and 21 it was applied to the estimation of over 65 millimeters. It seems as likely that this extreme extrapolation involved inaccu¬ racy, increasing with increasing air-mass rather than that the atmospheric humidity really increased from 3.3 to 4.0 millimeters during so short a time as the first 8 minutes after sunrise. I therefore incline to think that there was very little or no increase at all in atmospheric humidity on September 20 be¬ tween air masses 19 and 3, although a small increase from 3.3 to 5.2 is indicated by Fowle’s results. Later on there was really a small in¬ crease of humidity, but it appears to have been insufficient to produce appreciable error in the solar-constant values as calculated from small air masses. As to the clearness of the sky at Flagstaff, Arizona, in August, 1912, Mr. Very shows that it was clearer there, at 7,000 feet eleva¬ tion, than he is accustomed to find it near Boston, but he does not show that it was clear sky at Flagstaff. If it was really exceptionally 496 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1136 clear there at that time, it adds one more to the long list of wonders associated with that observatory. In regard to the third matter, relating to the transmission of terrestrial radiation, I am quite unable to understand Mr. Very’s logic. His mind seems to let through the consideration of rays that rise vertically from the earth’s sur¬ face, but to abolish all thought of those which rise obliquely. Like every other surface, all parts of the earth’s surface emit rays in all directions within a hemisphere, and tend to cool by the loss of the energy of all these rays which they emit. The loss is to some extent compensated by rays which reach the earth from every one of these directions, and which at night come mainly from the emis¬ sion of the atmosphere itself. Mr. Angstrom and others have measured at night the ex¬ cess of the radiation emitted by a horizontal blackened surface, at terrestrial temperature, over the radiation received by such a sur¬ face from above. There is no great dis¬ agreement in the observation. All observers find the net loss of radiation at 20° C. to be from 0.12 to 0.20 calories per sq. cm. per min¬ ute, depending on the state of the atmosphere. But Mr. Very maintains that the whole of this loss represents energy that is transmitted en¬ tirely through the atmosphere in direct beams from the earth’s surface to space. I see no reason to admit this at all. What is meas¬ ured is a difference between the energy of two beams of rays, one leaving the surface, the other reaching it. If the atmosphere (taking its entire thickness) was totally opaque to these rays, there would still be a difference in these amounts of energy, because the atmospheric sources are at a lower temperature than the earth’s surface. To determine the transmission of the earth’s surface-radiation through the atmosphere, as I define it, one must sum up the total of all radiant energy which, having been emitted by a horizontal fragment of the earth’s surface, escapes outside the atmosphere into space, by whatever path, without having suffered truo absorption and re-radiation. The sum total just described divided by the original quantity emitted by the same element of surface is the transmission. Perhaps Mr. Very has in mind the coefficient of vertical transmission. This is naturally larger than mine, but it does not serve to indicate the rate of loss of heat of the earth’s surface by radiation. That depends on the rate of loss by oblique rays as well as that by normal ones. C. G. Abbot Mount Wilson, Calif., August 17, 1916 A REMARKABLE AURORAL DISPLAY Between eight and nine o’clock on the eve¬ ning of August 26 I stepped out on the porch of our cottage on the shore of Lake Douglass in northern Michigan and noticed what I at first mistook for an unusually bright twilight for that date and hour. Looking up through the tree-tops I saw a curious flickering as of sheet lightning on a bit of cloud. But there was a peculiar streaming movement which at once suggested an auroral phenomenon, although I was looking towards the south! Passing around the house to an open field, I was fairly staggered with such a spectacle of light in motion as had never been dreamed of by any of our family group of eight which at once answered my cry of amazement. Practically the whole vault of the heavens was alive with light. Light in patches, bands and arches; in streamers, sheets and delicate pencillings. Clear from the northern horizon to the zenith, and far beyond until the south¬ ern sky was invaded to within about four de¬ grees of the horizon, and was utilized for the unfolding of the display. I had seen what I thought to be fine auroras much farther to the north, but had never even heard of one which required almost the entire expanse of the heavens for its staging. The focus of the spectacle was the zenith itself, and around this was a shifting and irregular zone of light below which almost the entire sky was set with masses of shifting, shimmering .radiance constantly changing shape as if the sky were a vast kaleidoscope. It seemed, indeed, as if we stood beneath the October 6, 1916] SCIENCE 497 center of the dome of the firmament, whose vault was composed of bands and changing masses of streaming light, the quivering waves of which were surging upward toward the disk of blue at its apex. A brighter arch spanned the northern horizon, and this also was under¬ going constant transformation. It was not the light itself, marvellous as were its mass, zones, banners and steamers, that most thrilled the observers. Such a vast display of light in constant movement had never before been seen nor imagined by any of us. The whole heavens shuddered and staggered, shivered into a swirling chaos and reformed again and again in new and still more weird aggregates of shimmering light. Light streamed and wavered, rippled, flickered and pulsated. Now it was in broad waves reaching to the zenith, and now in vibrating bands. Here a broad cone shot up from the northern horizon until its apex pierced the very mid-heavens, and in the twinkling of an eye it was gone. There, from the shifting zones around the zenith, ripples of light passed upward to the blue apical disk. To the nat¬ uralist no more apt figure of this rippling motion could be suggested than the waves of light passing along the meridional bands of phosphorescent Ctenophora. Again, a delicate fringe of pencil points would appear on the upper edge of one or more of the shifting zones and then shoot upward with inconceivable rapidity in sharp vibrating pencillings of light. As mentioned before, the focus of all these movements was the zenith itself, which seemed to be under¬ going an intense bombardment of waves, ripples and searchlights from all sides, al¬ though subsidiary lateral movements were also in evidence. Marvellous as was the rapidity of move¬ ment, the rapidity of change or kaleidoscopic effect was no less astonishing. Over and over again one of the observers would try to call attention to some particularly vivid display, only to find it utterly gone before the others could turn their eyes in the direction indi¬ cated. These changes were much more rapid than in other auroras seen by the writer. Nothing but electrical phenomena could ap¬ proach their instantaneous shiftings. At first the light was all pure white radi¬ ance, exactly that of electricity. Later certain areas took on a rose color, and still later the display more closely resembled that of ordi¬ nary auroras, being concentrated in the broad arch across the northern sky and showing more variety in colors. So absorbed were the observers in this grand spectacle of light in motion that it was long before they noted the peculiar effect of the light upon themselves and their immediate sur¬ roundings. Then we saw that it was a per¬ fectly diffused light, coming in practically equal intensity from all points of the sky. A more unreal scene could hardly be imagined. It was unlike moonlight, for there were no shadows nor shadings. On that account all objects seemed much less brilliantly illumi¬ nated than they really were. It was most like the light of early dawn; but still different, for in the dawn the light, although diffused, is all from one side. Objects were distinctly visible, but flat. Our companions’ faces could be seen quite plainly, but lacked individuality. The opposite shore of the lake could be seen much more distinctly than in bright moon¬ light and objects inside the house were quite distinct, even if small. How long the display lasted we do not know, although one of the party reported it as stri¬ king as ever well past midnight. Finally the chill of the night and the aching of our strained necks drove us indoors with the con¬ viction that never again should we see such a stupendous spectacle of light in motion. C. C. Nutting State University of Iowa INCREASING DEPTH OF FOCUS WITH THE SWING-BACK • To the Editor of Science: The writer ad¬ mits his membership in the not inconsiderable class of field workers who are never satisfied with their photographic results. A little dis¬ covery, however, recently enabled him to im¬ prove the focus on certain classes of deep- focus pictures and he excuses the description 498 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1136 of a method of procedure which may be well known to photographers by the fact that it appears to be unknown to nearly all of the working geologists and zoologists with whom it has been discussed. The utilization of the swing-back to elimi¬ nate distortion in the photographs of high buildings has long been known; the subject of this note is the application of the same method to increasing the depth of focus where both foreground and distance are desired, the swing-back being so manipulated as to in¬ crease the distance between the lens and the foreground portion of the photographic sur¬ face and to lessen the distance to the back¬ ground portion of the same. The method is of course inapplicable where the objects in the foreground are high, and the element of distortion might bar it for some pictures, but useful applications of the method are many and will occur to all. Lancaster D. Burling Ottawa, Canada SCIENTIFIC BOOKS Grundlagen und Methoden der Paleogeog- raphie. Fundamental Problems and Meth¬ ods of Paleogeography. By Dr. Edgar Dacque, Privatdozent an der Universitat Miinchen. Gustav Fischer, Jena, 1915. Dacque’s notable work is a comprehensive review of the literature of paleogeography and of the opinions of many geologists, represent¬ ing German, Austrian, French, English, American, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch and Italian thought, regarding the problems of the science. The list of authors cited comprises nearly five hundred names. The citations are so arranged that the views of any thinker on a specific problem are stated in appropriate context with those of others who may or may not agree with him. For the most part they are abstracts or interpretations, but Dacque’s presentation is accurate and impartial to a degree which may even seem lacking in dis¬ crimination, since speculations and respectable theories are treated with similar considera¬ tion. There is, however, a certain justifica¬ tion for this attitude, paleontology being in a very speculative stage of development and its problems being open to various tentative solu¬ tions. The work having been prepared for courses of lectures given at the University of Munich in 1912-13 and 1913-14 is marked by a didactic character. The advanced student will therefore find in this comprehensive re¬ view much that may seem elementary; he will also find much that is suggestive and helpful. The chief value of the work for American readers lies in the numerous references to for¬ eign writers and to views which are given more serious consideration by European geol¬ ogists than they commonly are among Ameri¬ cans. In so far as American thought has been influenced by Chamberlin’s far-reaching and fundamental studies, it has abandoned some theories to which Dacque gives credit and has advanced to concepts which he does not dis¬ cuss. The introduction and the history of the literature of paleogeography for the past thirty-five years occupy the first forty pages of the work, and are followed by a discussion of the surface and structure of the earth. The statement includes the tetrahedral theory, as well as the disruption of the moon from the earth on the site of the Pacific Ocean, and closes with a consideration of the constitution of the earth on the assumption that the spheroid consists of a core of nickel iron sepa¬ rated from the known lithosphere by a zone of molten, yet rigid, magma, which allows hori¬ zontal displacements of the crust to occur. There is a certain parallelism with Barrel’s hypothesis of an asthenosphere or zone of weakness, but German speculation suggests the possibility of horizontal movements of the outer crust far in excess of any that have been postulated by American investigators. Thus Dacque discusses, as being within the range of credible hypothesis, wanderings of the pole amounting to twenty-five degrees of latitude and the even greater displacements of the continental masses postulated by Wegener. Changes in the position of the pole might occur through absolute change in the position of the earth’s entire mass with reference to the axis of rotation, or through relative move- October 6, 1916] SCIENCE 499 ment of an outer shell over the internal core, the latter retaining a constant orientation. Astronomical considerations are opposed to an absolute change in the position of the pole, at least during the eras of known geologic his¬ tory, but they do not interfere with the possi¬ bility of a relative movement of an outer earth skin, either as a whole or in continental segments, provided there be no effective change in the position of the center of gravity of the spheroid. According to Wegener, whose speculations were published in the Geologi- sches Rundschau and in Petermanns Mitteil- ungen for 1912, the lighter continental masses, floating in denser material of the lithosphere, might move laterally. Postulating the sharp distinction of density and the plastic though resistant character of the substratum, which permits slow movements, there is, says Dacque, no reason to deny that great horizontal dis¬ placements of the continental masses may occur, if only it can be shown that there are forces which, during prolonged geologic eras, have acted continuously in a constant direc¬ tion. Finding such a force in deep-seated lat¬ eral stress due to the effort toward isostatic equilibruim, Dacque concludes that we must hereafter take account of great relative crus¬ tal displacements with reference to the mass of the spheroid, regarding them, if not as facts, at least as sound working hypotheses. It is not the purpose of the reviewer to dis¬ cuss these concepts, but it may be observed that they may appear reasonable or extrava¬ gant according to one’s previous education. We have learned to accept horizontal displace¬ ments of tens of miles. Overthrusts of this magnitude are clearly demonstrated. The gen¬ erally accepted interpretation of Alpine struc¬ ture has familiarized European geologists with the thought of much greater horizontal move¬ ments which are supposed to have resulted in piling slice upon slice of the superficial strata and basement rocks, far in excess of the ability of rocks to transmit crushing strains. Fifteen years ago Lugeon’s extraordinary views were regarded as impossible. Now only a very small minority of his colleagues still opposes them, and the general agreement of the mas¬ ters influences the younger generation of Euro¬ pean geologists, schooled to accept an inter¬ pretation of mountain structure which contra¬ dicts the laws of mechanics and physics. In a chapter on the rise and sinking of lands or changes of the oceanic level Dacque reviews current theories of the causes of epeirogenic and orogenic movements, as they are repre¬ sented in the writings of Suess, Wegener, Termier, Lachmann, Andree, Haug, Daly, and others. The tendency is toward an aban¬ donment of the contraction theory, the assign¬ ment of a minor role to isostatic adjustment in epeirogenic changes of level, and a return to the old plutonic or thermal hypothesis in some modified form, especially with reference to the subsidence of geosynclines and the subsequent folding and elevation of the accumulated sedi¬ ments. Alpine studies again furnish the prin¬ cipal basis of European speculation, but there is also an appeal to English and American thought. The permanence of oceanic basins is a theme which Dacque discusses with a full apprecia¬ tion of its importance in paleogeographic studies and of the diametrically opposite views held by various authorities. After a compre¬ hensive review of marine transgressions and recessions over continental areas, he cites the arguments for and against permanence of the oceanic basins, and arrives at a sharp con¬ tradiction of evidence, which he proceeds to solve by adopting Wegener’s suggestion of floating continents. It was Suess who desig¬ nated the lighter rock masses, composed chiefly of silica-alumina rocks, as “ Sal ” and heavier ones, consisting of silica-magnesia materials, as “ Sima.” Assuming them to be differenti¬ ated, sal may be conceived to be a more or less continuous skin floating in sima, and it may be capable of disruption accompanied by sepa¬ ration of the parts. Simq, forms the ocean bottoms and underlies the masses of sal which are the continents. The Pacific is a very an¬ cient ocean basin; the Atlantic and Indian depressions are young. According to Wegener the Americas have become separated from Europe and Africa, and Dacque finds therein the origin of the intervening deep. He says : 500 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1136 If in the ancient Pacific from long ago, that is from the opening of the Paleozoic on, the denser Sima lay exposed . . . and if that was the site of the permanent abyss, then has the dense material under the Atlantic and Indian oceans been ex¬ posed through displacement of the lighter salic continents, as if by the drawing back of a curtain, and the existing coincidence of the limits of den¬ sity with the outlines of the continents and oceans is explained. The former invasions of the sea, which are shown to have spread over what are now land areas, are passing transgressions; the Pa¬ cific and the continents are permanent, aside from the displacements; the Atlantic and Indian oceans are younger deeps, floored with sima which ap¬ pears at the surface in consequence of the dis¬ placements [of the continents]. Thus the prob¬ lem of permanence is robbed of its contradictions and in essentials is explained. The speculative section of the work, occupy¬ ing 200 pages, thus presents some of the greater problems of geology as the introduc¬ tion to paleography. Another and in the opin¬ ion of the reviewer a sounder method is to pro¬ ceed from the facts of paleogeography toward the solution of those problems. As a contribution to the science the latter half of Dacque’s work will seem to many the more valuable. In it are assembled the data of sedimentary formations considered as facts appropriate to paleogeographic investigation, estimates of absolute and relative durations of geologic time divisions, and examples of the construction of paleogeographic maps. The facts of stratigraphy and paleontology are ad¬ mirably summarized, and the assemblage of illustrations constitutes a rich and suggestive reference for students of the subject. Bailey Willis Stanford University Plant Life. By Charles A. Hall, F.R.M.S. The Macmillan Company, 66 Fifth Avenue, Hew York, UST. Y. Cloth. Pp. 380. Eighty text-figures and seventy-four full-page illus¬ trations. Price six dollars ($6.00). Professor Hall has already written several books presenting various phases of nature- study in a popular way, so that experience in the field, in the laboratory and in the study have combined to make the present volume on “ Plant Life ” a useful addition to the series. It is addressed, principally, to the amateur botanist and lover of nature, but contains much which should be of interest to teachers of elementary classes. The treatment follows the general evolu¬ tionary order from the lowest plants up to the highest. The excellent descriptions of field characters is an important feature of the work and should enable the beginner to find even the microscopic forms. Interesting bits of in¬ formation and clever observations afford wel¬ come material to those who wish to brighten their lectures and laboratory work. The headings of the twelve chapters indicate not only the scope of the book, but also what might be expected in the mode of treatment. The headings are : Asexual Plants ; The Devel¬ opment of Sex in Plants and a Study in Evo¬ lution; Seaweeds; Fungi and Lichens; Bryo- phytes — Liverworts and Mosses; Pteridophytes — Ferns, Horsetails and Club Mosses; Phanero- gamia, Flowering Plants; Fossil Plants; The Food of Plants and How they Secure It; The Perpetuation of the Pace; The Defences of Plants; Ecology; The Hew Field Botany. There is a general glossarial index. The illustrations are excellent and most of them are new. In addition to eighty text- figures, there are seventy-four full-page illus¬ trations, twenty-four being from photographs by the author and fifty in color from draw¬ ings by C. F. Hewall. The binding and typog¬ raphy are in keeping with the high grade of the illustrations. Charles J. Chamberlain PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES The eighth number of volume 2 of the Pro¬ ceedings of the National Academy of Sciences contains the following articles: 1. The Absorption Coefficients of Soft X-rays: C. D. Miller, Ryerson Physical Laboratory, University of Chicago. The numerical constants in the relation be¬ tween the absorption coefficients, the density, October 6, 1916] SCIENCE 501 and the wave-lengths have been accurately determined. The results also indicate that the relationship holds for very much softer X-rays than those of ordinary penetrating power. 2. Further Evidence as to the Relation be¬ tween Crown Gall and Cancer: Erwin F. Smith, Laboratory of Plant Pathology, United States Department of Agriculture. There are discussed: Fundamental concepts, human and animal tumors for which no cause has been discovered, earlier discoveries in plants, further discoveries, other resemblances of crown gall to cancer in man and animals, possibility of the existence of carcinomas and of mixed tumors in plants, production of em¬ bryonal teratomata, and bearing of these dis¬ coveries on the cancer problem. 3. Locomotion of Sea- Anemones : G. H. Parker, Zoological Laboratory of the Mu¬ seum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College. The pedal portion of a sea-anemone, like its tentacles, must contain a neuromuscular mech¬ anism sufficient for the activity of that part of its body. 4. The Behavior of Sea- Anemones : G. H. Parker, Zoological Laboratory of the Mu¬ seum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College. Sea-anemones are animals whose momentary conditions are dependent upon the combined stimuli of their immediate surroundings rather than forms that are greatly influenced by their past history, and their unity is not of a pronounced type ; they are more in the nature of a sum of parts than they are organic units of the type of most of the higher animals. 5. A Contribution to the Petrography of Japan: J. P. Iddings and E. W. Morley, Brinklow, Maryland, and West Hartford, Connecticut. Seventeen detailed chemical analyses are given of Japanese lavas. 6. Is There a Temperature Coefficient for the Duration of Life? Jacques Loeb and J. H. Northrup, Rockefeller Institute for Med¬ ical Research, Hew York. In three series of experiments on the fruit fly Drosophila , it is found that the duration of life in the cases examined has a tempera¬ ture coefficient of the order of magnitude which is characteristic for life phenomena and chemical reactions in general. 7. On the Suggested Mutual Repulsion of Fraunhofer Lines: Charles E. St. John, Mount Wilson Solar Observatory, Carnegie Institution of Washington. The author is unable to find evidence of the mutual repulsion suggested and in so far as mutual influence is a necessary corollary of anomalous dispersion in the sun, evidence of this also is lacking. 8. An Attempt to detect the Mutual Influence of Neighboring Lines in Electric Furnace Spectra showing Anomalous Dispersion: Arthur S. King, Mount Wilson Solar Ob¬ servatory, Carnegie Institution of Wash¬ ington. Although the material in the investigation is limited by the scarcity of suitable pairs of lines, the lines actually tested have shown no tendency toward a repulsion. 9. Synthesis of the Base derived from M e thyl-A minomethyl-3, f-Dihydroxypheny l- carbinol: Chas. A. Rouiller, Pharmacolog¬ ical Laboratory, The Johns Hopkins Uni¬ versity. A continuation of some work by Abel with a suggestion as to a relation to work by Curtius. 10. Extinguished and Resurgent Coral Reefs: W. M. Davis, Department of Geology and Geography, Harvard University. 11. The Origin of Certain Fiji Atolls: W. M. Davis, Department of Geology and Geog¬ raphy, Harvard University. The two papers offer a discussion of obser¬ vations made during the author’s Shaler Memorial voyage across . the Pacific. 12. Interferometer Methods based on the Cleavage of a Diffracted Ray: C. Barus, Department of Physics, Brown University. The prismatic method of cleaving the inci¬ dent beam of white light is available for the superposition of non-reversed spectra, under 502 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1136 conditions where the paths of the component rays may have any length whatever. It is thus an essential extension of the same method as used for reserved spectra, heretofore, and also of the methods in which the paths are essentially small. 13. On the Inheritance of Certain Glume Characters in the Cross Arena Fatua XA. Sativa Var. Kherson: Frank M. Surface, Biological Laboratory, Maine Agricultural Experiment Station. A study of inheritance of certain characters particularly directed toward revealing phe¬ nomena of linkage. 14. A Comparison of the Rates of Regenera¬ tion from Old and from New Tissue: Charles Zeleny, Zoological Laboratory, University of Illinois. The data as a whole show clearly that there is no essential difference between the rate of regeneration from new cells and from old cells. The rate of regeneration seems there¬ fore to be under central control. 15. The Effect of Successive Removal upon the Rate of Regeneration: Charles Zeleny, Zoological Laboratory, University of Illi¬ nois. Apart from the slowing due to age there is no indication of the amount of new material that may be produced by regeneration. The actual limitation comes not from the using up of regenerative energy, but from changes in the non-regenerating part associated with age. 16. The Geologic Role of Phosphorus: Eliot Blackwelder, Department of Geology, Uni¬ versity of Wisconsin. Phosphorus appears in nature in many forms and in many situations. Its numerous transformations, however, follow an orderly sequence — in a broad way form a cycle — which is here discussed in some detail. 17. Dominantly Fluviatile Origin under Sea¬ sonal Rainfall of the Old Red Sandstone: Joseph Barrell, Department of Geology, Yale University. Geologists have differed so widely in their conclusions in regard to the nature of the habitat of the early vertebrate faunas whose remains are found in the formations of the Old Bed Sandstone, that the author is led to examine critically the criteria for the inter¬ pretation of the facts. He comes to the con¬ clusion that the deposits which make up the Old Bed Sandstone, although they undoubt¬ edly contain lacustrine beds and other beds laid down in shifting, shallow and variable bodies of water, are dominantly fluviatile in origin. The Great Valley in California may therefore in the present epoch, both in physi¬ ography and in climate, be cited as a striking illustration of the nature of the Old Bed Sandstone basins. 18. The Influence of Silurian-Devonian Cli¬ mates on the Rise of Air-Breathing Verte¬ brates: Joseph Barrell, Department of Geology, Yale University. The evidence for the hypothesis of the con¬ tinental origin of fishes has been examined and seems to prevail over that for their ma¬ rine origin. The author also believes that natural selection, although discredited as a cause determining specific variations, appears nevertheless to be a major factor in evolution. 19. Density of Radio-Lead from pure Nor¬ wegian Cleveite: T. W. Bichards and C. Wadsworth, 3d, Wolcott Gibbs Memorial Laboratory, Harvard University. The density of this lead is found to be 11.273, distinctly less than the density (11.289) of Australian radio-lead and still less than that (11.337) for ordinary lead, the decrease being almost exactly proportional to the de¬ crease in atomic weight in these samples, so that the atomic volume (18.281) is constant. 20. National Research Council. A preliminary report to the president of the academy by the organizing committee recently printed in full in Science. Edwin Bidwell Wilson Mass. Institute op Technology, Cambridge, Mass. SPECIAL ARTICLES IMBIBITIONAL SWELLING OF PLANTS AND COLLOIDAL MIXTURES The swelling of gelatine in distilled water, alkali and acid has long been used as refer- October 6, 1916] SCIENCE 503 ence phenomena in interpreting the water re¬ lations of plants especially in growth, and some conclusions founded on the assumption that growing organs, like gelatine, would show a maximum swelling in acidified solu¬ tions are shown by our work to be mistaken ones. During the course of some comprehensive studies on growth now being carried out at the Desert Laboratory it was deemed desirable to follow the entire course of development of shoots of Opuntia , and to make chemical analyses at various stages. Growth depends so largely upon the capacity for absorption and retention of water that numerous meas¬ urements of the swelling capacity of develop¬ ing and mature members were made. The method consisted in cutting clean disks 12 mm. across from the flattened joints of Opuntia. Three of these were arranged in the bottom of a Stender dish and a triangle of thin sheet glass arranged to rest its apices on the three disks. The vertical swinging arm of an auxograph1 was now adjusted to a shallow socket in the center of the glass triangle while the pen was set at zero on the recording sheet. Water or a solution being poured into the dish, the course of the swelling was traced. That the amount of imbibition depended mainly upon the presence of certain recog¬ nizable substances and not upon properties of the disks as masses of living material was demonstrated by the fact that dried disks gave proportionate differences equivalent to those of living material. The average thickness of disks varied from 4 or 5 mm. in the case of young joints to 18 or 20 mm. in mature ones. The apical parts of joints showed greater capacity for absorption than the basal ones in the proportion of 21 or 22 to 16 or 17 per cent. Comparative tests were finally based on disks taken from apical regions. The capacity for absorbing water was seen to increase up to maturity (about 1 year old) then to decrease as illustrated by 1 See MaeDougal, D. T., ‘ ‘ Mechanism and Con¬ ditions of Growth,” Mem. N. Y. Bot. Garden, 6: p. 14, 1916. the following set of tests with Opuntia blaheana made May 17-29, 1916. Opuntia blakeana Young Mature Old Swelling (distilled water) . . 24.3# 50# 41.3# The amount of imbibition does not appear as a continuous function of any one substance or group of substances, the presence and amount of which were estimated. This would harmonize with the results of swelling mix¬ tures of gelatine and agar described below. The phenomena of proportionate swelling of gelatine in water, acids, alkalies and salt solu¬ tions have been mistakenly used hitherto in attempts at explanation of the mechanism of growth. It has been demonstrated by re¬ peated tests that the tracts of growing cells studied, as well as maturing or mature tissues, do not swell more in acid than in distilled water or alkali, as will be illustrated by the following results taken at random from nu¬ merous records obtained at Tucson. SWELLING OF DISKS OF OPUNTIA Sodium Hydrate Hydrochloric Dist. Water (Hundredth Normal) Acid (Hundreth Normal) Young . 23.6 % 22.9% 16.4% Mature . 40% 52.1% 36.6% It is conclusively established that both young and old tissues take up more water when neutral or alkaline. Acidity therefore in addition to retarding enzymatic action pre¬ sumably including respiration would operate to lessen growth by its effects in decreasing imbibition by plant tissues. It being demonstrated that growing masses of embryonic cells in plants and tracts of ma¬ ture tissue show their greatest capacity for the imbibition of water not in acidified but in alkaline solutions, it was sought to find what substance or mixture of substances would be¬ have in a similar manner. The first inquiry was made with agar which is composed of pentoses presumably having some qualities identical with those of the mucilages of the plant. Dried cylinders and sheets of this material were first subjected to the tests, being placed under the auxograph after the manner in which disks of living material were treated as described in a 504 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1136 previous paragraph. The results compared with the swelling of gelatine were as follows: Sodium Hydro- Hydrate (Hundredth Normal) chloric Acid (Hundredth Normal) Water Swelling of agar . 124% 113% 197% Swelling of gelatine.. 250% 382% 83% As the plant did not show water relations which might be interpreted as a mechanical resultant of the separate action of gelatine or agar it was next proposed to test the reactions of a mixture in which these substances would he blended, which was done in July, 1916. The first test mass was one consisting of about equal parts of agar and gelatine, though the quantities were not weighed. Both were soaked and melted separately and the gelatine was poured into the hot agar which was kept at a temperature of about 90° 0. for a half hour. The mass was then poured on to a glass slab for cooling. Two days later it was stripped off as a fairly clear and transparent sheet slightly clouded, the average thickness of which was 0.2 mm. Strips about 5X7 mm. were placed under the apices of sheet glass tri¬ angles in glass dishes after the manner in which plant sections had been tested, and auxographs were arranged to record the ac¬ tion of acids, alkalies and distilled water. The first trial made on July 21 gave the fol¬ lowing final relative size of the strips as com¬ pared with the original : distilled water 850 per cent.; nitric acid (hundredth normal), 725 per cent.; hydrochloric acid (hundredth nor¬ mal), 750 per cent.; sodium hydrate (hun¬ dredth normal), 950 per cent. No record of the temperature of the room was kept. A sec¬ ond test on the following day at temperatures of 61°-65° F. gave the following: distilled water, 675 per cent.; hydrochloric acid, 625 per cent. ; nitric acid, 687.5 per cent. ; sodium hydrate, 750 per cent. These results were taken to be of such importance that a series of mixtures of agar with 20, 50 and 80, 95 and 99 per cent, of gelatine by dry weight were made up. The mixtures were poured into moulds on glass plates and dried sheets from 0.1 mm. to 0.6 mm. in thickness were obtained. The measurements given below include the re¬ sults of tests under varied conditions not only of thickness of the samples, but also of tem¬ perature, length of period of swelling, tension of instruments, etc. Each set of three meas¬ urements of the swelling in the three liquids is therefore to be considered separately, and is not to be compared with one above or below, either as to amplitude or relative swelling, as the experiments were varied in many ways. For the sake of completeness some results with agar and with gelatine alone are included. Gelatine Sodium Hydrate Hydrochloric Acid (Hundredth (Hundreth Normal) Normal) Distilled Water 280# 560# 250# 125 283 125 750 Gelatine 100 — Agar 1 1,100 520 667 Gelatine 100 — Aqar 5 767 325 704 933 333 800 Gelatine 80 — Agar 20 700 425 875 775 — 600 900 — 850 650 558 600 600 275 900 1,000 600 700 900 300 788 Gelatine 50 — Agar 50 788 692 500 333 1,133 525 600 350 675 225 — 400 350 500 600 200 700 450 300 875 633 367 1,167 1,150 600 Gelatine 20 — Agar 80 400 600 600 1,450 600 700 1,200 450 700 1,150 433 533 767 600 500 1,200 400 Aqar 650 775 525 800 1,100 The outstanding fact that a mixture con¬ sisting mostly of gelatine, to which a small proportion of agar has been added, shows its greatest swelling in alkaline solutions is the most important feature of these results. The mixture in question is available as a physical analogue which has already been found useful in the study of growth and swelling of plants. October 6, 1916] SCIENCE 505 The data of the table indicate that as the percentage of agar in the gelatine is increased the mixture swells more in distilled water and less in acid or alkali, thus approaching the behavior of pure agar. Concerning the rela¬ tive effects of acid and alkali, assured con¬ clusions are not now possible but the data sug¬ gest that acid tends to increase imbibition at the ends of the series, that is as pure agar and pure gelatine are approached, while alkali tends to increase it in the middle mixtures containing the two colloids in more nearly equal proportions. D. T. MacDougal Desert Laboratory, Tucson, Arizona THE THEORY OF AUTONOMOUS FOLDING IN EMBRYOGENESIS1 The experiments of Roux,2 carried out on the embryonic chick, prove conclusively that the folding of a neural plate into a neural tube is not dependent, as His3 had supposed, on the mechanical effect of one tissue upon another, but is autonomous. Self-differentia¬ tion in this instance is identical with self¬ folding. The question therefore arises: How can the neural plate fold itself? Our reply must necessarily bear on all cases of autonomous folding, and reciprocally any one of them might serve as the basis for this analysis. The nervous system, however, is by far the largest, most easily studied, and, in addition, the most familiar of all the embryonic tissues in which self-folding occurs. More¬ over, in its simpler forms, it indicates so clearly the direction in which an explanation of its autonomous transformations is to be sought, that for the present it seems best to limit the discussion to what may be justified as a type case. 1 Dead at the joint meeting of the American Society of Zoologists and Section F of the Ameri¬ can Association for the Advancement of Science, in Columbus, December, 1915. 2 ‘ ‘ Die Entwicklungsmechanik, ’ ’ W. Engelmann, Heft 1, Leipzig, 1905. 3 ‘ ‘ Unsere Korperf orm, und das Physiologische Problem Ihrer Entstehung, ’ ’ F. C. W. Vogel, Leip¬ zig, 1874. For our immediate purposes, the neural plate of Cryptobranchus allegheniensis is especially suitable. Hot only is it unusually large, as neural plates go, but wherever cell-boundaries are distinct, it is, without question, unicellular in thickness. The first problem to be solved is the role of cell-multiplication. In a neural plate in which the cells are irreg¬ ular in position and dovetailed into one an¬ other as they are in crowded columnar epithelia, inequalities in the rate of division and protoplasmic synthesis at or near the two surfaces might lead to folding, but in the Cryptobranchus embryo, in which the plate is partly syncytial and in which the visible cell- walls are continuous from one surface to the other, and remain so during the entire period of folding, it is difficult to conceive how cell- multiplication could result in anything ex¬ cept uniform enlargement. The exclusion of this factor from participation in the process of involution, however, does not depend on mere argumentation, for comparison of the number of nuclei in comparable regions of the flat, half-folded, and completely folded plate, shows that the number of cells per section actually does not increase4 (Table I.). Indeed in less TABLE i Number of Nuclei in Comparable Sections Stage I, Flat Stage II, Half-folded Stage III, Folded 63 56 55 53 64 60 58 50 73 69 56 47 72 50 69 58 82 59 59 70 64 58 74 51 58 58 52 68 51 55 Ave. 62 61 59 simple material, such as the neural plate of the mammal, in which the number of cells does increase during folding, the restriction of the mitoses to the concave surface must, if effective at all, exert a force opposed to the forces that bring about the curvature. In this instance, 4 For the validity of these comparisons see Glaser, Anatomical Record, Vol. 8, pp. 528-530. 506 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1136 therefore, a neural plate folds in spite of an increase in the number of its constituent cells. Fig. 1. Diagrammatic representation of a neu¬ ral plate A B C D, conceived of, for the sake of simplicity, as entirely flat and made up of one layer of rectangular cells. The lower half of the figure shows the same plate symmetrically folded, its upper and under sides having become the out¬ lines of two concentric circles. With the cells constant in number and position, the line A B is now necessarily shorter than the line C D. Fig. 2. Two sections through the embryonic nervous system of Cryptobranchus allegheniensis, showing the nuclear distribution in Stages I. and II. The sections are from the same series and regions as those dealt with in the tables but con¬ tain for Stage I., six, and for Stage II., one nucleus more than the maximal number recorded in Table I. In the unfolded plate there are in the present case, 78 nuclei, of which 47 are in the upper half above the dotted line, and 31 in the lower; in the half -folded plate, there are 75 nuclei, 21 in the upper zone, and 54 in the lower. Nuclei which happen to fall on the line separating the two zones are ascribed to the one into which the greater portion of their mass projects. The only remaining way in which a neural plate can fold itself is by a rearrangement of materials present at the beginning. In this connection the most patent fact, emphasized long ago by Rhumbler5 and Conklin6 in their studies of invaginate gastrulation, is a change in the shape of the cells whose sectional out¬ lines alter from the rectangular form to that of a trapezium (Fig. 1). This geometrical transformation, which might be forced upon the cells from without, necessarily has the same result when autonomously produced, for it involves lengthening of one surface, short¬ ening of the other, and a redistribution of the cell-contents. The extent of the latter, as indi¬ cated by the migration of nuclei from the side becoming concave to that becoming convex, is clearly shown for two sections in Fig. 2, and for a series, in Table II. TABLE II Distribution of Nuclei in Upper and Lower and Inner and Outer Zones Stage I, Flat Stage II. Half- folded Stage III, Folded Upper Lower Upper Lower Inner Outer 32 31 31 25 15 40 32 21 22 42 15 45 34 24 16 34 21 52 55 14 27 29 13 34 39 33 18 32 22 47 38 20 27 55 16 43 31 28 33 37 26 38 33 25 29 45 13 38 37 21 21 37 20 32 44 24 19 32 20 35 Ave. 38 24 24 37 18 39 According to this, the distribution of the nuclei is not only completely reversed during folding, but the final relation between the number in what become the inner and outer zones, respectively, of the definitive tube, is as 2 to 1. Provided only that the nervous system is, by its structure and relations, incapable of indefinite expansion, these changes are all that are required to bring about the folding. s ‘ 1 Zur Mechanik des Gastrulationsvorganges, ’ ’ Arch. f. Entwicklungsmech., Bd. 14. 6 ‘ ‘ Mosaic Development in Ascidian Eggs, ’ 1 Jour. Exp. Zool., Yol. 2, p. 163. October 6, 1916] SCIENCE 507 In my attempt to gain some insight into the manner in which these changes might be effected in the absence of coercion from with¬ out, I determined, at constant magnification, the areas of comparable sections during the process of involution. The marked relative increases shown in Table III. were found.7 TABLE in Relative Areas of Comparable Sections Stage I, Flat Stage II, Half-folded Stage III, Folded 9.4 cm.2 13.7 cm.2 17.5 cm.2 8.1 11.3 19.5 10.6 11.4 19.5 9.9 10.1 20.6 9.1 10.1 20.5 9.6 10.9 18.1 9.1 11.5 19.0 8.2 12.0 18.5 8.3 10.2 18.9 9.9 10.1 18.8 Ave. 9.2 11.1 19.1 This increase in area indicates growth in volume, and can be the result only of enlarge¬ ment on the part of the individual cells con¬ stituting the nervous system. The immediate problem is obvious. In Table IY. are given the water-content as well as the distribution of water in the larvae of Rana pipiens and Amblystoma punctatum, four to five days after fertilization. Since the period of differentiation under discussion has been completed at the stage of development considered in the table, and since this differentiation includes folding, and fold¬ ing is associated with enlargement, it follows that the differential absorption of water by the nervous system probably took place during the process of involution. As the results show, the water-content rises to a point practically identical with the figure 80.5 per cent, given by Donaldson for the cord of the adult R. pipiens .8 7 For details concerning the distribution of this increase within the sections themselves, see Glaser, loc. cit., pp. 530-533. s Donaldson, Henry H., ‘ ‘ Further Observations on the Nervous System of the American Leopard Frog, etc.,” Jour. Comp. Neurol., Yol. 20. Also earlier papers. TABLE IV Water Content and Distribution of Water in Embryos of Rana pipiens and Amblystoma punctatum Four to Five Days after Fertilisation Material Fresh Weight, Grams Dry Weight, Grams Dry Sub¬ stance, Per Cent. Water, Per Cent. li. pipi ns: 38 larvae . 0.1218 0.0557 43.6 56.4 50 larvae . 0.1718 0.0722 42.0 58.0 39 larvae . 0.1815 0.0730 40.2 59.8 41 larvae . 0.1788 0.0733 41.0 59.0 Average . 41.7 58.3 24 yolk-sacs . 0.0140 0.0204 46.5 53.5 31 yolk-sacs . 0.0585 0.0264 45.1 54.9 Average . 45.8 54.2 24 nervous systems 0.0464 0.0098 21.1 78.9 31 nervous systems 0.0714 0.0149 20.9 79.1 50 nervous systems 0.0916 0.0185 20.2 79.8 Average . 20.7 79.2 A. punctatum : 16 larvae . 0.0955 0.0399 41.8 58.2 15 larvae . 0.0992 0.0406 40.9 59.1 Average . 41.4 58.6 125 nervous systems 0.3914 0.0785 19.9 80.1 52 nervous systems 0.1756 0.0400 22.8 77.2 15 nervous systems 0.0524 0.0106 20.2 79.8 69 nervous systems 0.2039 0.0363 17.8 82.2 Average . | 20.2 79.8 But this absorption of water can only ac¬ count for the enlargement of the nervous sys¬ tem, not at all for its folding. To explain this in complete harmony with all the known facts, only one assumption is necessary. The neural plate is exposed to an external environment, whose constancy, within the limits under which normal development takes place at all, is very high. Laterally each cell of the plate is bounded by a chemical sys¬ tem fundamentally like itself. Disturbances of equilibrium on any one of these surfaces are relatively unlikely. However, on its under * side, the plate is subjected to a constant change of conditions due to the multitude of processes going on within the rest of the embryo. To mention only one factor, there is a distinct in¬ crease in the acidity of the internal medium. On this basis we may interpret the absorp- 508 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1136 tion of water as the result of a change in those surfaces of the absorbent cells which are exposed to the inconstant intra-embryonic en¬ vironment. If this change involves a weaken¬ ing of the face of the neural plate that becomes convex, the curvature that leads to the forma¬ tion of a tube would be accounted for.9 Accordingly then, the absorption of water is not the cause of folding, but a symptom of that cause. If this interpretation is correct, the water content of the cells at any given level in the early stages of involution can not be uni¬ form. In fact the theory demands that the marginal cells of the neural plate, the first, it will be recalled, to undergo a change of shape, shall have a higher water-content than the cells in the middle of the plate which only assume the wedge-shape during the last stages of involution. For the decision of this crucial question, no direct method is as yet available. However, it is possible to secure evidence indirectly which seems to me convincing. If the eggs of the starfish are placed in hypotonic sea-water, and given an opportunity to absorb more water than they normally con¬ tain, they at once increase in volume, and their nuclei, easy to deal with on account of their spherical shape, also enlarge. The facts on which this statement is based are given in Table Y. TABLE V Asterias Eggs in Various Concentrations of Sea¬ water No. ol Eggs Cone. Sea Water Cone. Dist. Water Diam. Eggs Diam. Nuclei 18 100% 0% 142/t .68m 66 34 170 .82 23 100 0 138 .66 75 25 144 .70 47 100 0 152 .66 60 40 188 .82 49 100 0 154 .66 60 40 170 .80 8 For the relation between this view and the Rhumbler Surface-Tension Hypothesis, as well as for a criticism of the latter, see Glaser, loc. cit., pp. 536-548. Before applying this information to the problem in hand, I had first of all to deter¬ mine whether these facts held for the nervous system, and especially whether measurable differences could be demonstrated in those re¬ gions known to have contained during life, different proportions of water.10 TABLE VI Relative Water Contents of Embryonic Cords and Brains Embryonic Cords Embryonic Brains Amblystoma . 125 > 125 by 2.2 per cent. Rana . 139 > 135 by 1.9 per cent. Rana . 192 > 188 by 2.3 per cent. Relative Sizes of Nuclei Nervous System of Cryptobranchus Embryos Stage I Stage II Stage III Cord Brain Ratio Cord Brain Ratio Cord Brain Ratio 109 109 1:1.2 126 114 1:1.1 125 113 1:1.3 119 114 1:1.2 107 108 1:1.1 143 123 1:1.2 120 125 1:1.1 127 129 1:1.2 133 113 1:1.3 121 119 1:1.1 115 131 1:1.3 Control 36 -hour Chick End of Cord Forebrain Ratio 110 124 1:1.4 Relative Sizes of Nuclei in Center and at Edges of Neural Plate in Cryptobranchus during Folding Number and Positions of Nuclei Central Lateral Ratio 110 115 1:1.2 112 120 1:1.2 112 111 1:1.1 135 122 1:1.2 In both Amblystoma punctatum and Rana pipiens (Table VI.), a comparison of the ante¬ rior and posterior ends of the embryonic nerv¬ ous systems, indicates a higher water-content in the larval brain than in the cord. Since these results are consistent, and, in sense, agree with corresponding differences found by Donaldson (loc. cit.) for the adult nervous system of Rana pipiens, I feel fairly certain of the essential correctness of my values, and io That the embryonic brain has a higher water content than the cord is indicated by the figures which I published in Science, N. S., Yol. XXXIX., pp. 730-731, in 1914. The evidence there pre¬ sented was meager and, unfortunately, I overlooked some arithmetical errors. Recalculation has made no essential difference in the results, however, and further evidence now shows them to have been es¬ sentially correct. October 6, 1916] SCIENCE 509 infer, therefore, that the embryonic brain, like that of the adult, also has a water-content higher than that of the cord at the same age. If this is indeed correct, and, moreover, if nuclear volume varies with the water-content of the cell, and, furthermore, if fixation does not destroy or completely reverse the volu¬ metric relations, one would expect the nuclei in the anterior end of an embryonic nervous system to be larger than those in the posterior. In Cryptobranchus embryos such compari¬ sons are easily made. The nuclei are large so that errors, inevitably committed in deter¬ mining their volumes, are relatively small. Certain precautions however are essential. Thus nuclei in various stages of mitosis must obviously be excluded. Also, since the rest¬ ing nucleus is ovoid in shape, it is necessary to consider only those similarly oriented with reference to the plane of section. Absolute volumes are, of course, not practicable, nor are they requisite. All that the theory de¬ mands is that the average size of the nuclear sections in the regions which had the higher water-content shall be greater than those in the regions in which the water-content was lower. Tracings of some 2,800 nuclei whose outlines on paper were cut out with scissors and weighed under uniform conditions of atmos¬ pheric moisture, give results remarkable for their uniformity. The absolute regularity of the ratios based on Cryptobranchus, and on the control observa¬ tion on the thirty-six hour chick, convinced me that nuclear size, even in preserved mate¬ rials, can be utilized as an index of original water-content. If now, the absorption of water is itself an index to the surface alteration to which I attribute the change in shape under¬ gone by the cells during involution, then the nuclei of the lateral curling edges in any given section should on the average be larger than those in the, as yet, unfolded center. This, as indicated in the last division of Table VI., is true for Cryptobranchus. Since this expectation has been fulfilled, I feel that the problems involved in the autono¬ mous folding of the nervous system, and by implication, also involved in such other auton¬ omous foldings as that of the entodermal plate in typical invaginate gastrulation, have begun to merge with the physical-chemistry of the tissues concerned, and the conditions to which their constituent cells are subjected at various periods of development. O. 0. Glaser University of Michigan SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY The twenty-third summer meeting and eighth colloquium of the society were held at Harvard University during the week September 4-8, 1916. Monday and Tuesday were devoted to the sum¬ mer meeting proper, two sessions being held on each day for the presentation and discussion of papers. The colloquium opened on Wednesday morning and extended to Friday afternoon. Courses of lectures were given by Professor G. C. Evans, of Rice Institute, on ‘ ‘ Topics from the theory and applications of functionals, including integral equations, ’ ’ and Professor Oswald Veblen, of Princeton University, on “Analysis situs. ’ ’ Ninety-nine were in attendance. President E. W. Brown occupied the chair, being relieved by Vice-presidents E. R. Hedrick and Virgil Snyder. The council announced the election of the follow¬ ing persons to membership in the society : Mr. Herman Betz, Cornell University; Mr. J. A. Big- bee, High School, Little Rock, Ark. ; Mr. Hillel Halperin, Vanderbilt University; Dr. J. R. Kline, University of Pennsylvania; Professor J. J. Luck, University of Virginia; Dr. F. J. MeMackin, Dart¬ mouth College. Seven applications for member¬ ship in the society were received. Through the generosity of Harvard University the freshman dormitories and dining room were thrown open for the use of the society during the meeting. On Monday noon the members were shown the collection of mathematical models be¬ longing to the university. On Wednesday after¬ noon a visit was paid to the university library, and on Wednesday evening to the observatory. Reso¬ lutions were adopted at (the meeting expressing the thanks of the society for the hospitality of the university and its officers. Fraternal greetings were exchanged by cable with the Scandinavian mathematicians assembled at Stockholm. A vote of congratulation was tendered to the secretary on his twenty-first year of service in that capacity. 510 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1136 The twenty-fifth anniversary of the broadening out of the society into a national organization and the founding of the Bulletin were celebrated at the banquet on Monday evening, at which eighty- four members and friends were present. Brief addresses were made by Professors Piske, W. W. Johnson, Fine, Birkhoff, Hedrick, Webster, Cool- idge and the secretary. On Tuesday evening Professor D. E. Smith en¬ tertained the society with an interesting account of ‘ ‘ The relation of the history of economics to the history of arithmetic problems. ’ ’ The following papers were read at the summer meeting : J. C. Fields : ‘ 1 Direct derivation of the com¬ plementary theorem. ’ ’ C. A. Fischer: “Note on the order of continuity of functions of lines. ” Olive C. Hazlett: “On the theory of associative division algebras. ” W. C. Eells: “A statistical study of eminent mathematicians. ’ ’ J. L. Coolidge: “The characteristic numbers of real algebraic plane curves. ’ ’ R. W. Burgess: “The comparison of a certain case of the elastic curve with its approximation. ’ ’ G. A. Miller: “Orders of operators of congru¬ ence groups modulo 2r 3®.“ John Eiesland: “Sphere geometry (third paper).” A. J. Kempner: “Generalization of a theorem on transcendental numbers. ’ ’ C. N. Moore : ‘ 1 On the developments in Bes¬ sel ’s functions.” Arnold Dresden: “Supplementary note on the second derivatives of an extremal integral. ’ ’ L. E. Dickson: “Extension of the theory of numbers to the rational numbers of certain sets.” A. G. Webster: “On a theory of acoustic horns. ’ ’ E. H. Moore: “On properly positive Hermitian matrices. 5 ’ L. P. Eisenhart : ‘ 1 Deformations of transfor¬ mations of Ribaucour. ’ ’ F. R. Sharpe and Virgil Snyder: “On (2 — 2) point correspondence between two planes.” F. H. Salford: “Surfaces of revolution in the theory of Lame’s products.” Dunham Jackson: “Note on the parametric rep¬ resentation of an arbitrary continuous curve.” Dunham Jackson: “Note on representations of the partial sum of a Fourier series.” L. H. Rice: “Determinants of many dimen¬ sions. ’ ’ L. R. Ford : 1 ‘ Regular continued fractions. ’ ’ M. W. Haskell : ‘ ‘ The eliminant of a system of forms. ’ ’ E. V. Huntington: “A simple substitute for Duhamel ’s theorem. ’ ’ E. V. Huntington and J. R. Kline: “Sets of in¬ dependent postulates for betweenness.” G. D. Birkhoff : ‘ ‘ Dynamical systems with two degrees of freedom (second paper).” E. B. Van Vleck: “Non-loxodromie substitu¬ tions in n valuables.” L. I. Hewes: “Nomograms of adjustment.” H. C. M. Morse: “A theorem on the linear de¬ pendence of analytic functions of a single vari¬ able. ’ ’ G. A. Pfeiffer: “Note on the linear dependence of analytic functions. ’ ’ G. M. Green : ‘ ‘ On the linear dependence of functions of one variable. ’ ’ C. L. Bouton : ‘ ‘ Iteration and group theory. ’ ’ G. M. Green: “On the general theory of sur¬ faces. ’ ’ W. V. Garretson: “On the asymptotic solution of the non-homogenous linear differential equation of the nth order. A particular solution.” Caroline E. Seely: “On series of biorthogonal functions. ’ ’ A. B. Frizell: “Lemma for a new method of generating alephs. ’ ’ John Eiesland: “Transformation theory of the flat complex and its associated line complex.” A. R. Schweitzer: “On the type of quasi-transi¬ tive functional equations (second paper).” A. R. Schweitzer: “A problem in quasi-transi¬ tive functional equations.” A. R. Schweitzer: “Some theorems on quasi¬ transitive functional equations.” A. R. Schweitzer : ‘ ‘ On the analogy between functional equations and geometric order rela¬ tions. ’ ’ T. H. Gronwall: “On the power series for log (1 + *).” T. H. Gronwall: “A problem in geometry con¬ nected with the analytic continuation of a power series. ’ ’ T. H. Gronwall: “On the convergence of Bi- net’s factorial series for log T(s) and ( z ).” T. H. Gronwall: “On the zeroes of the function p(z) associated with the gamma function.” The next meeting of the society will be held at Columbia University on Saturday, October 28. The Southwestern Section will meet at the Uni¬ versity of Kansas on Saturday, December 2. F. N. Cole, Secretary SCIENCE Friday, October 13, 1916 CONTENTS The Relation of Pure Science to Industrial Research: J. J. Carty . 511 The Botanical Field Excursion in Collegiate Work: Dr. Vaughan MacCaughey . 518 “Expedite the Map”: Professor W. M. Davis . 525 American Association for the Advancement of Science: — The Committee on Policy: Dr. L. O. How¬ ard . 526 Scientific Notes and News . 527 University and Educational News . 530 Discussion and Correspondence : — Diffusion vs. Independent Origin: Dr. A. A. Goldenweiser. Some Objections to Elliot Smith’s Theory: Philip Ainsworth Means. Research Funds for Pharmacy: Edward Kremers . 531 Quotations : — Science and Industry . 535 Scientific Books: — Morgan on the Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity: Dr. W. Bateson . 536 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sci¬ ences: Professor Edwin Bidwell Wilson. 543 Special Articles: — The Function of the Apyrene Spermatozoa: Dr. Richard Goldschmidt . 544 MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended for review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison- On-Hudson, N. Y. THE RELATION OF PURE SCIENCE TO INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH i It is not strange that many years ago Huxley, with his remarkable precision of thought and his admirable command of language, should have indicated his dis¬ satisfaction with the terms “pure science” and “applied science,” pointing out at the same time that what people call “applied science” is nothing but the application of pure science to particular classes of prob¬ lems. The terms are still employed, pos¬ sibly because, after all, they may be the best ones to use, or perhaps our ideas, to which these expressions are supposed to conform, have not yet become sufficiently definite to have called forth the right words. It is not the purpose of this address, how¬ ever, to suggest better words or expres¬ sions, but rather to direct attention to cer¬ tain important relations between purely scientific research and industrial scientific research which are not yet sufficiently understood. Because of the stupendous upheaval of the European war with its startling agencies of destruction — the product of both science and the industries — and be¬ cause of the deplorable unpreparedness of our own country to defend itself against attack, there has begun a great awakening of our people. By bringing to their minds the brilliant achievements of the member¬ ship of this institute in electric lighting and power and communications and by calling their attention to the manifold i President ’s address given at the thirty-third annual convention of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. 512 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1137 achievements of the members of our sister societies in mechanical and mining and civil engineering, and the accomplishments of our fellow-workers, the industrial chemists, they are being aroused to the vital impor¬ tance of the products of science in the na¬ tional defense. Arising out of this agitation comes a growing appreciation of the importance of industrial scientific research, not only as an aid to military defense but as an essential part of every industry in time of peace. Industrial research, conducted in accord¬ ance with the principles of science, is no new thing in America. The department which is under my charge, founded nearly forty years ago to develop, with the aid of scientific men, the telephone art, has grown from small beginnings with but a few workers to a great institution employing hundreds of scientists and engineers, and it is generally acknowledged that it is largely owing to the industrial research thus conducted that the telephone achieve¬ ments and developments in America have so greatly exceeded those of other countries. With the development of electric lighting and electric power and electric traction which came after the invention of the tele¬ phone, industrial scientific research labo¬ ratories were founded by some of the larger electrical manufacturing concerns and these have attained a world-wide reputation. While vast sums are spent annually upon industrial research in these laboratories, I can say with authority that they return to the industries each year improvements in the art which, taken all together, have a value many times greater than the total cost of their production. Money expended in properly directed industrial research, conducted on scientific principles, is sure to bring to the industries a most generous return. While many concerns in America now have well organized industrial research laboratories, particularly those engaged in metallurgy and dependent upon chemical processes, the manufacturers of our coun¬ try as a whole have not yet learned of the benefits of industrial scientific research and how to avail themselves of it. I consider that it is the high duty of our institute and of every member composing it, and that a similar duty rests upon all other engineering and scientific bodies in America, to impress upon the manufac¬ turers of the United States the wonderful possibilities of economies in their processes and improvements in their products which are opened up by the discoveries in science. The way to realize these possibilities is through the medium of industrial research conducted in accordance with scientific principles. Once it is made clear to our manufacturers that industrial research pays, they will be sure to call to their aid men of scientific training to investigate their technical problems and to improve their processes. Those who are the first to avail themselves of the benefits of indus¬ trial research will obtain such a lead over their competitors that we may look forward to the time when the advantages of indus¬ trial research will be recognized by all. Industrial scientific research departments can reach their highest development in those concerns doing the largest amount of business. While instances are not want¬ ing where the large growth of the institu¬ tion is the direct result of the care which is bestowed upon industrial research at a time when it was but a small concern, nevertheless conditions to-day are such that without cooperation among themselves the small concerns can not have the full benefits of industrial research, for no one among them is sufficiently strong to maintain the necessary staff and laboratories. Once the vital importance of this subject is appre- October 13, 1916] SCIENCE 513 ciated by the small manufacturers many solutions of the problem will promptly ap¬ pear. One of these is for the manufacturer to take his problem to one of the industrial research laboratories already established for the purpose of serving those who can not afford a laboratory of their own. Other manufacturers doing the same, the financial encouragement received would enable the laboratories to extend and improve their facilities so that each of the small manu¬ facturers who patronizes them would in course of time have the benefit of an insti¬ tution similar to those maintained by our largest industrial concerns. Thus, in accordance with the law of supply and demand, the small manufac¬ turer may obtain the benefits of industrial research in the highest degree and the burden upon each manufacturer would be only in accordance with the use he made of it, and the entire cost of the laboratories would thus be borne by the industries as a whole, where the charge properly belongs. Many other projects are now being con¬ sidered for the establishment of industrial research laboratories for those concerns which can not afford laboratories of their own, and in some of these cases the possible relation of these laboratories to our tech¬ nical and engineering schools is being earn¬ estly studied. Until the manufacturers themselves are aroused to the necessity of action in the matter of industrial research there is no plan which can be devised that will result in the general establishment of research laboratories for the industries. But once their need is felt and their value appreci¬ ated and the demand for research facilities is put forth by the manufacturers them¬ selves, research laboratories will spring up in all our great centers of industrial activ¬ ity. Their number and character and size, and their method of operation and their relation to the technical and engineering schools, and the method of their working with the different industries, are all mat¬ ters which involve many interesting prob¬ lems — problems which I am sure will be solved as they present themselves and when their nature has been clearly apprehended. In the present state of the world’s devel¬ opment there is nothing which can do more to advance American industries than the adoption by our manufacturers generally of industrial research conducted on scien¬ tific principles. I am sure that if they can be made to appreciate the force of' this state¬ ment, our manufacturers will rise to the occasion with all that energy and enterprise so characteristic of America. So much has already been said and so much remains to be said urging upon us the importance of scientific research conducted for the sake of utility and for increasing the convenience and comfort of mankind, that there is danger of losing sight of another form of research which has for its primary object none of these things. I refer to pure scientific research. In the minds of many there is confusion between industrial scientific research and this purely scientific research, particularly as the industrial research involves the use of advanced scientific methods and calls for the highest degree of scientific attainment. The confusion is worse because the same scientific principles and methods of inves¬ tigation are frequently employed in each case and even the subject-matter under in¬ vestigation may sometimes be identical. The misunderstanding arises from con¬ sidering only the subject-matter of the two classes of research. The distinction is to be found not in the subject-matter of the research, but in the motive. The electrical engineer, let us say, find¬ ing a new and unexplained difficulty in the working of electric lamps, subjects the phe- 514 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1137 nomenon observed to a process of inquiry- employing scientific methods, with a view to removing from the lamps an objection¬ able characteristic. The pure scientist at the same time investigates in precisely the same manner the same phenomenon, but with the purpose of obtaining an explana¬ tion of a physical occurrence, the nature of which can not be explained by known facts. Although these two researches are con¬ ducted in exactly the same manner, the one nevertheless comes under the head of indus¬ trial research and the other belongs to the domain of pure science. In the last anal¬ ysis the distinction between pure scientific research and industrial scientific research is one of motive. Industrial research is al¬ ways conducted with the purpose of accom¬ plishing some utilitarian end. Pure scien¬ tific research is conducted with a philo¬ sophic purpose, for the discovery of truth, and for the advancement of the boundaries of human knowledge. The investigator in pure science may be likened to the explorer who discovers new continents or islands or hitherto unknown territory. He is continually seeking to ex¬ tend the boundaries of knowledge. The investigator in industrial research may be compared to the pioneers who survey the newly discovered territory in the endeavor to locate its mineral resources, determine the extent of its forests, and the location of its arable land, and who in other ways precede the settlers and prepare for their occupation of the new country. The work of the pure scientists is con¬ ducted without any utilitarian motive, for, as Huxley says, “that which stirs their pulses is the love of knowledge and the joy of discovery of the causes of things sung by the old poet — the supreme delight of ex¬ tending the realm of law and order ever farther towards the unattainable goals of the infinitely great and the infinitely small, between which our little race of life is run.” While a single discovery in pure science when considered with reference to any particular branch of industry may not appear to be of appreciable benefit, yet when interpreted by the industrial scien¬ tist, with whom I class the engineer and the industrial chemist, and when adapted to practical uses by them, the contributions of pure science as a whole become of incal¬ culable value to all the industries. I do not say this because a new incentive is necessary for the pure scientist, for in him there must be some of the divine spark and for him there is no higher motive than the search for the truth itself. But surely this motive must be intensified by the knowledge that when the search is re¬ warded there is sure to be found, sooner or later, in the truth which has been discov¬ ered, the seeds of future great inventions which will increase the comfort and con¬ venience and alleviate the sufferings of mankind. By all who study the subject, it will be found that while the discoveries of the pure scientist are of the greatest importance to the higher interests of mankind, their prac¬ tical benefits, though certain, are usually indirect, intangible or remote. Pure scien¬ tific research unlike industrial scientific re¬ search can not support itself by direct pecuniary returns from its discoveries. The practical benefits which may be im¬ mediately and directly traced to industrial research, when it is properly conducted, are -so great that when their importance is more generally recognized industrial re¬ search will not lack the most generous en¬ couragement and support. Indeed, unless industrial research abundantly supports itself it will have failed of its purpose. But who is to support the researches of the pure scientist, and who is to furnish him with encouragement and assistance to pur- October 13, 1916] SCIENCE 515 sue his self-sacrificing and arduous quest for that truth which is certain as time goes on to bring in its train so many blessings to mankind? Who is to furnish the labo¬ ratories, the funds for apparatus and for traveling and for foreign study ? Because of the extraordinary practical results which have been attained by scien¬ tifically trained men working in the indus¬ trial laboratories and because of the limited and narrow conditions under which many scientific investigators have some¬ times been compelled to work in univer¬ sities, it has been suggested that perhaps the theater of scientific research might be shifted from the university to the great industrial laboratories which have already grown up or to the even greater ones which the future is bound to bring forth. But we can dismiss this suggestion as being un¬ worthy. Organizations and institutions of many kinds are engaged in pure scientific re¬ search and they should receive every en¬ couragement, but the natural home of pure science and of pure scientific research is to be found in the university, from which it can not pass. It is a high function of the universities to make advances in science, to test new scientific discoveries and to place their stamp of truth upon those which are found to be pure. In this way only can they determine what shall be taught as scientific truth to those who, relying upon their authority, come to them for knowledge and believe what they teach. Instead of abdicating in their favor, may not our universities, stimulated by the won¬ derful achievements of these industrial laboratories, find a way to advance the con¬ duct of their own pure scientific research, the grand responsibility for which rests upon them. This responsibility should now be felt more heavily than ever by our American universities, not only because the tragedy of the great war has caused the destruction of European institutions of learning, but because even a worse thing has happened. So great have been the fatalities of the war that the universities of the old world hardly dare to count their dead. But what can the American universities do, for they, like the pure scientists, are not engaged in a lucrative occupation. Universities are not money-making institu¬ tions, and what can be done without money? There is much that can be done without money. The most important and most fun¬ damental factor in scientific research is the mind of a man suitably endowed by nature. Unless the scientific investigator has the proper genius for his work, no amount of financial assistance, no apparatus or labo¬ ratories, however complete, and no foreign travel and study, however extensive, will en¬ able such a mind to discover new truths or to inspire others to do so. Judgment and appreciation and insight into character on the part of the responsible university authorities must be applied to the problem, so that when the man with the required mental attributes does appear he may be appreciated as early in his career as pos¬ sible. This is a very difficult thing to do indeed. Any one can recognize such a man after his great achievements have become known to all the world, but I sometimes think that one who can select early a man who has within him the making of the scien¬ tific discoverer must have been himself fired with a little of the divine spark. Such surely was the case with Sir Humphry Davy, himself a great discoverer, who, realizing the fundamental importance of the man in scientific discovery, once said that Michael Faraday, whose genius he was prompt to recognize, constituted his greatest discovery. I can furnish no formula for the identi- 516 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1137 fication of budding genius and I have no ready-made plan to lay before the univer¬ sities for the advancement of pure scien¬ tific research. But as a representative of engineering and industrial research, having testified to the great value of pure scientific research, I venture to suggest that the uni¬ versity authorities themselves might well consider the immense debt which engineer¬ ing and the industries and transportation and communications and commerce owe to pure science, and to express the hope that the importance of pure scientific research ■will be more fully appreciated both within the university and without, for then will *come — and then only — that sympathetic appreciation and generous financial sup¬ port so much needed for the advancement of pure scientific research in America. While there are many things — and most important things — which the universities can do to aid pure science without the em¬ ployment of large sums of money, there are nevertheless a great many things re¬ quired in the conduct of pure scientific re¬ search which can be done only with the aid of money. The first of these I think is this : When a master scientist does appear and has made himself known by his discoveries, then he should be provided with all of the resources and facilities and assistants that he can effectively employ, so that the range of his genius will in no way be restricted for the want of anything which money can provide. Every reasonable and even generous pro¬ vision should be made for all workers in pure science, even though their reputations have not yet become great by their dis¬ coveries, for it should be remembered that the road to great discoveries is long and discouraging and that for one great achieve¬ ment in science we must expect numberless failures. I would not restrict these workers in pure science to our great universities, for I be¬ lieve that they should be located also at our technical schools, even at those with the most practical aims. In such schools the influence of a discoverer in science would serve as a balance to the practical curric¬ ulum and familiarize the student with the high ideals of the pure scientist and with his rigorous methods of investigation. Furthermore, the time has come when our technical schools must supply in largely increasing numbers men thoroughly grounded in the scientific method of inves¬ tigation for the work of industrial research. Even the engineering student, who has no thoughts of industrial research, will profit by his association with the work of the pure scientist, for if he expects ever to tread the higher walks of the engineering profession he must be qualified to investi¬ gate new problems in engineering and de¬ vise methods for their solution and for such work a knowdedge of the logical proc¬ esses of the pure scientist and his rigorous methods of analyzing and weighing evi¬ dence in his scrupulous search for the truth will be of the greatest value. Furthermore, the engineering student should be taught to appreciate the ultimate great practical importance of the results of pure scientific investigation and to real¬ ize that pure science furnishes to engineer¬ ing the raw material, so to speak, which he must work into useful forms. He should be taught that after graduation it will be most helpful to him and even necessary, if he is to be a leader, to watch with care the work of the pure scientist and to scrutinize the reports of new scientific discoveries to see wrhat they may contain that can be ap¬ plied to useful purposes and more particu¬ larly to problems of his own which require solution. There are many unsolved prob¬ lems in applied science, to-day, which are insoluble in the present state of our knowl- October 13, 1916] SCIENCE 517 edge, but I am sure that in the future, as has so often happened in the past, these problems will find a ready solution in the light of pure scientific discoveries yet to be made. When thus regarded the work of the pure scientist should be followed with most intense interest by all of those en¬ gaged in the application of science to in¬ dustrial purposes. Acquaintance, there¬ fore with the pure scientist, with his meth¬ ods and results, is of great importance to the student of applied science. I believe that there is need of a better understand¬ ing of the relations between the pure scien¬ tist and the applied scientist and that this understanding would be greatly helped by a closer association between the pure scien¬ tist and the students in the technical schools. While I have drawn a valid distinction between the work of the two, they never¬ theless have much in common. Both are concerned with the truth of things, one to discover new truths and the other to apply these truths to the uses of man. While the object of the engineer is to produce from scientific discoveries useful results, these results are for the benefit of others. They are dedicated to the use of mankind and, as is the case with the pure scientist, they should not be confused with the pecuniary compensation which the engineer himself may receive for his work for this compen¬ sation is slight, often infinitesimally so, compared with the great benefits received by others. Like the worker in pure science, the engineer finds inspiration in the desire for achievement and his real reward is found in the knowledge of the benefits which others receive from his work. There are many other things which might be discussed concerning the conduct of pure scientific research in our universi¬ ties and technical schools, but enough has been said to make it plain that I believe such work should be greatly extended in all of our American universities and tech¬ nical institutions. But where are the uni¬ versities to obtain the money necessary for the carrying out of a grand scheme of sci¬ entific research t It should come from those generous and public-spirited men and women who desire to dispose of their wealth in a manner well calculated to ad¬ vance the welfare of mankind, and it should come from the industries them¬ selves, which owe such a heavy debt to sci¬ ence. While it can not be shown that the contribution of any one manufacturer or corporation to a particular purely scien¬ tific research will bring any return to the contributor or to others, it is certain that contributions by the manufacturers in gen¬ eral and by the industrial corporations to pure scientific research, as a whole, will in the long run bring manifold returns through the medium of industrial research conducted in the rich and virgin territory discovered by the scientific explorer. It was Michael Faraday, one of the greatest of the workers in pure science, who in the last century discovered the principle of the dynamo electric machine. Without a knowledge of this principle dis¬ covered by Faraday the whole art of elec¬ trical engineering as we know it to-day could not exist and civilization would have been deprived of those inestimable benefits which have resulted from the work of the members of this institute. Not only Faraday in England, but Joseph Henry in our own country and scores of other workers in pure science have laid the foundations upon which the elec¬ trical engineer has reared such a magnifi¬ cent structure. What is true of the electrical art is also true of all the other arts and applied sci¬ ences. They are all based upon fundamen¬ tal discoveries made by workers in pure science, who were seeking only to discover 518 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1137 the laws of nature and extend the realm of human knowledge. By every means in our power, therefore, let us show our appreciation of pure sci¬ ence and let us forward the work of the pure scientists, for they are the advance guard of civilization. They point the way which we must follow. Let us arouse the people of our country to the wonderful possibilities of scientific discovery and to the responsibility to support it which rests upon them and I am sure that they will respond generously and effectively. Then I am confident that in the future the mem¬ bers of this institute, together with their colleagues in all of the other branches of engineering and applied science, as well as the physician and surgeon, by utilizing the discoveries of pure science yet to be made, will develop without marvelous new agen¬ cies for the comfort and convenience of man and for the alleviation of human suf¬ fering. These, gentlemen, are some of the considerations which have led me here in my presidential address to urge upon you the importance of a proper understanding of the relations between pure science and industrial research. J. J. Carty THE BOTANICAL FIELD EXCURSION IN COLLEGIATE WORK The standard college course in general botany occupies a well-defined field, and is concerned with pedagogical problems quite dis¬ tinct from those of the secondary school on the one hand, and of the university on the other. Many of the defects and shortcomings of col¬ legiate botany as taught have been due to the fallacious idea that college botany is merely university botany pruned down to meet the supposititious mental ability of the college stu¬ dent. The ideas and technique of the uni¬ versity research laboratory have frequently been transplanted en bloc into the college class¬ room, with resultant pedagogic malpractise and scientific inefficiency. College and university men are coming to realize more and more clearly that the uni¬ versity research laboratory has its peculiar problems, for which work it should be dili¬ gently protected and fostered; and also that the American college as an institution has its distinctive field and problems, and that the two fields, overlapping here and there, are on the whole widely separated from one another. One of the notable lines of weakness of the collegiate course in general botany that has come to the writer’s attention, is the com¬ paratively rare or infrequent use of the field excursion. The usual schedule, to be found in most American colleges, consists of one or two trips in the autumn, a long winter session re¬ stricted almost exclusively to laboratory exer¬ cises, and a few desultory spring trips to col¬ lect flowering plants. There are a number of factors which have combined to bring about this state of affairs. Most botany teachers are primarily laboratory- trained men. Frequently they are not very well acquainted with the region in which they teach. In many instances their own university work in botany was confined largely to the cytological, histological or morphological as¬ pects of the science ; with little or no practical training in field work, either from the scien¬ tific or pedagogical viewpoint. In most regions a large portion of the academic year is winter time, with much inclement weather, and plant life at a standstill. Laboratory exercises can be planned with much greater certainty and precision than can field trips. The problems of transportation and discipline on the field trip, particularly if the class be large, are often difficult and annoying. It involves much planning and extra work to break up a large class into small sections for field work. Field trips are time consuming, and in many regions the places of greatest botanic interest lie at a considerable distance from the college build¬ ings. There are a great number of excellent printed outlines covering all the standard labo¬ ratory exercises and experiments; these labo¬ ratory guides and manuals are ready-made for the teacher’s use, while field trips require the laborious preparation of special outlines by the October 13, 1916] SCIENCE 519 individual teacher.1 For all these reasons, and for others that might be enumerated, the aver¬ age college teacher finds it much easier, and on the whole more satisfactory to plan labo¬ ratory exercises rather than field excursions. The present paper is an earnest plea for a larger recognition of field work as an integral part of any course in general botany. The field work should not usurp the place of legiti¬ mate laboratory studies, but on the other hand it should not be regarded, as it is generally re¬ garded to-day, as a mere accessory, desirable but inconvenient. Ganong’s statement may be appropriately quoted here: Very important too, are field excursions, the op¬ portunity for which varies greatly. Theoretically, it might seem better if most botanical study could be done out of doors, but practically the greater part of it demands tools and other facilities, in¬ cluding physical comfort, unobtainable away from a good laboratory. In the excursions the teacher will of course direct attention to the larger phe¬ nomena of adaptation, the topography or physiog¬ nomy of the vegetation, the plant associations, etc. This kind of study will become much easier and more profitable in the near future as the subject becomes more fully systematized, and good books on it become accessible. It is especially important not to allow too great a number of students to go together on these excursions, and in my own ex¬ perience not over ten can be profitably taken at any one time. The collecting instinct, so invalu¬ able to the naturalist, should at such times receive every possible encouragement.2 Botany exists first of all out-of-doors, and the college student should have thoroughgoing training in field work as well as in the labo¬ ratory, herbarium and library. The college student, interested primarily in the large, sig¬ nificant, dynamic aspects of the subject, rather than in technical minutiae, should be deeply imbued with the idea that he is working with an out-of-door subject, and that a valuable and 1 As an example of a recent text that does give suggestions for field work, E. F. Andrews, “Prac¬ tical Botany,” American Book Co., 1911, may be cited. Each of the ten chapters concludes with an excellent concise and suggestive section on field studies. 2 Ganong, W. F., 1 ‘ The Teaching Botanist, ’ ’ Macmillan, 1899, pp. 64-65. essential part of the course is his own train¬ ing in actual observation of live plants. A pedagogical mistake that characterizes much botanic field work is the failure to place sufficient emphasis upon the vital, ecologic as¬ pects of the studies. As Trafton3 states, The demand for the study of physiology and ecology are protests against the old methods of looking on plants as lifeless things to be analyzed, classified, and laid away like minerals. It is in¬ sisted that the student shall be taught to look on plants as possessing life just as truly as do ani¬ mals, and as having life problems to solve. All too easily may a trip become a mere dilettante wandering, a grubbing up of plants, a hasty confusion of botanic names, a rude packing of specimens for herbarium or labo¬ ratory purposes. The essence of field work is to observe the plant in its environment, and to reason scientifically from these observations. As Adams4 succinctly remarks. To learn how to study in the field, and not simply to collect, is one of the most important habits which a field naturalist and the ecologist has to acquire. This is one which he must, to a large degree, master alone, without the ready ac¬ cess to assistance, as is usually the case in the laboratory study. It is also a subject about which it is difficult to give useful suggestions, other than those of the most general character. The herbalistic or laboratory routine, no matter how scientific and thoroughgoing, can never be more than a weak and shadowy sub¬ stitute for these fundamental studies of organ¬ ism and environment. Botany is not primarily in a room , it is out-of-doors; the workroom with its equipment and library is an adjunct to nature, and not the reverse. How often one finds botany taught as though the field and woodlands were merely a sort of glorified green¬ house, from which a few “ types ” and “ illus¬ trative specimens ” were to be culled. Some teachers unconsciously create the impression that the plant kingdom exists primarily for the 3 Trafton, G. H., ‘ ‘ Comparison of Methods of Teaching Botany,” School Beview, Yol. 10, 1902 (Feb.), pp. 138-145. 4 Adams, C. C., ‘ 1 Guide to the Study of Animal Ecology,” Macmillan, 1913, p. 37, Chap. 3, deals with field study. 520 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1137 purpose of providing material for paraffin sec¬ tions and balsam mounts. To give college students real knowledge of plant life one must use living plants, and not merely skeletons and sections, no matter how important the latter are in their way. As a concrete illustration of a general course in college botany that is given in an environ¬ ment unusually favorable for field work, the writer will refer to the College of Hawaii, Honolulu. This institution corresponds in general status and organization to the state universities upon the mainland. Honolulu en¬ joys remarkably equable weather throughout the year; there are no storms; no frost, snow, ice or hail; thunder and lightning are very rare. There is no marked dormant season, and very few deciduous plants. The forests are evergreen, and most of the seed-plants have prolonged flowering periods. The climatic con¬ ditions are practically ideal for field work. In the immediate vicinity of the college is a re¬ markable variety of ecologic zones and habi¬ tats, ranging from the abyssal ocean to moun¬ tain peaks of three thousand feet elevation. The botany course referred to is a freshman subject. There are two afternoon periods — two and one half hours each — and one lecture period per week. Customarily one of the after¬ noon periods is used for field work, the other for laboratory work. There are thirty-six weeks in the college year. The total number of field trips made by the class as a whole is about thirty. Students are encouraged to do individual field work and collecting, either on assigned topics, or those of their own choosing. This encourages the botanically-inclined stu¬ dent to develop a taste for original observa¬ tions, and often prepares the way for special studies of genuine scientific merit. The trips usually occur on Monday after¬ noon, as the experience of several years has proved this time to be the most satisfactory in connection with other features of the week’s schedule. This permits the keeping-over of material collected, for the laboratory period, and facilitates a close coordination between field and laboratory work. The official period is two and one half hours, but the distances covered by some of the trips necessitate a con¬ siderably longer time than this, and field pe¬ riods of three or three and one half hours are not uncommon. Occasionally, for the purpose of visiting some distant region of special inter¬ est, a double period is arranged by mutual agreement, and the excursion will occupy a period of five or six hours. On these occasions each student brings a light lunch, which is eaten at some convenient time in the course of the trip. There are several types of excursions, which may be classed as follows : 1. Systematic Collecting. — To study in the field and collect for laboratory examination the plants of a given group or region; e. g., green algse; lichens; lycopods; Leguminosae; strand plants; stream plants; swamp plants. It is almost needless to point out that a certain amount of systematic collecting naturally forms a part of any field trip, irrespective of other objects. 2. Ecologic Studies. — Field studies of well- defined ecologic factors and adaptations; hab¬ itats with strongly marked characteristics; studies of zonation, invasion, competition, suc¬ cession, etc. ; relations of plant organs to envi¬ ronmental factors.5 3. Field Studies of Plant Members and Organs. — Particularly those organs and struc¬ tures that are not adapted to bringing into the laboratory, e. g., plank-roots, buttress roots ; trunk types; bamboo; lianas in situ ; epiphytes in situ; palm inflorescences; and many flowers. 4. Phytogeographic Studies. — Floral zones and regions in relation to their physiographic background; distinctive plants of the coral reef, lagoon, littoral, lowlands, valleys, summit ridges, peaks, etc. 5< poses of the collector if he confines his field work to special groups of plants. A label, if made too small, will interfere with the proper handling of mounted herbarium specimens if it is attached where it should be placed, that is, at the upper left-hand corner of the herbarium sheet. If made too large and complex too much time is involved in properly filling it out. The label now used in the Philippines assumed its present form largely because much of the field work of necessity must be carried on by men with little botanical training. To an inexperienced collector, then, a field label serves as an indicator as to the data that is of the most value, and the data that should he recorded in order that the specimen when finally mounted, shall present as many facts as possible about the plant that are not shown by the dried specimen itself. I know of no serious objection to the use of field labels, and by their use an enormous mass of most valuable information can be recorded in such form that it will be available to other botanists than the collector, data that is not now being recorded at all, or if recorded is, except in special cases, never attached to the mounted herbarium sheets. From long per¬ sonal experience with field labels, and judging from the experience of many others who have used them in the Philippines, it is confidently prophesied that the average collector or botan¬ ist who adopts a logical compact form for re¬ cording his notes on field labels, and who once fully appreciates the advantages and simplicity of the system, will never revert to the now al¬ most universal and decidedly impracticable method of recording notes on the specimen sheets or in a notebook. Objections that have been offered to the use of field labels are not especially valid. In practise the size adopted in the Philippines will not be found to be too great; it is approxi¬ mately the size of generally used pocket note¬ books; it takes up little space on the mounted sheet, and if properly placed does not in the least obscure the mounted specimen, or inter¬ fere with the handling of the herbarium sheets. Scanty or copious notes may be taken at the discretion of the collector. A specially modified form may be adopted for special groups of plants, such as ferns, lichens, fungi, grasses, etc., or for special types of herbaria, such as dendrological collections, agricultural or horticultural plants, etc. The field label is not too complex, and the printed form can be filled out much more rapidly than can a simi¬ lar amount of data be recorded on a blank page. Under all but the most abnormal field conditions the label can readily be filled out when the plant is collected, or soon after the specimens are placed in press and before the collector’s conception of the plant has become dim. To the objection that the labels can not properly be filled out when one is heated and perspiring from field work, I can merely point to the 40,000 specimens in the Javan collec¬ tions of Koorders, and nearly twice this num¬ ber in the Philippine herbarium, all of which were filled out in the field in tropical and not in temperate regions, and often under the most adverse climatic conditions. If it is considered desirable the labels can be numbered serially before commencing field work, thus avoiding the danger of duplicating or of skipping numbers. In all cases, however, the field label should be placed with the speci¬ men it describes in press, and should remain with the specimen under all circumstances and through all processes until the mounted sheet is distributed into the herbarium. In practise it has been found much more convenient to have the labels perforated at the top, that they may readily be removed, and bound into note¬ book form, 100 labels to a book. It sometimes happens that it is desirable that the collector retain his notes in serial form. This is very readily accomplished by utilizing a carbon paper and making two copies of the label, one to be removed from the book and placed with the specimen, one to be retained in the book in its serial place; the original label may be white, and the duplicate on pink or yellow paper. The proper 'place for the field label on the mounted herbarium sheet is in the upper left- hand corner. Here it interferes less with the mounted specimen than in any other position and causes the least trouble in handling the 670 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1141 mounted sheets. It should be attached merely by gumming the lower surface of the upper left-hand corner of the label, and under no circumstances should the entire back of the label be pasted to the sheet. It frequently happens that it is necessary or desirable to re¬ cord additional data on the back of the label, and again, if merely attached by the upper left-hand corner, the label can then be lifted or turned back should it cover any portion of the specimen that it is necessary or desirable to examine. The advantages of a comprehensive system of field labels are very great, and their use should appeal to the most conservative botan¬ ist. The addition of the field label to the mounted sheet does not detract from the ap¬ pearance of the mounted specimen, it supplies a proper place for recording data regarding the plant itself that otherwise, if recorded at all, must be abbreviated and crowded on the small herbarium label or laboriously copied on the sheet itself, and if consistently used will preserve in a form available for other con¬ temporary workers as well as for future bot¬ anists a mass of information regarding the plants that is now not being recorded at all, or if recorded, is rarely attached to the actual mounted specimens and ultimately becomes lost. E. D. Merrill Bureau or Science, Manila, P. I. NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES The autumn meeting of the National Acad¬ emy of Sciences will be held on Monday, Tues¬ day and Wednesday, November 13, 14 and 15, 1916, in the new buildings of the Massachu¬ setts Institute of Technology, adjoining the Charles River Basin in Cambridge, with head¬ quarters across the Basin at the Harvard Club, 374 Commonwealth Avenue, in the Back Bay district of Boston. Hotels Puritan and Somerset, in the same block with the Harvard Club on Commonwealth Avenue, will be con¬ venient for members accompanied by their families. Luncheon will be provided for mem¬ bers and ladies accompanying them at River- bank Court, adjoining the Institute buildings on Monday and Tuesday, and at several of the neighboring scientific institutions on Wednes¬ day. It has been found necessary to postpone the William Ellery Hale lectures, previously an¬ nounced to be given by Professor E. G. Conklin on Monday evening and Tuesday afternoon, November 13 and 14. The Monday evening lecture will be replaced by an introductory ad¬ dress by President W. H. Welch on the Forma¬ tion of the National Research Council at the request of the President of the United States and a lecture by Dr. S. W. Stratton, director of the National Bureau of Standards, on the Target Practise in the Navy and some of the Research Problems involved, illustrated with moving pictures. The Tuesday afternoon session will be devoted to reports by members of the National Research Council. At the close of the Monday evening session a reception will be held by President and Mrs. Maclaurin of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and President and Mrs. Lowell of Harvard University, in the General Library where a scientific exhibit will be displayed. On Wednesday there will be visits to scientific institutions in and near Boston. The local committee consists of W. M. Davis, chairman, W. T. Councilman, A. A. Noyes and E. C. Pickering. The program of papers to be read at the meeting is as follows: Monday, November 13 From 2.00 to 3.30: Welcome by President Maclaurin, of the Massa¬ chusetts Institute of Technology. Raymond Pearl, Maine Agricultural Experiment Station. Some Effects of the Continued Adminis¬ tration of Alcohol to the Domestic Fowl, with spe¬ cial Reference to the Progeny. (20 minutes, lan¬ tern.) Edward S. Morse, Salem, Mass. Protoconch of Solemya. (10 minutes.) Alfred G. Mayer, Marine Laboratory, Carnegie Institution. Further Studies of Nerve Conduc¬ tion. (10 minutes, lantern.) E. G. Conklin, Princeton University. The Share of Egg and Sperm in Heredity. (10 minutes, lan¬ tern.) November 10, 1916] SCIENCE 671 Jacques Loeb, Rockefeller Institute. Diffusion and Secretion. (12 minutes.) Lafayette B. Mendel and S. E. Jordan, Yale University. Some Interrelations between Diet, Growth and the Chemical Composition of the Body. (12 minutes.) Henry L. Abbot, Cambridge, Mass. Hydrology of the Isthmus of Panama. John M. Clarke, State Museum, Albany. The Strand and the Undertow. W. M. Davis, Harvard University. Sublacus- trine Glacial Erosion in Montana. Scientific Exhibit in the General Library, from 3.30 to 5.00. From 8.15 to 9.15: President W. H. Welch, Johns Hopkins Univer¬ sity. The Formation of the National Research Council at the Request of the President of the United States. (15 minutes.) Dr. S. W. Stratton, Director of the National Bureau of Standards, Washington. Target Prac¬ tice in the Navy and Some of the Research Prob¬ lems Involved; Illustrated with Moving Pictures. (45 minutes.) Reception and Scientific Exhibit in the General Library, from 9.15 to 10.30. Tuesday, November 14 From 10.00 to 12.30: Edwin H. Hall, Harvard University. Electric Conduction in Metals. (20 minutes, lantern.) Edward B. Rosa, National Bureau of Standards. The Silver Voltameter as an International Stand¬ ard. (15 minutes.) R. W. Wood, Johns Hopkins University. One-di¬ mensional Gases and the Reflection of Molecules. Series in Resonance Spectra. (10 minutes, lan¬ tern.) Elihu Thomson, Swampscott, Mass. Inferences Concerning Auroras. (20 minutes.) A. A. Michelson, University of Chicago. Report of Progress in Experiments for Measuring the Rigidity of the Earth. (10 minutes.) The Laws of Elastico-viscous Flow. (10 minutes.) C. G. Abbot, Smithsonian Institution. On the Preservation of Knowledge. (5 minutes.) Franz Boas, Columbia University. Further Evi¬ dence Regarding the Instability of Human Types. (20 minutes.) Ross G. Harrison, Yale University. Transplan¬ tation of Limbs. (20 minutes, lantern.) Chas. B. Davenport, Station for Experimental Evolution, Carnegie Institution. Heredity of Stature. (20 minutes, lantern.) From 2.30 to 5.00 : Professor George E. Hale, Chairman of the Na¬ tional Research Council. The Work of the Na¬ tional Research Council; Recent Observations of Organized Science in England and France. (45 minutes. ) Lieutenant Colonel George O. Squier, Chief of Aviation, U. S. Army. Scientific Research for National Defense, as Illustrated by the Problems of Aviation. (45 minutes.) Professor Arthur A. Noyes, Massachusetts In¬ stitute of Technology. The Nitrogen Problem in War and in Agriculture. (30 minutes.) Discussion of the Work of the National Re¬ search Council. SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS A meeting to plan a memorial to the late Sir William Ramsay was held at University College, London, on October 31. After the meeting, the director of the University Col¬ lege Chemical Laboratories, Professor <7. Nor¬ man Collie, F.R.S., delivered a memorial lec¬ ture on u The Scientific Work of Sir William Ramsay.” We are informed by a correspondent who has just returned from Germany that the pub¬ lished statement that Dr. A. von Wassermann, of the University of Berlin, has succeeded Ehrlich as head of the Institute for Experi¬ mental Therapeutics at Frankfort-on-Main is incorrect and that Professor Nolle of Berne, holds this position temporarily. Professor William W. Payne, director of the Elgin Observatory, formerly professor of mathematics and astronomy and director of the Goodsell Observatory of Carleton College, and the founder of Popular Astronomy , was granted the degree of doctor of science by Carleton College on October 13, on the occa¬ sion of the celebration of the fiftieth anniver¬ sary of the founding of the college. Professor W. A. Noyes, director of the chemical laboratory of the University of Illi¬ nois, will lecture on “ The Electron Theory ” as part of the program of the Franklin Insti¬ tute, Philadelphia, for the year 1916-17. On October 26, Professor C. J. Keyser de¬ livered an address before the assembly of Le- 672 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1141 land Stanford University on “Ways to Pass the Walls of the World.” On October 27, he addressed the university meeting of the Uni¬ versity of California on “ The Ideals that are Most Worthy of Loyalty.” During the current half-year Professor Iveyser is giving instruc¬ tion in the University of California in ex¬ change of work with Professor M. W. Haskell, who is lecturing in Columbia University. It is reported that Lieutenant-colonel J. George Adami, professor of pathology in Mc¬ Gill University, Montreal, who held the posi¬ tion abroad of official Canadian recorder of medical history of the war, has resigned and will soon return to Montreal. Mr. John E. Mellish, who has been at the Yerkes Observatory for the past fifteen months as volunteer research assistant, will take charge of the well-equipped private observa¬ tory at Leetonia, Ohio, of Mr. Elmer Harrald. Walter D. Harris, formerly assistant pro¬ fessor of physics at Syracuse University, has resigned his position with the United States Bureau of Chemistry to take an active inter¬ est in the Valhalla Co., Chicago, manufac¬ turers of electro-chemical machinery. Mr. E. W. Iverr has resigned his professor¬ ship in mechanical engineering at Louisiana State University to take up commercial work with the Cuba Cane Sugar Corporation, Havana, Cuba. Dr. Leverett D. Bristol, for two years pro¬ fessor of bacteriology and hygiene and director of the city public health laboratory at the Uni¬ versity of North Dakota, has accepted the newly created Boston dispensary fellowship in public health in the department of preven¬ tive medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston. Sir Ernest Shackelton, the Antarctic ex¬ plorer, arrived in New Orleans, on November 3, on the steamer Parismina, from Colon, and departed several hours later for San Francisco, on his way to rescue ten members of the Shackelton party on the west side of the Ant¬ arctic continent. He expected to sail from San Francisco for Wellington, New Zealand, on November 8, going thence to Dunedin, where he and a rescue expedition will sail for the Antarctic on the Aurora. Lieutenant-colonel E. Alexander Mearns, U. S. A., died in Washington, D. C., on No¬ vember 1, in his sixty-first year. He was one of the founders of the American Ornithol¬ ogists’ Union, and a member of the Roosevelt East African expedition. Dr. Mearns was an indefatigable collector of natural history specimens all his life, and was the author of many contributions to zoology and botany. Theodore Newell Ely, engineer and re¬ tired chief of motive power of the Pennsyl¬ vania railroad, died on October 28, at his home at Bryn Mawr, Pa., aged seventy years. Dr. Ely established a scientific department in the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1875. He had re¬ ceived the honorary degree of master of arts from Yale University and the doctorate of science from Hamilton College. In addition to membership in the national engineering societies, he was a member of the American Philosophical Society and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Phillip H. Cary, a graduate of Oberlin College who had nearly completed the work for the degree of doctor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota, where he was spe¬ cializing in paleontology and stratigraphy, died on October 27. Last January, when the call came for more men in the southwestern oil fields, he left his graduate work tempo¬ rarily and was rapidly establishing a reputa¬ tion as an oil geologist in Oklahoma. Professor G. C. J. Vosmaer, of the Uni¬ versity of Leiden, known to all zoologists for his valuable contributions on the morphology and classification of sponges, has died at the age of sixty-two years. The death is announced of the distinguished psychiatrist Dr. Magnan, honorary chief phys¬ ician of the Asile Sainte-Anne at Paris. The twenty-fifth annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, in affilia¬ tion with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, will occur on Wed- November 10, 1916] SCIENCE 673 nesday to Saturday, December 27 to 30, in New York City. By invitation of the psychol¬ ogists of Columbia University the sessions will be held at that institution. It is proposed to hold the regular meetings in Teachers College, 120th Street, between Broadway and Amster¬ dam Avenue. As headquarters the Hotel Mar¬ seilles at 103d Street and Broadway has been selected. This meeting marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the association’s foundation. An appropriate program commemorating the event will be held on Thursday afternoon, December 28. The annual banquet will also take place on Thursday, at 7 p.m., in the Hotel Marseilles. The program of after-dinner speakers for this occasion is in the hands of the anniversary committee. The president’s address on “The Laws of Relative Fatigue” will be given by Professor Raymond Dodge, of Wesleyan University, at 8 p.m. on December 27, in Schermerhorn Hall. It will be followed by the annual business meeting of the asso¬ ciation, and a smoker in the Psychological Laboratory. A joint session with Section L (Education) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science is planned for Friday morning, December 29. The program with additional notes on the meetings will be distributed to members early in December. The formation of the Association of Brit¬ ish Chemical Manufacturers has been noted in Science. The association, which has been joined by the leading chemical firms of Great Britain, is now installed in offices at 166, Piccadilly. Sir Charles Bedford has been ap¬ pointed general secretary, and Sir William Pearce, M.P., honorary treasurer. The chief objects of the association are: (1) To promote cooperation between British chemical manu¬ facturers. (2) To place before government the views of the association upon matters affecting the industry. (3) To develop tech¬ nical organization and promote industrial re¬ search and efficiency. (4) To facilitate the development of new British industries and the extension of existing ones. (5) To im¬ prove the methods of education in chemistry. (6) To finance researches undertaken in the interest of the industry. (7) To found scholar¬ ships or lectureships for the promotion of its objects. The financial strength of the asso¬ ciation is guaranteed by the fixing of the mini¬ mum subscription at 25 guineas and the maxi¬ mum at 250 guineas. The affairs of the asso¬ ciation are to be managed by a council of 20, 16 elected and 4 coopted. The New York Medical Journal gives the following statistics in regard to the death rate in Germany which, after reaching the low record of 14 per mille in 1913, has followed a steadily ascending curve during the war. The figures for 1914 were 16.1 per mille, in 1915 there was an increase to 19.7, and the record for the first seven months of 1916 is 16. These statistics include civilians and soldiers. In¬ fant mortality, however, continues to follow a descending curve. The number of deaths per centum new births, after showing a slight increase from 14.1 in 1912 and 1913, to 15.6 ' . in 1914, dropped to 14.5 in the first year of the war. For the last year the percentage has been 12.9. The rate of growth of trees in woodlots and in plantations in Central New York is being studied by the junior class of the New York State College of Forestry under the direction of Professor J. Fred Baker, director of forest investigations. Soil and climatic conditions in central New York are unexcelled for main¬ tenance and rapid forest growth. In fact, trees grow like weeds in New York and there is not a square foot in the state where there is any soil at all which will not maintain a good forest growth. The so-called virgin forests of the Adirondacks are growing to-day at the rate of about 200 board feet per acre per year. Properly managed forests, such as those of the Black Forests of southwestern Germany, are growing at the rate of from a 1,000 to 1,200 board feet per acre per year. Reasonable use of farm woodlots and the planting of the right kinds of forest trees on forest soils means the production of excellent crops of timber and that within a ‘comparatively short period of time. The planting of trees along the high¬ ways of the state is being studied by Professor H. R. Francis, of the Landscape Extension Service of the College of Forestry at Syr a- 674 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1141 cuse. Field studies and plans have already been prepared for portions of the main high¬ way between Utica and Albany and the state highway between Utica and Syracuse is now being carefully studied. It is not the idea of Professor Francis to line the high¬ ways with straight rows of trees. Natural vistas showing beauty spots away from the highways will be left open, and it will be sug¬ gested that other vistas be made so that the highways will not alone be well planted with trees and shrubs, but there will be more nearly a park-like effect with opportunities of seeing the beauty of the country on either side. Pro¬ fessor Francis is urging the use of native trees and shrubs, taking advantage in so far as possible of the material on the ground. It is expected that these studies of highway plant¬ ing will result in a publication showing just how definite areas of highway may be treated to best advantage. This will supplement a bulletin on “ Suggestions for Street Tree Planting ” which has already been given wide distribution by the college. United States patents have been issued to Dr. Clifford Richardson on an improved “bituminous substance” and on the process by which this product is manufactured. Sim¬ ilar patents have also been granted in Canada, Great Britain, France and Italy. It is said that these are the first patents covering a product and process involving the introduc¬ tion of colloidal matter into bitumens of all types. According to the inventor, he obtains “ an increased degree of body or stability in these bituminous substances, by means of the addition to and intimate and uniform disper¬ sion through the bituminous substance of a proper proportion of a substance in the state of a disperse colloid. The process consists in the introduction of clay in the form of a col¬ loidal aqueous paste and combining this paste with the bitumen in such a way that when the water is subsequently driven off, the bitumen forms the continuous phase of the colloidal material. The products resulting from this method of incorporating clay in colloidal form with bitumen has markedly different prop¬ erties from products into which the mineral matter is introduced in the form of a dry powder. The products made by the Richard¬ son method range all the way from materials resembling vulcanized rubber to plastic, but at the same time very stable mixtures suitable for paving and many other uses. The Journal of the American Medical Asso¬ ciation reports that an institute for vaccines, bacteriology and chemistry at Buenos Aires was recently inaugurated. Penna, chief of the pub¬ lic health service, Malbran, chief of the bac- teriologic service, and various professors with university chairs in these specialties, all de¬ livered addresses. Magnin, chief of the chem¬ ical department, reported that already he had researches under way which might aid mate¬ rially in remedying the scarcity of imported drugs. A number can be made and many are now being made in the workrooms connected with his department. An isolated pavilion has been set apart for a training school in applied chemistry. The national board of health has had a chemical department since 1880, but this new triple institute is said to be equipped for the science and needs of to-morrow as well as to-day. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS The Carborundum Company of Niagara Falls, N. Y., will construct an administration building on lands of the Niagara Falls Power Company on the Niagara River front. It is proposed to tender the use of the present offices to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which has decided to establish a research labo¬ ratory at Niagara Falls. Charles Gilman Hyde, professor of sani¬ tary engineering in the University of Cali¬ fornia, has been appointed acting dean of its college of civil engineering, to serve during the present year because of the absence on account of illness of Professor Charles Der- leth, Jr. The following former members of the Medico-Chirurgical College faculty have been duly elected members of the faculty of under- November 10, 1916] SCIENCE 675 graduate medicine in the University of Penn¬ sylvania: Dr. Joseph McFarland, professor of pathology; Dr. John C. Heisler, professor of anatomy; George H. Meeker, Sc.D., LL.D., professor of chemistry; Dr. Horatio C. Wood, Jr., professor of pharmacology and thera¬ peutics, and Dr. Seneca Egbert, professor of hygiene. Dr. D. D. Leib, instructor in mathematics at the Sheffield Scientific School, Yale Uni¬ versity, has been appointed assistant professor of mathematics and physics at the Connecticut College for Women. Dr. V. H. Young, formerly of the botany department of the University of Wisconsin, has been appointed assistant professor of botany in the State University of Iowa. He takes charge of the work in plant physiology and mycology. Dr. Eugene P. Wightman has been ap¬ pointed professor of chemistry at Richmond College to succeed Professor Eugene C. Bing¬ ham. Dr. Garnett Ryland, who was acting professor of chemistry at Richmond College last year, has returned to Georgetown College, Georgetown, Ky., after a year’s leave of absence. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE SCIENTIFIC APPOINTMENTS UNDER THE GOVERNMENT To the Editor of Science: Discussion of the President’s scientific appointments may tend perceptibly toward politics, which is to be regretted in a scientific journal. Nevertheless I am in entire accord with the views of your correspondent “ R ” in last week’s number, with the exception of two lines, which I take leave to criticize. No doubt the Coast and Geodetic Survey is one of the most important of our scientific bureaus, and one of which we can be most proud. The men at the head of it, as described in his most interesting article in your issue of July 14 by Dr. T. C. Mendenhall (not excluding himself, as he modestly does), form a very distinguished company, and we all wish that the quality may be kept up. I at least wish that the President had seen fit to appoint a superin¬ tendent whose name could be found in “ Who’s Who in America.” Nevertheless I am in¬ formed by those competent to know that the present superintendent is a very efficient head, and we know that many of the scientific bu¬ reaus have been at times under the direction of non-scientific persons who have succeeded admirably as administrators. Several of them are now under the direction of men who have not received the blue ribbon of election to the National Academy of Sciences, although some of their subordinates have done so. Even the Coast Survey was once under a chief clerk from another department. Personally I should be glad to see a geodesist at the head of the survey, which has, if I mistake not, never been the case. Even Dr. Mendenhall does not men¬ tion that one of the things that made the Coast and Geodetic Survey most famous in Europe was the remarkable work of Dr. Hay- ford in connection with the subject of isostasy, so that it appears that we have geodesists in this country, as well as hydrographers. Personally it is no more repugnant to me to have a scientific bureau headed by a non¬ scientist than to have a university under the presidency of a person who is not a distin¬ guished scholar, a contingency that is not un¬ known. Sometimes this works very well, as in the case of the late Seth Low, who converted Columbia from a provincial college into a great university. To be sure it is whispered that the power behind the throne was his pres¬ ent successor, but the case is a noteworthy one. Believing, as I do, that nothing is of more importance than learning, and in learn¬ ing, than science, I do not wish to minimize the importance of the selection of suitable heads of learned and scientific institutions. I come now to the matter which prompted the writing of this communication, and I take the liberty of being somewhat personal. I wish to protest against the characterization of “ the recently organized and mobilized aggregation of assorted geniuses from which the President and the country at large are expecting so much.” As a member of the Naval Consulting Board I am getting very tired of such sneers, and do not expect them from my scientific colleagues. I was named for that board by 676 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1141 the president of a society which I am proud to represent, and my colleagues, with two ex¬ ceptions, were named in a similar manner. Can your anonymous correspondent suggest a better way to select members of such a board? I was not altogether pleased with the list of societies selected, and did not hesitate to say so. But I did not for that reason refuse to serve. None of the members of this board claims to be a genius, assorted or otherwise. I do not discuss the question whether Mr. Edison is the most wonderful man the country has ever produced. I know he invented the phonograph and the incandescent lamp, which is enough to have made him famous, even if he had then stood pat, like some others. But I know that he is a fertile and tireless worker, and I am glad to serve with him. During the past year I have attended nine or ten meetings of the board, at an expense to myself of over five per cent, of a year’s salary as a professor, and at a still greater sacrifice of time, which, like the money, I can ill afford. But I have thought the sacrifice justified if I could be of some small use to the country at large. I have worked occasionally before for the United States government, and I do not expect pay — thanks it is not possible to get — but I do not expect to incur jibes from fellow-scientists. This is an age of cooperation, and I believe science is at the dawn of a great epoch. We all need to pull together. Under the circum¬ stances I accordingly feel justified in calling upon “ R ” for an apology, disclaimer or dis¬ avowal — the word is unimportant — either in print, under his anonymity, which I do not ask him to break, or in private over his own name, which will be treated confidentially. In case I have made a mistake, and the National Research Council is intended, the apology should be addressed to Dr. George E. Hale, but the principle is the same. Arthur Gordon Webster October 23, 1916 PREPARATION FOR MEDICINE During the past two years I have become convinced that there is a very typical course of college study through which prospective medical students are almost invariably passed. This conviction is based upon personal ex¬ perience, recent enough to be very vivid, and upon conversations with many medical stu¬ dents. Assuming that a man has selected his med¬ ical school, it is a very simple matter for his adviser to pick up a medical school catalogue and indicate that so much physics, so much chemistry, so much biology and such and such experience in French and German will be required in order for the student to enter the chosen school. These requirements can usually be met in two years of college work. Whether or not a college degree is necessary, the fact remains that the majority of the men in our best schools hold such degrees, and have therefore had at their disposal two extra training years. It is with these two years that I am concerned, for if they have been prop¬ erly administered they can be of vast value, and almost always they are completely misdi¬ rected. A typical premedical student usually takes a year of physics, two years of inorganic chemistry, a course in organic chemistry with very deficient laboratory work, and finally a year of biology. These courses, as a rule, more than fulfil the requirements for admission to the selected medical school, and the work as arranged occupies about two and a half years of the college course. It is taken with the usual classical subjects leading to an A.B. degree. The remaining year and a half are carefully directed toward medi¬ cine by filling them with biology! Those of us who have recollections of our college ideas of medical study will agree that there was a mysterious omnipresent picture of human dissection which occupied the entire foreground of our conception, and behind it, rather remote, a surgical background which we might some day reach. Elementary biology with its varied dissections of lower forms fitted the picture beautifully, as did histology, embryology and finally text-book courses in human anatomy and physiology. The pros¬ pective medical student finds such courses very pleasant.. They are not difficult. He works much harder upon them than upon his November 10, 1916] SCIENCE 677 other studies and his success confirms him in his belief that medicine is his proper career. I know that courses in experimental biology and plant physiology are offered, which de¬ mand the immediate use and observation of physico-chemical facts. It might be main¬ tained that such work is very direct and valu¬ able training for medicine but I can not agree with such an attitude unless the courses in question are preceded by more fundamental physics, chemistry and physical chemistry than is now required for medical school admission. Experimental biological courses of this type do not, in my experience, reach many men. The majority have been concerned with what amounts to elementary comparative anatomy and histology, work which meets the needs neither of medicine nor of the medical school and which, though it has an educational value of high order, does not lead to the definite scientific specialization which modern medi¬ cine demands. A medical student of to-day must have a larger understanding of physics, of chemistry, and of mathematics than is pic¬ tured in the admission requirements of the school catalogues. It is interesting to many who have had a close view of medical education and who have observed the direction of medical school de¬ velopment since the four-year course became general, to follow the gradual absorption of hours which had been given to different branches of anatomy, by physiological chem¬ istry, physiology and pharmacology. The day when anatomy was the only real laboratory study is long past, and it is perhaps not an ex¬ treme view to hold that gross morbid anatomy — dissection — will be still further cut in many schools during the next ten years. While this fact is part of the ordinary ob¬ servation of all who have a historical view of the gradual stuffing and squeezing of the med¬ ical course, it has evidently not become a pos¬ session of the average college adviser who di¬ rects the student to the very door of medicine. He has a keen recollection of the struggles of his own contemporaries as they plunged along through a solid old Scotch course in gross anatomy and he thinks that every medical stu¬ dent must prepare for the same fate. It is true that a thorough course in comparative anatomy together with such desultory work in human anatomy as college courses offer, and, indeed, all biological studies, may make a man somewhat more efficient in his medical ana¬ tomical course. But the trouble is that the medical schedules have changed and anatomy now takes at best a quarter instead of almost the entire working laboratory time. The stu¬ dent prepared as I have outlined, and it is the usual preparation, finds and readily acknowl¬ edges that he has taken the correct path to equip himself for a career in anatomy if he wishes to specialize in this subject, but he finds too that he has been thoroughly cursed by wasted hours if he heads out into the many other fields which make up medicine. I may seem to have indicated a belief that human physiology and human anatomy have no place in the college course, but this is not my intention. There can be no doubt that the more widely these subjects are taught the better. Let them be emphasized increasingly for all who are not to study medicine. The prospective medical student, however, must lay his lines in harder places. In my experience there are not many men, who at the end of their first two medical school years, look upon anatomy as their most difficult course. True, it may have required more hours of study than any other subject, but this was due rather to bulkiness than to the character of the work. Just as in college the ordinary man regards biology as easier than physics, so in the medical school, the average student finds the purely observational task which anatomy represents far easier than physiology or physiological chemistry. Cer¬ tainly with the steady encroachment of physico-chemical material it is only a matter of a very short time when this statement will be true with even greater emphasis than it is to-day. There is only one line of safety, then, for the man who plans to take medicine. He must prepare on the side of physics and chem¬ istry, taking as much of these two subjects as his college course will permit. He will nat¬ urally take enough mathematics to keep 678 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1141 abreast of his progress in physics. It is by these three staunch aids alone that the trio of physiology, physiological chemistry and phar¬ macology may be successfully faced. It may be objected that the man who sacri¬ fices his biological training — and by this I mean takes no more than the present minimum required by the medical school of his selection — while he may find himself in better shape for physiology, etc., will not be better off in his medicine and surgery later on. By the same voice we shall hear that general practise does not need this scientific underpinning. I do not know what the training of that vague per¬ son, the u practical family doctor,” should be, but I do know that he will make poor shift to graduate well from the modern medical school unless he heed his early training, and poorer shift still to keep up with current medical literature later on if he has failed to appre¬ ciate the direction in which medicine is grow¬ ing. The constant establishment of surgical and medical research laboratories with the conse¬ quent injection of scientific methods into the practical branches, is a matter of general com¬ ment, and emphasizes the large influences which are shaping medicine into a science. It is possible that most men who advise college premedical students are somewhat aware of the facts which I have tried to bring out in this paper, but feel strongly that such early and emphatic specialization as has been advo¬ cated may have a narrowing influence. If this be their attitude they are not consistent in permitting wide excursion into anatomical biology with the idea of better equipment for medicine later on, and it is against the futility of such a course that I protest. It is often hard to point out to students the utility of subjects, essentially somewhat ab¬ stract, in their relation to medicine. This is especially true when one is confronted by the fact that medical school catalogues do not advise the prospective student to fulfil the given requirements, and then if possible to ex¬ tend his course in the directions I have indi¬ cated. Yet there is no doubt that the man well grounded in these fundamental subjects. which become very inaccessible after the med¬ ical school is once entered, possesses an ad¬ vantage over his less fortunate fellows which can be turned to most vivid and permanent account. Cecil K. Drinker Department op Physiology, Harvard Medical School THE AURORAL DISPLAY OF AUGUST 26 To the Editor of Science: The notes by Dr. Nutting and others in Science on the Aurora of August 26 have been read with much interest by the writer. None of these, however, mentions the appearance of this phe¬ nomenon from a point as far south as Wash¬ ington. On the evening in question, I was sitting on the front porch (facing north) of my residence here. It had been quite a warm day and in the north was a heavy bank of clouds in which lightning had been playing all through the twilight and early evening; the sunset glow seemed to be unduly prolonged back of this bank of clouds. My attention was first called to what I took to be a small, faintly luminous cloud, about the shape of a mirror image of the map of Nevada, which covered a portion of the constellation of the Great Dipper. The length of this supposed cloud was about equal to that of the handle of the Dipper, with the longer axis at right angles to the handle. After persisting for some time this little patch moved away rather rapidly to the west and disappeared, only to reappear in its original position after the lapse of several minutes. Meanwhile, the seemingly prolonged sunset glow above the bank of clouds in the north had become a fringe of pale steady light, apparently extending out over the edge of the cloud a considerable distance. While the small patch of light over the Dipper soon disappeared again, the glow back of the cloud bank persisted for a long time. No distinct color was observed, the light being a uniform faint white; no streaming or other movement was observed, except that of the small patch of light already described. F. Alex. McDermott Washington, D. C., October 26 November 10, 1916] SCIENCE 679 The auroral display of August 26 described by Professor Nutting and others in recent numbers of Science, I observed from Lucas- ville, 10 miles north of the Ohio River in Scioto County, Ohio. This is in practically the same latitude as Washington and much farther south than the observations recorded to date of writing. It took the form of a bright, white, uniform illumination of the en¬ tire northern heavens, which extended in de¬ creasing intensity almost to the zenith. Al¬ though watched intermittently for about an hour between 8.30 and 9.30 o’clock, no color bands, streamers, curtains, moving light waves, pulsations or other phenomena were observed, nor was any tendency to increase or diminish in brightness detected. The same display was witnessed by many lake-shore campers at Cleveland, and was noted by Cleveland papers the next day. The diffused character of the light over the lake and its greenish color were particularly noted. J. E. Hyde Western Reserve University To the Editor of Science: In connection with Professor Nutting’s vivid account in a recent number of Science (p. 496) of a re¬ markable auroral display witnessed by him at Lake Douglas, Michigan, it is perhaps of in¬ terest to record that the same or a sim.lar dis¬ play was observed that identical evening in a region as remote as the Glacier National Park, Montana. At about 10: p.m., August 26, while Mr. E. H. Dole and myself were returning from the Many Glacier Hotel to the nearby Teepee Camp on Lake McDermott, our attention was attracted by a peculiar bright glow quite low on the horizon in the eastern sky, as though from the lights of a great city. We were much puzzled by it until we had emerged far enough from the disturbing glare of the electric lights to discover that a similar, though weaker glow was in the west, and indeed that an evanescent shimmering arch of light extended not only clear above us, but well past the zenith into the southern sector of the heavens. Unfortu¬ nately our view to the north was effectually obstructed by the gloomy bulk of Altyn Peak and the canyon wall, but by this time the auroral nature of the phenomena was evident to us. While too shut in by the narrow valley to secure the full enjoyment of the display which so enthralled Professor Nutting, that which we saw seemed sufficiently remarkable. The light extended over the sky and seemingly diffused through the whole upper atmosphere in so general a glow that here also its real bril¬ liance was difficult to appreciate. Quavering streams of light — an everchanging sheen, some¬ times brighter here, sometimes brighter there — never uniform — no simile could be more de¬ lightfully suggestive than Professor Nutting’s allusion to the photogenic play of the merid¬ ional bands of Ctenophores as seen in darkened water. The same comparison forced itself into my own mind at the time. S. Stillman Berry Redlands, California, October 19 To the Editor of Science: I was much in¬ terested to read in the current number (Oc¬ tober 20) of Science the records of places at which the auroral display of August 26, 1916, was seen. All five of the notes in this issue re¬ port observation of the display at points to the east and northeast of the locality reported by Professor Nutting in Science of October 6. Following the suggestion of Professor Baker, I wish to record having observed the same phenomenon during the same evening at Amery, Wis., fifty miles northeast of St. Paul, Minn. The same remarkable features so well described by several writers were in evidence — the ever-changing, ebbing and swelling pulsa¬ tions and the shimmering streamers of light, fading and intensifying at the same time in different parts of the heavens — but no marked exhibition of color so far as noticed. The cen¬ ter of the display was near the zenith and practically the whole sky was occupied except at times a rather narrow indefinite band or strip in the south. Mr. Paul B. Sears, also a member of this department, informs me that on the same night he observed the display at Madison in north¬ eastern Nebraska. The phenomenon exhibited 680 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1141 practically the same features in this locality as in Wisconsin and Michigan. This information may be of interest as ex¬ tending considerably the recorded area over which the display was visible. Wilmer G. Stover Ohio State University, October 24 To the Editor of Science: I have been greatly interested in the descriptions of the auroral display of August 26, and would like to add a word to what you have already pub¬ lished. I observed the phenomenon at Ephraim, in Door County, Wisconsin, be¬ tween ten o’clock and midnight; other ob¬ servers at the same place reported to me that it lasted until long after midnight. The de¬ scription of the display as given by your con¬ tributors corresponds in the main with my own observation, but with one difference: I saw two distinct color regions in addition to the white pulsation described by all the others. At the zenith the color was white, but in the east there was a region that changed several times from pure white to a brilliant rose color, while in the north there were streamers of deli¬ cate green. The universal, shadowless illu¬ mination was very remarkable, as was also the display in the southern sky, where the streamers reached almost to the horizon. John C. Hessler The James Millikin University October 21 To the Editor of Science : I have been in¬ terested in the reports of the auroral display of last August, by Professor Nutting and others. The aurora was seen with all the brilliancy and variation of colors described by Professor Nutting, at Lake Minnetonka, near Minneapo¬ lis, Minn., on the 26th of August. We were out in a boat, and, when well out in the lake, there appeared what at first seemed to be the glow thrown on the eastern sky by a fire. The light was not as red as that pro¬ duced by a fire, and there were no clouds in the sky where the light first appeared. As we watched it, it soon became evident that the light was not from a fire but that of an aurora. It appeared a little to the north of east down near the horizon, gradually rising and forming an arch across the northern sky a little higher than is usual for auroras in Minnesota. Then another band appeared below the first and lower down in the north. These bands were not as definite as in most of the auroras that I have seen in Minnesota, nor did they show the vertical bands of light, but the diffuse light seemed concentrated in these two regions. Then more rapidly the light mounted up¬ wards and as it reached almost to the zenith there suddenly was formed what seemed a vor¬ tex of scintillating iridescent light. Pausing here for a moment the light continued to ex¬ tend on to the southern half of the sky until it reached nearly half way to the southern horizon, or until nearly all of the sky was lighted with this constantly changing light in bands, and areas. The rapidity of change both in distribution as well as in color of the light was fully as marked as that described by Professor Nut¬ ting. We watched the display until ten o’clock, and others said that it was even more bril¬ liant later. H. B. Latimer University of Nebraska, October 23 To the Editor of Science: Among the re¬ ports on the unusual auroral display of Au¬ gust 26, I see none from farther west than Michigan. It might be of interest to readers of Science to know that this display was visi¬ ble in all its splendor at Winton, Minnesota, north of Duluth, and was very much as de¬ scribed by Professor Nutting, except for the lack of color which he describes. E. E. Hudelson University of Missouri, October 26 To the Editor of Science: Unfortunately, I was not further west than Brainerd, Minne¬ sota, on August 26, but that is in the same latitude and five hundred miles west of Lake Douglas, in Michigan, where Professor Nut¬ ting saw the' auroral display. These displays are common occurrences in the wintry months in this locality, often being brilliant, but in November 10, 1916] SCIENCE 681 recent years none compared with this one. Together several of us observed it until almost twelve o’clock, but its greatest brilliancy and intensity was seen before eleven. Among the striking things was the rapidity of the move¬ ments, the brilliancy at the zenith, and the distance to which the bands of light extended into the south. It seemed as though the light originated near us, so bright was the display at the horizon in the north. The color was variable from light-green to light-yellow and gray. Carl Zapffe Brainerd, Minn., October 25 To the Editor of Science: Since the ac¬ counts of the aurora of August 26 in Science for October 6 and 20 covered only an area from Michigan eastward, it will be of interest to know that it was observed at least as far west as the Front Range of the Rockies in northern Montana. We were camped at the time a few miles east of the old postoffice of Saypo or west of Chateau in Teton County, some eight miles east of the mountain front. The phe¬ nomena here were very much like those de¬ scribed by others. I give them from memory. As the brilliant, yellow, diffused light of sunset faded in an absolutely cloudless sky, an arch of white light became visible extending across the sky from east to west, perhaps 60° from the northern horizon. North of this were three or four broad vertical bands of white, the lower ends somewhat fringed as they are so often shown in illustrations, but I noticed no streamer-like motion. The arch slowly moved southward, mounting in the sky. Between nine and nearly eleven I saw nothing further of the aurora, but when we looked at it again, shortly before eleven the east and west arch was only some 20°-30° above the south horizon and all the rest of the sky to the north of it was aflame with white lights, which, as I remember it, waved and flickered irreg¬ ularly, but incessantly from all sides towards the zenith. A few minutes later all traces of the auroral glow seemed to have disap¬ peared. Though I saw only white lights myself, some people whom we spoke to next day mentioned a pink glow. Marcus I. Goldman U. S. Geological Survey, Washington, D. C., October 31 To the Editor of Science : It is interesting to note that the auroral display of August 26 was visible in southwestern Montana. Owing to the prevailing atmospheric conditions it ap¬ peared to be of a different character there. The writer and a companion, being engaged in geologic work in the Beartooth Mountains under the direction of the University of Chi¬ cago, were at that time camped just below the rim of one of the high plateaus on the north¬ eastern side of the range, at an elevation of about 9,500 feet. The most violent thunder¬ storm of the season had swept over the plateau the previous evening. In the morning great banks of fog rolled up from the canyons, com¬ pletely hiding the plateau for the greater part of the day. Toward evening the fog lifted slightly, and about nine o’clock a luminous rosy light was noticed in the northeast. It was a steady glow that spread from the hori¬ zon, which was quite high, far up in the sky. No streaks or shafts of light of any sort were seen during the half hour that the light was observed. A feature of the occurrence as viewed in that locality, which has not been reported else¬ where, was the repetition of the phenomenon on the following evening, but on a much smaller scale. From the bottom of the canyon a faint glow was seen over the rim of the plateau, but it was observed for a short time only. Arthur Bevan University of Chicago, October 30 To the Editor of Science : The auroral dis¬ play of August 26, first described in your columns by Professor C. C. Nutting, was also observed from the Columbia River Gorge, forty-five miles ‘east of Portland. I was a member of a party of geology students from the University of Chicago and on the night of the display our camp was located on the north side of the river at Collins, Washing- 682 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1141 ton. The light first appeared from the north¬ east in the form of a brilliant belt of pearly white, the rays of which seemed to converge toward a center somewhat below the horizon. It became so intense and the direction of the belt shifted in such a fashion that some mem¬ bers of the party at once thought it was the headlight of a train approaching around a curve. In a very few minutes the display changed to a brilliant array of streamers with intermediate belts of diffused light, all of which seemed to diverge from a common center. At this stage it resembled very much the corona type of aurora, with the exception that the streamers reached almost to the zenith. The intensity of the light and the position of the streamers were constantly changing, but the source from which they seemed to diverge remained fixed for almost half an hour. Finally this aspect of the dis¬ play vanished, and there appeared a broad band of diffused light that began swinging across the heavens from the original position in the northeast to an east-west position and extend¬ ing from the eastern horizon through the zenith almost to the western horizon where it faded out. It remained fixed in this position for at least fifteen minutes, during which time it gradually narrowed and grew in intensity until its width might well be compared to that of a rainbow and its brilliance became more striking than ever. At length it began to fade away and finally disappeared. At no time did we observe the coloring described by Professor Nutting. The phenomenon first appeared be¬ tween nine and ten o’clock Pacific Standard time, which was not very far in absolute time from that of Professor Nutting’s observation in northern Michigan. W. L. Foster University of Chicago, November 2 On August 26 I was in camp with Dr. Wal¬ cott at Hector, a station on the Canadian Pacific Railway, practically on the divide of the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia. The view northward is limited by a moun¬ tain ridge two thousand feet or more above the camp. Mountain masses are not far dis¬ tant to the southeast and southwest, but to the east, south and west the view is quite extensive. At 8 :40 p.m. (two hours slower than eastern time) a faint “ curtain ” of light appeared in the northeast, well above the mountain. Im¬ mediately afterward this was extended by waving columns of light to the eastward and westward : then a veritable “ glory ” appeared spreading across the northern hemisphere. Long beams of light as though from huge searchlights flamed across the sky, curtains and bands formed in swaying folds. A little later, about nine o’clock, the whole heavens were included, with rays extending from the zenith to the horizon (as limited by the topo¬ graphic features). There seemed to be a shower of light sur¬ rounding us, which gradually faded. IJp to this time the light was white or very pale green in places. Immediately followed a gor¬ geous display of colored lights, reds, greens, blues, more nearly in the north. In the whole display the motion of light was from east to west. R. H. Chapman Washington, D. C. To the Editor of Science : It may interest the readers of Science to know that the auroral display of August 26, which has al¬ ready been extensively commented upon in these columns, was visible in the Selkirk Mountains in British Columbia, upwards of three thousand miles west of the extreme easternmost locality in Nova Scotia reported by Professor Heyl. Auroral displays are not infrequent during the summer months in the Selkirk Range, but the one in question was the most brilliant, and otherwise the most re¬ markable, of all that I have seen in this region during an experience covering the greater part of six summers. It may, or may not, be of significance that it came shortly before a pe¬ riod of twelve consecutive rainy days, during which thunderstorms — usually relatively rare in the Selkirks — were both numerous and violent, and severe hail-storms also occurred November 10, 1916] SCIENCE 683 over a wide area. Miners in this part of British Columbia believe that in the winter a particularly brilliant display of the aurora is likely to be followed by a heavy fall of snow, but I am unable to determine how far the actual records bear out this belief. M. H. Jacobs University op Pennsylvania SCIENTIFIC BOOKS The Life of Inland Waters. An elementary text-book of fresh-water biology for Amer¬ ican students. By James G. Needham, Pro¬ fessor of Limnology in Cornell University, and J. T. Lloyd, Instructor in Limnology in Cornell University. Octavo of 438 pages with 244 illustrations. 1916. The Com¬ stock Publishing Company, Ithaca, New York. Needham and Lloyd have produced a very good and very useful book. It is well planned, well executed and well illustrated. It deals with the life of fresh water — chiefly the micro¬ scopic forms and the insects — from the point of view of environment and mutual adjust¬ ment. It is, therefore, not a handbook for identifying forms, nor is it a treatise on limnology and its methods, or even on fresh¬ water biology. It is not a “popular” book, to be read with full intelligence and interest by a person ignorant of biology and of fresh¬ water life in particular. It is rather a book to accompany the study of fresh-water biology in laboratory and in the field. It gives the general points of view, the grouping and cor¬ relation of facts, which such a student needs if he is not to become entangled in a hope¬ less web of details. This it does in moderate compass and with sufficient detail to make the principles clear, definite, and, therefore, use¬ ful to the student. The subject is handled under four main heads : (1) the nature and the types of aquatic environment; (2) aquatic plants and animals; (3) adjustment of plants and animals to con¬ ditions of aquatic life and to each other in aquatic societies; (4) inland water culture. The reviewer finds the fourth head the least interesting, though not the least important from a practical point of view. Less has been done and, therefore, there is less to be said about this matter as yet. The third head (Chapters V. and VI.) shows the book at its best. The interrelation of plants and animals and the adjustment of both to environment are here discussed. Chapter V., for instance, treats first of individual adjustment to aquatic life, whether in open water or on the bottom. Methods of floating, swimming, etc., are described for the open-water forms, and methods of burrowing, shelter building, mo¬ tion on and through the mud, etc., for the bottom forms. Adjustment of the life cycle to seasonal changes in the aquatic environ¬ ment is then considered, involving such mat¬ ters as statoblasts and winter eggs. Mutual adjustment is briefly treated and illustrated by the insectivorous marsh plants and by the larval habits of mussels. Chapter VI. deals, first, with limnetic societies, primarily divided into those of open water and those of the shores. The former includes the plankton (persistently spelled “ plancton ” by the authors — doubtless with reformers’ inten¬ tions) ; the latter set includes the shallow- water societies passing into those of ponds, pools and marshes. The chapter concludes with an account of the lotic societies, or those of streams. All of these forms of association are well described and especially well illus¬ trated. Of course any specialist will see places where he would have written the book differ¬ ently, and places where he would have enlarged or reduced the space given by the authors. One must regret that the fascinating and valu¬ able subject of mutual adjustment is so briefly treated. The emphasis on insects will seem somewhat disproportionately large to students of other groups. It seems to the present reviewer that the account of physical condi¬ tions of life in lakes has not the vigor of the ecological chapters. Here and there the sub¬ ject is somewhat fumbled, as in the treatment of lake temperatures. The summer tempera¬ ture conditions of Cayuga Lake, shown in 684 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1141 Fig. 4, are very different from those shown in Fig. 5. The latter figure plainly does not come from observations in the open lake. This can not fall to 4° by December 1; nor can the surface maintain a temperature of nearly 30° in July. The discussion of the thermo- cline shows that the authors’ interests are primarily elsewhere than with temperatures. But such matters do not detract from the general value of the book, both for students and as a contribution to limnology. A word must be said of the illustrations which, in general, are extraordinarily good. Sometimes photography is pushed too far. Not a few photographs of insects, etc., are from objects so dark that they do not show necessary detail. In such cases a drawing would do much better service. But a great many of the photographs, such as Fig. 61 — duck-meat— and Fig. 207 really illustrate the subject and tell the student in the study what he ought to see in the field. E. A. Birge Individuality in Organisms. By Charles Manning Child, Professor of Zoology in the University of Chicago. The University of Chicago Press, 1915. Pp. 213. $1.25 net. What is the nature of the unity and order which characterize the organic individual? Upon the basis of fifteen years of experimental and analytical investigation Professor Child in his recent book on “ Individuality in Or¬ ganisms” attempts to give an answer to this important problem. In the first chapter of the book the writer makes clear that he is dealing with the prob¬ lem of physiological individuality exclusively without metaphysical assumptions. Current hypotheses of the individual are found either to ignore the problem of the unity and order within the organism, or they carry with them vitalistic implications. His criticism of these hypotheses in chapter two forms one of the most readable portions of the book. In place of current “ corpuscular ” theories of the individual which postulate “ a mysteri¬ ous, self-determined organization in the proto¬ plasm, cell or cell-mass,” Professor Child would substitute a dynamic conception of the individual. Physiological unity and order in his opinion are to be interpreted not in terms of a hypothetical organization and the trans¬ portation of chemical substances within the organism, but in terms of differences in the rate of reaction and of transmitted change. The basis of individuality lies in “ spatial quantitative differences in the action of ex¬ ternal factors on protoplasm.” He finds ex¬ perimentally that the head of the animal and the growing tip of the plant are centers of more active metabolism while posteriorly or basally processes are less intense. This evi¬ dence has led him to his doctrine of metabolic gradients, proof of the existence of which is advanced in chapter three. Concluding that “ the organic individual is fundamentally a dynamic relation of domi¬ nance and subordination, associated with and resulting from the establishment of a meta¬ bolic gradient or gradients,” Dr. Child in sub¬ sequent chapters presents evidence of domi¬ nance within the organism and discusses the limitations of its range. Dominance in the individual is determined primarily, not by means of the transportation of chemical sub¬ stances from one organ to another, but through the transmission of impulses just as in the nervous system. Subsequent to organic dif¬ ferentiation in ontogeny, however, integration of the organism may be partly effected through the transportation of chemical substances. The bearings of the hypothesis upon the problems of differentiation, reproduction, he¬ redity and evolution are suggested and briefly discussed in the concluding chapter of the book. The claims of the author for his hypothesis are modest. It is certainly not too much to say that it has already proved its value as “ a basis for the synthesis and ordering of many facts in various fields which heretofore have seemed to have little or nothing in common” and that it has brought “ certain aspects of biology within hailing distance of physico¬ chemical conceptions.” Adverse criticism has been largely- forestalled by the objections which Dr. Child has himself raised and an- November 10, 1916] SCIENCE 685 swered, and by his resourcefulness in experi¬ mental verification. The theory seems less satisfactory in its application to the phenomena of gametic re¬ production than to the processes of regenera¬ tion. Pushed to its logical extreme in its application to ontogenesis the process of in¬ dividuation postulated by Child appears to be one of complete epigenesis and the organiza¬ tion which develops to be due exclusively to external factors. In order to meet the in¬ superable difficulties which would be raised against a consistent theory of epigenesis, Dr. Child assumes that as a result of the influence of external conditions through many genera¬ tions and through the inheritance of the ac¬ quired modifications, reproductive cells or cell-masses have come to possess “ a funda¬ mental reaction system ” which constitutes a basis of preformation and conditions their de¬ velopment and their reaction to external stimuli. In this way it is possible to under¬ stand why under similar external conditions the ontogenesis of different species varies so greatly. Moreover, the “ fundamental reac¬ tion systems ” may be further modified through their intra-individual environment. In order to meet the difficulty of under¬ standing how a “ reaction system ” involving primarily only quantitative dynamic differ¬ ences determines specific qualitative differ¬ ences which appear in ontogeny, Dr. Child is led to assume primary differences in the specific constitution of the protoplasm of dif¬ ferent eggs or cell-masses. But, since “ sys¬ tems ” suggest spatial localization and the “ specific constitution of protoplasm ” implies chemical differentiation, does it not seem as if the basis of individuality postulated by Dr. Child is essentially like that assumed in the hypotheses which Dr. Child repudiates? On the whole, however. Dr. Child’s hypothesis of individuality appears to be the best supported and the most consistent mechanistic hypoth¬ esis which has been advanced. As the product of the mature thought of an independent and resourceful investigator “ In¬ dividuality in Organisms ” will take a perma¬ nent place in biological literature. H. Y. Neal PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES The tenth number of Volume 2 of the Pro¬ ceedings of the National Academy of Sciences contains the following articles : Preliminary Results on the Color of Neb- ulce: F. H. Seares, Mount Wilson Solar Ob¬ servatory, Carnegie Institution of Washing¬ ton. Photographs of a Messier 51, 94, 99 show that the nebular condensations have large negative color indices. The knots of nebulos¬ ity are bluer than the bluest of the neighbor¬ ing stars. The spectral character of the out¬ lying regions differs from that of the central nucleus. In the case of the planetary nebula N. G. C. 3242 no important differences of this sort are revealed. The Action of Alkali in the Production of Lipolytically Active Protein: K. George Falk, Harriman Research Laboratory, Roosevelt Hospital, New York. The author discusses: Inactivation of the enzymes by acid, by alkali, by alcohols, by acetone, by salts and by heat; nature of the chemical changes involved in the inactivations ; and activation of proteins by alkali. The Excretion of Acids by Roots: A. R. Haas, Laboratory of Plant Physiology, Har¬ vard University. The author finds that no acid other than carbonic was excreted from the roots of corn seedlings. Similar results were obtained for wheat seedlings. Spectrographic Observations of Relative Motions in the Planetary Nebulce: W. W. Campbell and J. H. Moore, Lick Observatory, University of California. Further observa¬ tions indicating the probability of the hypoth¬ esis that the so-called ring nebulae are in real¬ ity not ring forms, but ellipsoidal shells. Tentative conclusions are also drawn as to the probable masses of the nebulae. New Determinations of Permeability : S. C. Brooks, Laboratory of Plant Physiology, Harvard University. The determinations have been made by a new independent method and by improved older methods. The results agree in showing that living protoplasms are nor¬ mally permeable to the salts studied, but salts of pure solutions may alter permeability, some causing an increase of permeability while 686 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1141 others cause a decrease, followed by an in¬ crease, of permeability. In a properly bal¬ anced solution the permeability remains normal. Cell walls may be semipermeable to an extent which renders them important in such experiments. Point Sets and Cremona Groups. Part III.: Arthur A. Coble, Department of Mathematics, Johns Hopkins University. The group (?^2 is used in the problem of determining the lines of a cubic surface. The determination differs from that of Klein. The Interferences of Spectra both reversed and inverted: Carl Barus, Department of Physics, Brown University. Sex Intergrades in a Species of Crustacea: Arthur M. Banta, Station for Experimental Evolution, Carnegie Institution of Washing¬ ton. The author has collected a large amount of data on several species of Cladocera which is interesting because of the remarkable array of sex forms, the stock in general consisting of perhaps 40 per cent, normal males and about 8 per cent, normal females, the remainder being intergrades with almost every combination of sex characters. Some Problems of Diophantine Approxima¬ tion a Remarkable Trigonometrical Series: G. H. Hardy and J. E. Littlewood, Trinity College, Cambridge, England. A series is given which is never convergent or summable for any value of 9, and is accordingly not a Fourier’s series. And further a function is found which does not possess a finite differen¬ tial coefficient for any value of 6. Steric Hindrance and the Existence of Odd Molecules ( Free Radicals): Gilbert N. Lewis, Chemical Laboratory, University of Cali¬ fornia. It is contended that the hypothesis underlying the somewhat elusive phrase “ steric hindrance ” should not be introduced until phenomena are known which can not be so well explained in other ways. It is shown how the so-called free radical of organic chemistry may be explained independently of the hypothesis of steric hindrance. Newton's Method in General Analysis: Albert A. Bennett, Department of Mathe¬ matics, Princeton University. An extension to general analyses of special algebraic work of H. B. Fine. The C obaltammines : William D. Harkins, R. E. Hall and W. A. Roberts, Kent Chemical Laboratory, University of Chicago. The authors have determined accurately the freez¬ ing-point lowerings caused by eight different cobaltammine salts, and have derived from the results the number of ions into which each salt dissociates. These are found to be in ac¬ cordance with Werner’s theory. National Research Council: Report of the First Meeting of the Council. Reports of meetings of the Executive Committee. Or¬ ganization of the Research Council (as at pres¬ ent constituted). Edwin Bidwell Wilson Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. THE AURIFEROUS GRAVELS OF THE SIERRA NEVADA The origin and the natural distribution of the $300,000,000 of gold that has been mined from the Tertiary placer gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California is the subject of a re¬ port by Waldemar Lindgren, which has been published by the United States Geological Survey as Professional Paper 73. The Geological Survey’s studies of the Ter¬ tiary placer deposits of the California Sierra began in 1886 and were concluded about 15 years later. During this period 22 quad¬ rangular areas were topographically mapped and 14 of these were studied in geologic de¬ tail and the results published by the survey in geologic folios. Professional Paper 73 in¬ cludes the salient features of this earlier work, most of which was done by Mr. Lindgren him¬ self. This report, thus comprehensive in geo¬ graphic scope and minute in geologic detail, is believed to be the most complete and thor¬ ough description of a great placer-gold prov¬ ince ever published. In the main the report is a detailed descrip¬ tion of the entire area covered, including the gold placer gravels, but Mr. Lindgren’s gen¬ eral account of the tremendous earth forces that built up the Sierra and of the processes November 10, 1916] SCIENCE 687 that freed the gold from its mother rock and brought about its concentration in prehistoric river channels forms altogether a most im¬ pressive description of continent building. Looking backward through inconceivably long vistas of time in which periods covering mil¬ lions of years supplant the centuries by which we now compute its passage, the geologist pic¬ tures the uplift of the new-born mountain range by upward-forced great bodies of molten granite. This uplift was accompanied or closely followed by the formation of veins and seams of gold-bearing quartz, and the result¬ ing highland was then planed down by erosion caused by rainfall and the action of streams of water. Tracing the long course of this early history the geologist now finds that toward the end of what is known as Tertiary time — a com¬ paratively recent geologic period — volcanic forces that had long been quiescent vigorously reasserted themselves. Flows of rhyolite, a volcanic rock, pouring from many craters, filled valleys that were covered with gold- bearing gravel, deeply burying the gold and causing the formation of new stream courses. The geologic events thus outlined long pre¬ ceded the period of human history in which these metal deposits were mined. In 1849 an army of gold seekers invaded the Sierra. They worked first along the present streams, but gradually the metal was traced to the old Tertiary river beds on the summits of the ridges and to the quartz veins, the primary source of all the gold in the Sierra Nevada. Millions of dollars in gold were produced annually up to the seventies of the last cen¬ tury, but the gold-mining industry has slowly diminished, until now less than $1,000,000 is produced annually, the decline being due to the prohibition of hydraulic mining and the exhaustion of the richer channels suitable for drift mining. The total output of gold in California is estimated at $1,200,000,000 to $1,500,000,000, about one fifth of which has been derived from quartz veins, $300,000,000 from the Tertiary gravels, and the remainder from the Quater¬ nary deposits. SPECIAL ARTICLES ON THE DIFFERENTIAL EFFECT OF CERTAIN CALCIUM SALTS UPON THE RATE OF GROWTH OF THE TWO SEXES OF THE DOMESTIC FOWL1 In connection with an extensive series of experiments on the effect of feeding various organ substances to growing chicks, which I have been carrying out during the past summer with the aid of Mr. W. T. Pettey, two groups were given small daily doses (Ca. 0.1 gm. to 0.3 gm.) of calcium lactate (Ca(C3H503)2 + 5H20) and calcium lactophos- phate (a mixture of calcium lactate and cal¬ cium phosphate containing about 3 per cent, of the latter), respectively. The results were consistent, striking, and in certain particulars entirely new. A complete account of them, with detailed figures, will be published as soon as the material can be prepared for the press. In the meantime I wish to call attention, in a very brief way, to the essential features of the results. The most significant finding is that while neither of these calcium salts affects in any way, in the dosage used, the rate or amount of growth in the male chicks, both of them, but particularly the lactophosphate, in¬ duce a very marked increase in the absolute amount of growth and a corresponding accel¬ eration in its rate in the female chicks. The dosage was begun when the birds were 29 days of age and continued until they were 171 days old, after which age there is comparatively little additional growth in the domestic fowl. At the end of this 142-day period the lacto¬ phosphate females had grown so much faster than the control females that there had been eliminated 58.4 per cent, of the normal differ¬ ence between the sexes in respect to body weight (secondary sexual character). In spite of the rather large probable errors the abso¬ lute differences are statistically significant. Thus we have at 171 days of age : Lactophosphate mean wt. — Control $5 mean wt. = 354.6 ± 91.9 gm. The difference is 3.85 times its probable error. The reproductive organs of the females were stimulated as well as growth. The rate of iPapers from the Biological Laboratory of the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station, No. 104. 688 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1141 egg production per unit of time in the lacto- phosphate females is nearly 5 times as great as in the controls. A further point of interest is that if a very small dose of corpus luteum substance2 be ad¬ ministered to the birds each day along with the calcium lactophosphate the stimulating effect of the latter upon the growth of the females is completely inhibited. It has been known that the internal secre¬ tions of certain organs might have a different effect upon the growth of males and females, and indeed in the present series of experi¬ ments we have seen such a differential effect following the feeding of several different gland substances. It is another thing, however, to find inorganic salts exercising such a differ¬ ential effect. It furnishes one more piece of evidence of the deep-seated biochemical differ¬ ences which underlie sex differences, and at the same time is in line with the medical evi¬ dence as to the great importance of calcium in the physiology of the reproductive organs of the female. Raymond Pearl October 31, 1916 THE PRESENT STATUS OF THE DOLOMITE PROBLEM1 The problem of the origin of the dolomites and dolomitic limestones has long occupied the minds of geologists and many theories have been advanced for their formation. But no one of these has been universally accepted. The chief theories which have been proposed are briefly as follows: First, the alteration theories which assume that dolomites have been formed by the partial replacement of limestones by magnesia either (1) before they emerged from the sea, through the agency of sea-water, or (2) subsequent to their emerg¬ ence through the agency of ground-water. Second, the primary deposition theories which maintain that the dolomites were originally deposited in the form that they now appear, (1) by chemical precipitation from the sea, or 2 A material which I have earlier shown ( J our. Biol. Chem., Vol. XXIV., pp. 123-135, 1916) to have a retarding or inhibiting effect upon the growth of the chick. i A more complete report on the origin of dolo¬ mite will appear in Vol. XXV. of the Iowa Geo¬ logical Survey, which is now in press. (2) by the deposition of clastic grains of dolo¬ mite derived from the disintegration of older dolomitic limestones. Third, the leaching theories which are based on the well-known fact that during the weathering of a dolomitic limestone the lime is removed more rapidly than the magnesia, thereby causing an enrich¬ ment of the latter constituent. This leaching is supposed to take place either (1) through the agency of sea-water prior to emergence, or (2) through the agency of atmospheric water after the limestone has become a part of the land. The marine alteration theory is by far the most widely held to-day, but the chemical pre¬ cipitation theory has many champions. The writer was led to suspect several years ago, that a careful field study of dolomitic for¬ mations would throw some light upon their origin and through the aid of the Iowa Geo¬ logical Survey and an appropriation from the Esther Herrman Research Fund of the New York Academy of Sciences he has been able to examine nearly all of the important dolomites of the Mississippi Valley and the eastern United States. These studies have furnished irrefutable evidence that the majority of the dolomites examined have resulted from the alteration of limestone. The following facts support this contention: (1) the lateral gradation of beds of dolomite into limestone, sometimes very abruptly; (2) the mottling of limestones on the border of dolomite masses by irregular patches of dolomite; (3) the existence of rem¬ nants of unaltered limestone in dolomite, and of nests of dolomite in limestone; (4) the ir¬ regular boundaries between certain beds of limestone and dolomite; (5) the presence of altered oolites in some dolomites; (6) the pro¬ tective effect of shale beds; and (7) the par¬ tial obliteration of original structures and tex¬ tures in many dolomites and dolomitic lime¬ stones. Concerning the conditions under which the dolomitization took place there are many reasons for believing that the more ex¬ tensive dolomites have all been formed be¬ neath the sea prior to or contemporaneously with recrystallization and that the dolomitiza- November 10, 1916] SCIENCE 689 tion produced by ground-water is only local- and very imperfect. Some of the features which lend weight to this view are as follows: (1) Recent dolomitized coral reefs are known to have been formed by the reaction of the magnesia of sea-water with the limestone. (2) The dolomite areas of mottled limestones are believed to have undergone recrystalliza¬ tion at the same time as the associated lime¬ stone areas, as suggested by the occasional de¬ velopment of zonal growths of calcite and dol¬ omite. (3) In imperfectly altered limestones the dolomite is seen to follow original lines of weakness rather than secondary structures, such as joints or fractures. (4) In most cases of mottling the dolomitization appears to have progressed uniformly as we should expect it to do in an unrecrystallized rock, rather than to have progressed by forming veinlets and stringers in the early stages. (5) The exist¬ ence of perfect rhombs of dolomite in many imperfectly altered limestones suggests that the latter had not yet solidified when the dolo¬ mite rhombs were formed. (6) The wide¬ spread extent and nearly uniform composition of many dolomites indicates that they must have been formed by an agent capable of operating uniformly over wide areas. (7) An adequate source of magnesia for transforming extensive limestone formations into dolomite is found only in the sea, which contains many times as much of the constituent as ordinary ground-water. (8) Many dolomites are di¬ rectly and regularly overlain by pure lime¬ stone formations or by thick shale beds, prov¬ ing that they must have been formed before these overlying beds were deposited and that descending ground-water has not been influen¬ tial in their production. The evidence of dolomitization beneath the sea then must be considered as positive, but the controlling factors of the process are very imperfectly understood, due chiefly to the lack of careful study of the phenomenon in the modern seas. A thorough investigation of the conditions which favor the transformation in the sea to-day would be invaluable in inter¬ preting the history of the ancient dolomites. It is believed that very important data bear¬ ing on the problem could be obtained from a more careful study of the coral islands of the Southern Pacific. As to whether dolomitization takes place in concentrated seas or not there has been con¬ siderable disagreement. Until recently the tendency has been to follow Dana, who be¬ lieved that dolomitized portions of recent coral reefs were formed in concentrated lagoons and assumed that the ancient dolomites must have been formed under similar conditions, but Skeats pointed out in 1905- that the outer parts of certain fringing reefs of the South Sea Islands, which face the open ocean, are occasionally dolomitized and that the dolomi¬ tization of coral reefs is not confined to the lagoons; and Philippi3 soon after presented evidence of recent dolomitization in the open sea. Still more recently, Blackwelder4 has given it as his opinion that the Bighorn dolo¬ mite has resulted from the progressive altera¬ tion of limestone during deposition, the con¬ centration of the magnesia being not more than two or three times as great as in the pres¬ ent ocean, since more than this amount would have been unfavorable to the life processes of the time. There are many commendable points to this theory of progressive dolomitiza¬ tion at low concentrations, but if dolomitiza¬ tion can go on under these conditions, why are not all of our limestones dolomitic? In answer to this query it might be said that the alteration takes place under unusual circum¬ stances, possibly through the agency of cer¬ tain bacteria which are not always present when limestone is deposited.5 But much of the field evidence speaks against progressive dolomitization. The wavy boundaries some¬ times exhibited between the dolomitic and non-dolomitic portions of formations ; the lateral gradation of beds of dolomite into limestone; pseudo-interstratification effects of ■2 Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. London, Yol. LXI., p. 97, 1905. s Neues Jahri., Festband, Vol. I., 1907, p. 397. < Bull. Geol. Soc. America, Vol. XXIV., p. 607, 1913. s Both Nadson and Walther have suggested the possible influence of bacteria in dolomitization. See “Gesichte der Erde und des Lebens, ” p. 90. 690 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1141 dolomite and limestone; the presence of im¬ perfectly dolomitized oolite beds in dolomites; the occurrence of mottled limestones grading gradually into dolomite, and many other fea¬ tures can only be accounted for by assuming that dolomitization took place after all of the beds involved were deposited, or at least in the closing stages of their deposition. When, how¬ ever, a pure limestone member succeeds a dolo¬ mite member, known to be an alteration prod¬ uct, conformably, the contact line being reg¬ ular and continuous over wide areas, it can not be assumed that this relationship has re¬ sulted from the alteration of the lower bed after both beds were deposited. The “ Lower Buff beds ” of northeastern Iowa, which con¬ sist of dolomite with occasional minute lime¬ stone remnants, are abruptly followed by the pure limestone of the “ Lower Blue beds ” over hundreds of square miles, the transition from one into the other taking place through only a few inches of imperfectly dolomitized lime¬ stone. Moreover, the tendency of some limestones to be more highly dolomitic in their lower por¬ tions and to become progressively less dolo¬ mitic upwards, must also be regarded as lend¬ ing support to the theory of progressive dolo¬ mitization. Orton and Peppel6 state that the Delaware and Columbus limestones of Ohio are more dolomitic in their lower than in their upper portions. But even if it should be positively shown that dolomitization can go on at low concen¬ trations, all must agree that it would proceed not only much more rapidly, but also more completely at higher concentrations. With reference to the question whether the ancient seas which accomplished such extensive dolo¬ mitization were more concentrated than the modern ones or not, little can yet be said. On this point we must rely solely upon inference. Steidtmann7 has presented evidence to show that the ancient seas were more highly mag¬ nesian than those of to-day. From independ¬ ent lines of reasoning based upon paleogeo- graphic evidence the writer is also led to be- 6 Ohio Geol. Survey, 4th ser., Bull. 4, p. 165. 7 J our. Geol., Yol. 19, pp. 323 and 392. 1911. lieve that the magnesia content of the ancient seas may have been at least temporarily greater than at present. Let us consider the conditions obtaining in a constricted interior sea from which limestone is being deposited on a great scale. Fresh quantities of lime and magnesia and other salts are being introduced into this interior sea both by influx from the open ocean and from the streams draining the land. Mow lime is constantly being depleted from this inland sea by lime-secreting organ¬ isms, while the magnesia and other salts tend to accumulate. It seems possible, then, that during a long period of limestone formation under these conditions magnesia might ac¬ cumulate in considerable excess and that ere long extensive dolomitization might set in and continue until equilibrium was once more es¬ tablished. Applying this theory now to the strati¬ graphic column, we actually find that many periods of extensive limestone formation in interior seas may be correlated with periods of extensive dolomitization. Witness the great dolomite masses of the Cambrian of the Appalachian province, and of the early Ordo¬ vician and of the Niagara. As further evidence that the early seas which accomplished extensive dolomitization may have been temporarily concentrated, at¬ tention may be called to the fact that these seas in many instances were retreating and contracting towards the last, and that unless they were freely connected with the open ocean, evaporation under arid or semi-arid conditions might give rise to a considerable increase in salinity. Such a condition would seem to apply especially well to the Niagaran sea. Paleogeographic studies have shown that this sea became very much contracted towards the close of this epoch, and Clarke and Buede- mann8 have concluded that the Guelph fauna must have inhabited a sea of abnormally high salinity. The latter fact considered in con¬ nection with the evidence of widespread dolo¬ mitization in the later stages of the Niagara seems significant. Francis M. Yan Tuyl Geological Laboratory, University of Illinois s Mem. N. Y. State Museum, No. 5, p. 117. SCIENCE Friday, November 17, 1916 CONTENTS Popular Science Lectures . 691 The New England Intercollegiate Geological Excursion : Professor Joseph Barrell ... 701 Cleveland Abbe: General A. W. Greely .... 703 The American Society of Naturalists . 704 The Endowment of the Medical Department of the University of Chicago . 704 Scientific Notes and News . 705 University and Educational News . 707 Discussion and Correspondence: — The Age of the Bed Beds in the Bio Grande Valley: Dr. E. C. Case. The Sweet Potato “Soil Bot’’ or “Pox” Organism : John A. Elliott. The Synchronal Flashing of Fire¬ flies: H. A. Allard . 70S Quotations : — The Newcastle Meeting of the British As¬ sociation; The State College of Agriculture at Cornell University . 710 Scientific Boohs: — Catalogue of the Fresh-water Fishes of Africa in the British Museum: Professor T. D. A. Cockerell. Pagel ’s Einfuhrung in die Geschichte der Medisin: Professor Boy L. Moodie . 712 The Zero and Principle of Local Value used by the Maya of Central America: Pro¬ fessor Florian Cajori . 714 Special Articles: — The Focus of the Auroral Streamers on August 26, 1916: Professor C. C. Trow¬ bridge . 717 The American Astronomical Society: Dr. Philip Fox . 722 MSS. Intended for publication and books, etc., intended for review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison- On-Hudson, N. Y. POPULAR SCIENCE LECTURES1 INTRODUCTION At the meeting of the council in June, 1916, representations were made by the or¬ ganizing committee of Section L (Educa¬ tional Science) that much less attention is given to popular lecturing now than was formerly the case ; and it was suggested that efforts should be made to promote in¬ creased public interest in science by means of such lectures. The council, therefore, appointed a committee representative of all the sections of the association to institute inquiries into this subject and prepare a report upon it. Many local scientific so¬ cieties, universities, university colleges and similar institutions have organized popu¬ lar science lectures ; and the committee has endeavored to secure the results of the ex¬ perience obtained, with the object of dis¬ covering the elements of success or failure. A schedule of twelve questions was drawn up and was widely distributed. To prevent misunderstanding, it was pointed out in an explanatory letter that the com¬ mittee was concerned only with single pioneer lectures for the general public, and not with students’ courses, such as are ar¬ ranged by university extension authorities, the Workers’ Educational Association and other organizations. 1 Report of the Committee of the British Asso¬ ciation for the Advancement of Science consisting of the president and general officers, Professor H. E. Armstrong, Professor W. A. Bone, Sir Edward Brabrook, Professor S. J. Chapman, Professor A. Dendy, Professor R. A. Gregory (hon. see.), Pro¬ fessor W. D. Halliburton, Dr. H. S. Hele-Shaw, Professor F. Keeble, Mr. G. W. Lamplugh and Dr. E. J. Russell, appointed by the council to consider and report on the popularization of science through public lectures. 692 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1142 A circular containing the schedule of questions was addressed to (1) principals and registrars of all universities (except Oxford and Cambridge) and university colleges in the United Kingdom; (2) prin¬ cipals, or directors, of all technical colleges represented in the Association of Technical Institutions; (3) secretaries of every uni¬ versity extension delegacy or board, of the Workers’ Educational Association, the Gil¬ christ Trust and like organizations; (4) secretaries of all corresponding societies and of forty other local scientific societies ; (5) curators of the chief provincial mu¬ seums; (6) a few individuals having spe¬ cial knowledge of the subject. By the middle of August, about 150 cir¬ culars had been returned, nearly all of them containing replies to the questions and also many valuable comments. The whole of these replies — about 1,500 in all — have been classified, and a digest of their substance is here given. The first question asked for the name of the society or insti¬ tution providing the information. ABSTRACT OF REPLIES TO QUESTIONS 2. Are arrangements made for the de¬ livery of 'public lectures upon scientific subjects each session ? If so, (a) are the lectures free? (6) What are the lowest and highest charges for admission ? In most cases local scientific societies ar¬ range for the delivery of occasional popu¬ lar lectures each session. These lectures, however, are not usually intended for the general public, but for members of the societies and any friends who may accom¬ pany them. The lectures are thus more of the nature of scientific meetings than pub¬ lic assemblies, and the fee for admission to them is the membership subscription, which varies from 1 s. to a guinea per session. In a few cases one or more public lectures are arranged each session, and admission to these is free, or at nominal charges vary¬ ing from 1 d. to 6 d. Series of public lectures are arranged by several corporations in connection with museums, libraries and other institutions, as well as by universities and technical col¬ leges. The annual series of corporation free lectures at Liverpool includes scien¬ tific subjects; at the Horniman Museum, Forest Hill, S.E., twenty free lectures are given on Saturday afternoons from Octo¬ ber to March; at the Manchester Museum, sixteen public lectures are arranged each year; at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, lectures are given from time to time in connection with special exhibits in the museum ; at the Technical School, Bar- row-in-Furness, a course of popular lec¬ tures is delivered on Saturday evenings; and at the museum, free library and Bent- lif Art Gallery, Maidstone, free popular lectures were successfully arranged every winter before the war. The secretary of the Buchan Club, Aberdeen, remarks of public lectures: They were formerly given until they declined for want of suitable lecturers and variety of lec¬ tures. And the principal of Battersea Poly¬ technic says: We have discontinued the arrangement of pop¬ ular lectures as the attendance was discouraging. We have found that the people in this district will not attend popular lectures, whatever the subject. We have offered lectures by such men as Max O’Rell, E. T. Reed, T. Foster Fraser, T. P. O ’Connor, Sir J. D. Maclure, F. Villiers, Fred Enoch and H. Furniss; and the response of the public was disappointing, although the charge for admission was only 3d. We arranged for a lecture on ‘‘Air-ships” in the spring of this year, but failed to secure an audience and had to cancel the lecture. 3. Where are the lectures usually given? (a) What is approximately the average at¬ tendance? Lectures given in rooms of museums, November 17, 1916] SCIENCE 693 public libraries, universities, technical schools and like institutions, attended by members of scientific societies and their friends, have usually audiences of about 30 in number, and the limit of accommo¬ dation does not often exceed about 200. The average attendance of the whole of the lec¬ tures, of which particulars have been re¬ ceived, is about 300. In the town hall, Stockport, the average is 1,250, “but this is a decreasing number ; ” at the Mechanics ’ Institution, Burnley, it is 800-1,200; at the town hall, Portsmouth, 500-2,000; at the Merchant Venturers’ Technical Col¬ lege, Bristol, 600-800; at the Birmingham and Midland Institute, 700; at the Albert Institute, Dundee, 500-800 ; at various towns distributed through England, Wales and Ireland the average attendance at Gil¬ christ Lectures is about 600; and at the Geographical Institute, Newcastle, about 500. 4. What subjects attract the largest au¬ diences? From the point of view of local scientific societies, the most popular subjects are local archeology and antiquities, animal and bird life, and other aspects of natural history. The most popular public lectures are those on travel and adventure by ex¬ plorers whose names are widely known. Astronomy is rarely mentioned, but this is probably because local scientific societies are mostly concerned with natural history and there are few good lecturers on astron¬ omy. Science lectures must be illustrated by lantern slides or experiments if they are to appeal to a large public, and their titles should arrest attention. The chief point, however, is that lectures should deal with recent discoveries or topics which have been mentioned frequently in the daily news¬ papers. The largest audiences are usually attracted not by descriptive lectures on such subjects as mimicry, the descent of man, prehistoric animals, trade processes, and so on, but by those which are concerned with questions of wide economic or socio¬ logical interest, such as industrial research in America, wireless telegraphy in war, the wages problem, munitions of war, etc. One correspondent says: Purely scientific lectures do not attract, how¬ ever eminent the lecturer. The most attractive lectures are the least scientific. 5. Do you attach as much importance to the lecturer as to the subject? As much, or more, importance is usu¬ ally attached to the lecturer as to the sub¬ ject. Most of the replies are in this sense, and the following are typical of them: “The society does not, but the audience does;” “In order to attract subscribers, the chief importance is attached to the per¬ sonality and celebrity of the lecturer;” “The lecturer practically determines the audience;” “Undoubtedly, if the lecturer is well known;” “Yes, more, for popular lectures ; ” “ More to the lecturer, if known : if not known, to the subject.” The best combination is, of course, an attractive subject and a celebrated lecturer, and the public soon forms its own estimate of the two factors. “The subject attracts in the first instance, but a poor lecturer would not draw a second time.” Under the conditions here [Forest Hill, S.E., Horniman Museum], where there is a large popu¬ lation to draw on, title and subject are probably more important than lecturer. Nevertheless, some lecturers are always fairly sure of a good audi¬ ence, and a series which begins with lectures by relatively poor lecturers soon suffers a reduction in size of audiences. In many cases the lectures are given by members of the staffs of local museums, universities, or other institutions, but this limitation of choice of lecturer and subject 4 soon exhausts the public interested in them. 6. Are lectures by strangers generally more or less successfid than those by local lecturers? When the visitor is a celebrated lecturer, 694 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1142 it is natural that larger audiences should he secured than in the case of local lec¬ turers. Probably strangers are not invited to lecture unless they have more than a local reputation, and this accounts for the general opinion that they are more suc¬ cessful as regards size of audience. Typi¬ cal replies to this question are: “Lectures by strangers, especially when they are cele¬ brities, are far more attractive;” “Yes, as they are usually well-advertised ; other¬ wise, I doubt if the numbers would be in¬ creased;” “Except for lecturers of world¬ wide fame, we find the attendance about the same for local lecturers as for outside lecturers;” “A known name, local or otherwise, is generally more attractive than that of a completely unknown person;” “Strangers distinguished in literature, sci¬ ence or public life generally attract good audiences. In the case of scientific lec¬ tures, local lecturers appeal more to the general public owing to the fact that it is a difficult matter for an outside lecturer to provide adequate experiments. The majority of these lectures in the past have been delivered by our own staff” (Univer¬ sity College, Nottingham). “It depends on the lecturer; when a local lecturer lec¬ tures repeatedly in the same district he ceases to draw really large audiences” (Manchester). The general conclusion seems to be that for lectures to local societies, with audi¬ ences numbering from about 30 to 100, local lecturers “draw” as much as visiting lecturers of the same standing, but the visitor has to depend more upon the sub¬ ject and title to attract an audience. “The fact that a prophet is not without honor save in his own country somewhat dis¬ counts the popularity of local lecturers; but a distinguished local man will attract a larger audience than a much less dis¬ tinguished stranger” (Manchester). 7. If fees ore paid to lecturers, what is the usual amount for (a) Lectures with or without lantern slides, (b) Lectures with experimental illustrations , f Few local societies have sufficient funds to pay lecturers: the result is that most scientific lectures arranged by these socie¬ ties are given free or for out-of-pocket ex¬ penses. Members of the staffs of colleges and other institutions also usually give pub¬ lic lectures locally without fees. The gen¬ eral fee to professional lecturers, with lan¬ tern slides or experimental illustrations, or both, varies from three to ten guineas. Dr. Wertheimer, principal of the Merchant Venturers’ College, Bristol, says, in an¬ swer to the question: “Varies with the lec¬ turer. We have found some dear at five guineas and others cheap at fifteen guineas.” The Stockport Science Lectures Committee usually pays ten guineas for a lecture, but in exceptional cases, as for Sir Ernest Shackleton and Sir H. B. Tree, forty guineas have been paid. 8. With admission free, or at a nominal charge, and excluding the cost of the hire of a room or hall, what is the usual profit or loss upon a popular science lecture ? (a) If there is a loss, how is it met ? 9. Are any local funds available for peo¬ ple’s lectures? As lectures to members of local scientific societies and their friends are usually given free, expenses are low and are met by the general funds of the societies. The secre¬ tary of the Buteshire Natural History So¬ ciety says : Some years we have had lectures for the public for which a charge was made — about 6 d. There was usually a profit, after paying everything, of a few shillings. There is, however, rarely a profit upon a public lecture. The Buchan Club, Aber¬ deen, estimates the loss at £1 to £2 per lec¬ ture, and it is paid from the funds of the society. Even with the well-arranged Gil¬ christ Lectures delivered in various parts November 17, 1916] SCIENCE 695 of the country, the average loss is about £10 a lecture and is met by a grant from the Gilchrist Trustees. At Stockport the hall has been hired, with charges for admission. The greatest profit in the early years was approxi¬ mately £20. In recent years there has been a loss. A number of local gentlemen guaranteed a guinea each in case of loss. No call has been made upon them. At University College, Nottingham, the loss per lecture is from £2 to £5, but no al¬ lowance is made for the services of the lec¬ turer and his assistant, or for the use of apparatus. In such cases the loss is met out of college funds. Lectures are like¬ wise given in many places as part of the educational work of museums and the cost is paid out of the incomes of the institu¬ tions. When the museum is a municipal institution, or lectures are arranged by a Free Public Library Committee, any loss comes out of the rates. Thus the secretary of the Albert Institute, Dundee, says : As the lectures are all delivered within the premises of the Tree Library Committee, any charge for admission is prohibited by the Public Libraries Acts. The Albert Institute Lectures have proved so popular that they are regarded as a branch of the work of the Free Library Com¬ mittee. A sum of about £25 is usually taken in the estimates of that committee for expenses — lantern operator, making slides, arranging halls, etc. All my lectures are gratuitous. Similarly, the chief librarian of the Liv¬ erpool Public Libraries remarks : The public libraries are rate-supported, and lec¬ tures are part of the public library work. This library was established by special Act of Parlia¬ ment, and not under Ewart’s Library Act. Au¬ thority was included in our Act to pay for lectures. The vote by our council for lectures during the past few years has been about £1,100 per year. In other cases the cost of popular lectures is paid by the legal education committee or out of the grant made to the institution by the board of education. Very few localities have special funds available for the expenses of public lec¬ tures. The secretary of the Kilmarnock Glenfield Ramblers ’ Society says, however : “ The Kilmarnock Philosophical Society has considerable funds for providing lec¬ tures, but has not done so for many years. ’ ’ At Dundee, the late Lord Armitstead gave, about twenty-five years ago, a sum to establish “The Armitstead Lectures.” No local lecturers are engaged. A nominal charge for admission is made. These were formerly well attended, but latterly the attendance has fallen off. The Albert Institute Lectures now tax the full accommodation of the Albert Hall. They are absolutely free to the public. There is at Perth a local trust fund, called the Duncan Bequest, for lectures; and at Maidstone the popular lectures are provided out of the Bentlif Wing Trust Fund of the museum, free library, and Bentlif Art Gallery. The Midland Insti¬ tute, Birmingham, has a small endowment of about £30 a year for science lectures; and the Royal Technical College, Glasgow, has an endowment fund for popular lec¬ tures on astronomy. The Gilchrist Educa¬ tional Trust is referred to in detail later. One of the purposes of the Chadwick Trust (40 Queen Anne Chambers, Westminster, S.W.) is to provide for “ the delivery by competent persons of lectures on Sanitary Science,” and a number of successful lec¬ tures have been given in pursuance of it, particularly during the war. Among the subjects of these recent lectures are : Racial Hygiene and the Wastage of War; War and Disease; Food in War-time; Typhus in Serbia ; Prevention of Disease and Frost¬ bite in the Army. The Trust pays all ex¬ penses of fees, hall, lantern, advertising and printing, though halls and lanterns are often lent. 10. Has public interest in popular sci¬ ence lectures increased or decreased in your district during the past ten or twenty years? The analysis of replies to this question is 696 SCIENCE [N. S. VOL, XLTV. No. 1142 inconclusive. About one third of the cor¬ respondents report that interest has in¬ creased, another third that it has decreased, and the remaining third that it has re¬ mained stationary or no decided change has been noticed. Museums mostly report an increase of interest, and technical institu¬ tions a decrease. No general conclusion can be derived from the replies from scien¬ tific societies, in which so much depends upon the energy of the secretary and the constitution of the committee. For ex¬ ample, the Birmingham and Midland In¬ stitute Scientific Society reports an in- 'crease, while the Birmingham Natural His¬ tory and Philosophical Society records a decrease. As regards public interest in science lec¬ tures Dr. M. E. Sadler remarks: “ I should say that it has increased and might be greatly stimulated by further efforts.” Other replies to this effect are : “I do not believe that public interest in popular sci¬ ence lectures has decreased, but it certainly has less opportunities of manifesting it¬ self ” (School of Technology, Manchester). “ There has been a marked increase of in¬ terest within the past five years ” (Uni¬ versity College, Aberystwyth); “In that time the public interest in our lectures has increased considerably ” (Kilmarnock) ; ‘ ‘ The interest in the Manchester Geograph¬ ical Society’s weekly lectures has greatly increased during the past fifteen years. ’ ’ The chief causes of decrease of interest in many districts are indicated in the fol¬ lowing replies: “ The -public interest has doubtless decreased slightly during the past ten years. This is to some extent accounted for by the fact that during recent years scholars from the secondary and other schools in the city have continued their edu¬ cation at the college and other institutions, attending two and three evenings per week, and therefore do not attend single lectures as in former years. The opening of pic¬ ture-houses has probably also affected the attendance at lectures ” (University Col¬ lege, Nottingham). “Decreased. The lec¬ tures are no longer novel, there is increas¬ ing difficulty in obtaining new and good lecturers, and there are many counter-at¬ tractions, e. g. kinema, other lectures in the same town, etc.” (Stockport Science Lec¬ tures Committee). “ Decreased: represen¬ tatives on public bodies either have not the time (through commercial claims), or the interest, to devote any attention to the mat¬ ter ” (Chelmsford). “I should say de¬ creased with the quality of the lecture. Good lectures are rare and generally well attended ” (Plymouth). The whole matter is admirably summed up by Mr. D. B. Morris, Town Clerk, Stirl¬ ing, as follows : Comparing the position of matters now with that of thirty years ago, the popular lecture does not now occupy the place in public esteem which it did. For this there are various causes. With the better type of young persons, attendance at con¬ tinuation classes, with their organized schemes of study, takes the place of attendance at popular lec¬ tures. To the non-studious the picture-house is the habitual place of resort. Many of the films there shown are such as would be exhibited at a popular science lecture. As regards older people, some find that life has to be lived more strenuously nowadays, and rest or quiet recreation are sought in the evening rather than anything distinctly intellectual. The great popular interest which used to be taken in natural history arising out of the 1 1 evolution ’ ’ controversy, and inspired also by the writings of Darwin, Wal¬ lace, Huxley, Lubbock, Kingsley and others, has passed entirely away. Such interest now centers in subjects like wireless telegraphy, aviation, and, at present, all matters connected with the war. Serious students will always be found to attend courses where educational value is to be got, but popular lectures will not succeed unless illustrated by kinematograph, lantern, or experiments, or by all three. The element of entertainment must be present, which implies novelty. Arrangements might be made with local picture-houses to have a fortnightly or monthly scientific evening, which November 17, 1916] SCIENCE 697 would take the form of a popular lecture with il¬ lustrations. Tickets, containing a short syllabus of the series, could be sold at cheap prices, a local organization assuming financial responsibility. 11. Can you suggest any course of action to follow in order to increase public interest in science in your district by means of popular lectures? The chief needs referred to are: (1) a supply of trained popular lecturers; (2) coordination of effort of educational insti¬ tutions, university extension committees, municipal corporations, trades councils, and similar bodies; (3) adequate adver¬ tisement and interesting press notices ; (4) lectures dealing more especially with sub¬ jects of present-day interest, or relating to the needs of the district; (5) endowment of popular science lecturers so as to enable lectures to be provided at a moderate cost ; (6) the use of the kinematograph in sci¬ ence lectures. Many correspondents seem to think that popular lectures are necessarily of the in¬ structive kind and intended to induce people to take up courses of study at edu¬ cational institutions. They have little faith in such a means of increasing the number of students, and rightly so. The purpose of public lectures may be, however, not so much to create desire to study as to en¬ lighten the community upon the relation of science to individual and national life. The point of view is thus entirely different from that of the local educational institu¬ tion or the local scientific society, both of which regard popular lectures as possible means of securing new students or mem¬ bers. The position is clearly stated by Principal Garnett, School of Technology, Manchester, in the following reply: A more general realization by competent lec¬ turers of the benefits which popular lectures may confer upon the community and a greater readiness on the part of universities and colleges to spend money on the provision and advertisement of such lectures. At the present time eminent men of sci¬ ence are, with few (if any) exceptions, rendering in other ways more valuable national service than they could render by the delivery of popular lec¬ tures. Moreover, the restricted financial resources of governing bodies are probably more usefully employed in the conduct of research and in pro¬ viding the education required by men who are to occupy responsible positions in the various indus¬ tries. The financial difficulty would disappear if an inspiring account of the broad outlines of nat¬ ural science formed part of the curriculum of every elementary and secondary school. This “ science for all” is to be carefully distinguished from the science training given to those who are to pursue further the study of science in some in¬ stitution of higher education or are to use it in their daily work. Mr. R. J. Moss (Royal Dublin Society) says : Much more attention must be given to science in school education. It should be made interest¬ ing and taught as much as possible by demonstra¬ tion and experiment. In this way the coming gen¬ eration may be enabled to appreciate science and to take an interest in the progress of knowledge. A great deal of good might be done by the creation of traveling lectureships to be held for a limited time by men who show an aptitude for the work. 12. What do you consider are the chief elements of success , or reasons for failure , of public lectures upon scientific subjects? Among the conditions of success men¬ tioned in replies to this question are: (1) The reputation and personality of the lec¬ turer, (2) effective advertisement and newspaper reports, (3) energy and effi¬ ciency of local secretaries and committees, (4) attractive titles, and choice of topical or popular subjects, (5) plenty of lantern slides, use of bioscope films, or good experi¬ mental illustrations. It is obvious that a lecturer should adapt himself to his audi¬ ence, and should possess expository power, so as to deal with his subject in a clear and interesting manner, without degen¬ erating into the style of a public enter¬ tainer. Professor Herdman states the chief ele- 698 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1142 ment of success to be “ a good lecturer who can be heard, has a definite story to tell, and can tell it in plain language.” This is also the view of Principal Garnett, who says : ‘ ‘ The chief elements of success seem to me to be that the lecturer should he vividly conscious of the closest relation that exists, or that can be established, between his subject and the daily lives of his audi¬ ence ; and that he should possess an expert knowledge of his subject, a power of lucid exposition, and a pleasant and forcible de¬ livery. ’ 7 The replies received show that these con¬ ditions are rare among lecturers ; and fail¬ ure is often ascribed to the absence of them. A subject and style appropriate to a lec¬ ture at the Royal Institution are unsuitable for a working-class audience such as that at the Royal Victoria Hall, though this is sometimes forgotten. The librarian and director of the Sunderland Public Libra¬ ries, Museum, and Art Gallery, remarks : The expertness of the lecturer and his constant association with experts often causes him to be ignorant of the ignorance of his audience. On the other hand, he is occasionally patronizing. In fail¬ ing to approach his subject from their point of view he is occasionally “over their heads,” and, despite his specialization, frequently fails where “a man of the people,” or a non-expert, will succeed with less knowledge, but better judgment. There should be the same difference between a “popular lecture” and a scientific discourse, as between an interesting primer and an advanced scientific treatise in literature. The successful “ popular” lecturer is, I think, more rare than the advanced or scientific lecturer. Failure may pos¬ sibly be attributed to the growth of light- entertain¬ ment halls, or maybe to a wider and more popular treatment of subjects in the press. There is also a greater literature now, and a wider circulation of it through libraries. Even in lectures to local scientific socie¬ ties the subjects are frequently treated in too advanced a manner, and are therefore unintelligible to many of the audience. It is suggested by some correspondents that if more attention were given to science in schools there would be a larger attendance at popular lectures; but much depends upon the nature of the science teaching. The principal of the technical school, Bar¬ row-in-Furness, writes : I am afraid that one of the causes lies in the dreary nature of the instruction in “science” given in the day-schools (secondary). No one here who has learned chemistry, for instance, in a day-school seems to wish to learn more. The thirst for amusement and excite¬ ment, no doubt, accounts largely for want of interest in science by the great major¬ ity of the public. There are now so many counter-attractions, such as picture palaces, music-halls, and other places of entertain¬ ment, that the general public is attracted to them rather than to lectures which re¬ quire mental effort to understand them. People want recreation after the day’s work, and prefer amusement rather than instruction. Experience shows that in an ordinary provincial town there is usually a small minority of intelligent persons who profit considerably from popular or semi-popular science lectures, hut that the general com¬ munity of the district is untouched by them. Such attempts as have been made to reach larger audiences, with a low standard of education, by means of ultrapopular lectures have proved fail¬ ures (Gloucester). In this, as in most cases, lectures of the in¬ structive type are referred to, and not those which aim at the appreciation of science as a living force in social economics or state affairs. Mr. H. J. Lowe, secretary of the Torquay Natural History Society, remarks : The only way I can see to helping science into its proper position as an essential in national develop¬ ment is by the recognition and proclamation by the government and educational authorities of its immeasurable importance in attaining national efficiency. This should be followed by some gen¬ eral scientific knowledge being required in all pass- November 17, 1916] SCIENCE 699 ing examinations, as a guarantee of an acquain¬ tance with science method and reasoning. The provision now made for the study of scientific and technical subjects accounts, no doubt, for the failure of popular lec¬ tures in many districts. When there were few institutions of higher education, the thoughtful section of the population took advantage of such lectures to extend their knowledge, but now the same class is pro¬ vided for in educational institutions and courses. The public science lectures of the present times, therefore, need not be of the same kind, or on the same subjects, as those of a past generation, but should be adapted to more modern needs and interests. Above all, they should be intended for the people as a whole, and not for students or others who propose to devote systematic attention to the subjects of the lectures or devote their careers to them. This distinction is not recognized in the subjoined remarks by Mr. C. F. Procter (Hon. Sec., Hull Scien¬ tific and Field Naturalists’ Club), which represent the views of many scientific so¬ cieties as to the present position, yet it is most important. Mr. Procter says : Scientific lectures can only be made popular in the sense that you attract the crowd of unscien¬ tific people, with a profusion of experiments, or, failing that, lantern illustrations. People will flock to the Egyptian Hall and are vastly enter¬ tained and educated a little by an exhibition of what is often clever scientific aerobatics. Human nature loves to see what it can not understand, and twenty years ago represents a period when the commonplaces of science were a wonderland to the average mind. The trend of education has altered that, and has sharply divided the same people into a minority of scientific enthusiasts who “ask for more,” and a majority of indifferents who remain cold at a display of the old elementary stuff. Edu¬ cation (and that includes very largely the popular science lectures of the past) has created in this, as in all the arts, a small aristocracy of intellect, or, rather, comparatively small. These are not satis¬ fied with anything that can possibly be popular. They are long past that, but will feverishly attend anything which proposes further to explore the deep water. The crowd — the man in the street and his womenkind — has had its wonder-bump ex¬ cised in the school laboratory. Modern sensation¬ alism in amusement and the plethora of scrappy yet crisp literature (which religiously exploits every new thing, scientific or otherwise, that may entertain) has calloused this excision. The appli¬ cation of the film-pictures to microscopy, etc., is about the only way to popularize science lectures, but — why bother? We can not all be men of sci¬ ence, and the present system provides that any who get the call may answer it, whilst popular lectures only attempt to entertain individuals of an age who are already past the slightest hope of ever being useful scientists. The proper thing is already being done by our schools, universities and university extension lecturers with our budding professors. The following letter from the acting reg¬ istrar of University College, Nottingham, bears upon some of the foregoing points : Popular lectures have been delivered for the past thirty-five years at this college. During the past few years the numbers delivered on science subjects have been less than in previous years, but there is good reason to believe that if some pecu¬ niary assistance from a central fund could be de¬ voted to lectures on science much progress might be made, not only in this city but throughout the whole of the East Midland area. At one time it was the practise to arrange during each session two or three series of lectures on scientific subjects during the winter terms. These series consisted of three or four weekly lectures on each subject and were generally delivered by professors of the col¬ lege. The professors received no extra remunera¬ tion for this work and as the ordinary college work grew it was almost impossible for the time to be spent in the preparation, which, it can be well understood, was very extensive. Ten to fifteen years back we always had crowded audiences, but these were cut down owing to the opening of so many picture-houses in the city and also to the fact that many of the senior scholars from the secondary and other schools now continue their education at the college and other institutions, at¬ tending two and three evenings per week. CONSTRUCTIVE PROPOSALS Many correspondents are of the opinion that the formation of a panel of lecturers 700 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1142 who would be prepared to assist small so¬ cieties by lecturing for a small fee would be of great assistance. Mr. H. Y. Thomp¬ son, Hon. Sec. of the North Staffordshire Field Club, says : It would greatly facilitate matters if the British Association prepared a list of lecturers on various scientific subjects who, although not necessarily in the first rank of scientific attainment, could be re¬ lied upon to give lectures which would hold and in¬ terest a normal popular audience. This course would much assist local clubs and societies in the difficult choice of lecturers and also enable them to gauge the interest in science in the district. Furthermore, promising young men would be in¬ troduced to districts where they are unknown at the present time. Mr. H. E. Forrest, Hon. Sec. of the Cara- doc and Severn Valley Field Club, makes much the same suggestion, as follows: I think local societies might help each other a great deal more than they do. In almost every so¬ ciety there are one or two members who are good lecturers on some particular branch of natural sci¬ ence. These might, in many instances, be willing to lecture to other societies for their expenses or a nominal fee. I suggest that you prepare a list of these gentlemen (giving addresses), with the sub¬ jects on which they lecture, and send the list to all corresponding societies, leaving it to their secre¬ taries to make arrangements direct with the re¬ spective lecturers. Mr. Herbert Bolton, curator of the Bris¬ tol Museum and Art Gallery, suggests that there should be an exchange system of lec¬ turers among museum curators: If, say, a dozen curators had all to work up lec¬ tures upon subjects with which they are familiar, they could, by arrangement, deliver the lectures at eleven other places in addition to their own, and so put in a good winter’s work and make a good lecture reach a wide audience. Similar suggestions are made by several correspondents for the exchange of lec¬ turers among local scientific societies. SUMMARY 1. Many local societies arrange for the delivery of occasional popular or semi- popular science lectures, but the audiences are mostly made up of members and their friends. 2. In most places there is a small circle of people interested in scientific work and development, and sufficient means exist to enable them to extend their acquaintance with diverse branches of natural knowl¬ edge, but the great bulk of the community is outside this circle and is untouched by its influence. 3. Popular lectures on scientific subjects do not usually attract such large audiences as formerly in most parts of the kingdom. To make a wide appeal to the general pub¬ lic the same principles of organization, ad¬ vertisement and selection of lecturer and subject must be followed, as are adopted by agents of other public performances. 4. Increase in the number of educational institutions has provided for the needs of most persons who wish to study science, either to gain knowledge or prepare for a career. Other people seek entertainment rather than mental effort in their leisure hours, and they require subjects of topical interest, or of social and political impor¬ tance, to attract them to lectures. 5. Few popular lectures pay their ex¬ penses, and scarcely a single local society has a special fund upon which it can draw in order to meet the cost involved in the provision of a first-rate lecturer and ade¬ quate advertisement. 6. Expenses of public lectures are usu¬ ally paid from (a) general funds of local societies; ( b ) college or museum funds; (c) rates; ( d ) education grants; or ( e ) Gilchrist and other trusts. 7. After the war there will be a new public for lectures and courses on a wide range of subjects ; but one of the main pur¬ poses of the lectures should be to show as many people as possible that they are per¬ sonally concerned as citizens with the posi- November 17, 1916] SCIENCE 701 tion of science in the state, in industry and in education. RECOMMENDATIONS 1. That an annual list of public lecturers on science subjects be prepared and pub¬ lished, with titles of their lectures. No fees should be mentioned in the list, but addresses should be given so that com¬ mittees organizing lectures may make their own arrangements with lecturers. Local scientific societies, museums and institu¬ tions of higher education should be invited to send the names of members of their bodies prepared to deliver lectures to simi¬ lar bodies elsewhere without fee other than traveling expenses, and the names of such voluntary lecturers should be indicated in the list by a distinguishing mark. 2. That committees organizing public science lectures should include representa¬ tives of as many interests as possible, such as municipal corporations, trades councils, cooperative societies, religious bodies, uni¬ versity extension committees, chambers of commerce, educational institutions, local scientific societies and like organizations concerned with the daily work and intel¬ lectual life of the district. 3. That to extend interest in science, and belief in its influence, beyond the narrow circle of serious students, increased use of the bioscope in illustrating natural objects, scenes and phenomena is desirable; and an appeal should be made to the interests of all classes of the community by addresses intended to show the relation of science and scientific method to national life and modern development. 4. That to carry on the propaganda of efficiency through science, local committees should endeavor to secure financial sup¬ port from manufacturers and others af¬ fected by national progress, and that local educational authorities be asked to provide funds to enable free popular lectures of a descriptive kind, for children as well as for adults, to be well-advertised and for reasonable fees to be paid for lecturers and their illustrations. 5. That more encouragement should be given at university institutions and train¬ ing colleges to the art of exposition and public speaking, for the benefit of those students and teachers whose aptitudes may later be usefully exercised in promoting interest in science. 6. That while the training of an ade¬ quate number of scientific workers is of prime importance, it is desirable that every¬ one should be made acquainted with the broad outlines of natural science while at school, and that public appreciation of sci¬ entific knowledge as an essential factor of modern progress should afterwards be created and fostered by means of popular lectures. 7. That this report be brought under the notice of each section of the association with the object of obtaining suggestions upon which organized action may be taken in connection with the Gilchrist Trust or independently. 8. That the committee be reappointed as a committee of Section L, its constitution remaining, as at present, representative of all the sections of the association, but with power to add to its numbers. THE FOURTEENTH NEW ENGLAND INTERCOLLEGIATE GEOLOG¬ ICAL EXCURSION The annual meeting of the geologists of the New England colleges and universities was held on Friday and Saturday, October 27-28, under the direction of Professors W. 0. Crosby and C. EL Warren, of the Massachusetts Insti¬ tute of Technology. The purpose of the excursion was to study the batholithic cycle of the Blue Hills at Quincy, Massachusetts. Here the intricate 702 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1142 relations are well displayed, are not obscured by later dynamo-inetamorphism, and have been determined with notable thoroughness and skill in independent and supplemental work by Crosby, Loughlin and Warren; Professor Orosby’s results having been published in 1895, Loughlin’s in 1911, and Warren’s in 1913. Preliminary explanations of the geology were given with the aid of lantern slides by Professors Crosby and Warren Friday eve¬ ning, October 27, in the lecture room of the Boston Society of Natural History. The ex¬ cursion, participated in by 39 persons, repre¬ senting 12 institutions, left Boston at 8 :49 a.m., October 28, and returned at 5 :30 p.m. Superb weather, the beauty of the Blue Hills in autumnal foliage, the geological interest of the rock exposures, and the instructive in¬ terpretation of them by the leaders, com¬ bined to make memorable this excursion. A synopsis of the geological relations of the Blue Hills complex as they were shown in the course of the day is as follows : The invaded sediments are dark, uniform, siliceous argillites of Cambrian age. They were closely folded and were metamorphosed by the contact action of the underlying magma into hornstones. The structural relations show that they are remnants of a cover which be¬ fore erosion extended over a considerable por¬ tion of the Quincy granite batholith. Some parts, now marginal, are preserved because they have been down-folded and down-faulted below the present level of erosion. Some isolated remnants indicate by their parallel orienta¬ tion within the abyssal rocks that they were roof pendants, other outcrops show by their lack of orientation that they were marginal inclusions of greater or less size. These horn- stones preserve within them diabase dikes, showing thus the nature of the advance intru¬ sions from the magma which gave rise to the Quincy intrusions. The initial age of these dikes was clearly shown by their restriction to the sedimentary cover and one was pointed out which, furthermore, was cut by a thin dike of fine-grained granite. Next in the series to the diabase dikes is the conspicuous rhomben porphyry, the matrix of which is as dark as the diabase, but whose composition is in reality intermediate between that of the diabase and that of the granite. The series thus indicates a progressive differentiation, but discontinuous intrusion. The rhomben porphyry is associ¬ ated with the margins of the sedimentary cover and is found also abundantly as angular blocks, cognate xenoliths, within the next mar¬ ginal phase. During the process of crystalliza¬ tion of the rhomben porphyry there was re¬ peated shattering and invasion by slightly different phases of the same magma. Finally the zone was shattered and invaded by a dis¬ tinctly differentiated magma, the third of the series. This crystallized as a granite porphyry. It occurs in places in considerable mass, but elsewhere may exist as discontinu¬ ous fine-grained rims one or two inches thick about the xenolithic blocks of older phases. In places where a cracking but not disruption of the rhomben porphyry occurred there was some thin infiltration of the following magma accompanied by a metasomatic impregnation of the walls to a depth of a quarter to half inch, bringing about by recrystallization an approach to the nature of the later rock. One of the most interesting relations of the granite porphyry was seen in its chilled contacts with an aporhyolite. The latter appears to have formed a thin chilled cover to the batholith, made from the same magma, yet cut by the porphyritic phase. It indicates that the roof of older rocks had here been destroyed after the stage of the rhomben porphyry and that the batholith was in effect partly deroofed in this acidic stage. Following the granite por¬ phyry came, after another interval permitting some slight further differentiation, the great upwelling of the Quincy granite. This, the main rock of the batholith, was followed later by the feeble injection of a few diabase dikes, closing the cycle. In the opinion of Professor Warren the structure of the roof of the batho¬ lith indicates invasion chiefly by stoping. This small batholith is regarded as a local and structurally high intrusion belonging to the far wider and more complex batholith, which underlies much of New England, which November 17, 1916] SCIENCE 703 outcrops in many areas where erosion has worn through the ancient cover, and whose intrusive history covers a long period of time in the upper Paleozoic. The age relations of the Quincy succession are limited by the facts that the igneous rock cuts the Cambrian sediments and is covered by Carboniferous conglomerates which rest upon the eroded surface of the porphyry. The age is regarded by the leaders as probably Devo¬ nian or Mississippian. In the unavoidable absence of the permanent secretary, Professor Cleland, this record of the excursion is made at his request by the secretary pro tem. Joseph Barrell Yale University CLEVELAND ABBE It fell to the lot of this modest man, a distinguished representative of American sci¬ ence, to initiate the national systems of weather forecasting which are to-day main¬ tained by nearly every civilized nation of im¬ portance. With the science of meteorology Abbe’s name will be associated through the coming ages. With the death of Cleveland Abbe, chief meteorologist of the United States Weather Bureau, terminated the original phase of na¬ tional meteorological work in America, for he was the sole surviving active official of the bureau in which he had served forty-six years. As one of his associates, I accepted the in¬ vitation of Science to pay a tribute to his memory, which adheres to personal relations, and not to the evolution of that great idea which took possession of his soul in the small astronomical observatory in Cincinnati, an idea which was to blossom forth in practical form throughout the world. When in 1870, at the invitation of Chief Signal Officer A. J. Myer, Abbe entered the signal office of the army to undertake the work of predicting the weather of the United States, he found his position and his duties most onerous and embarrassing. The environment was military, and the young officers had been drafted into scientific work that was tentative and unknown. Besides initiating a novel serv¬ ice Abbe was to cooperate with civilian scien¬ tists and to train in the new work officers fresh from the western frontier, from the military academy and from remote artillery seacoast stations. He entered on these manifold duties with the same equanimity and devotion as had marked his astronomical work in Russia and at home. The original scientific force engaged in weather and flood forecasts were nine in number. Besides the civilians, Abbe, T. B. Maury and William Ferrel, there were Chief Signal Officer A. J. Myer, Lieutenants R. Craig, H. H. C. Dunwoody, A. W. Greely, C. E. Kilbourne and J. P. Story. All are dead except Craig, Dunwoody and Greely, who are on the retired list of the army. Through all the changes, from military to civic control, from one weather bureau chief to another, Abbe continued steadily at his scien¬ tific work under six separate administrative chiefs, active along lines of study and research to the last. It is interesting to note that the scientific bodies of the country have not con¬ tributed more than half a dozen officials of prominence to the bureau — though it has been under civil control 26 years — to the present force which has grown up under lines initiated by the practicality of Myer and the theories of Abbe. During twenty years of his service I was intimately associated with Abbe as his sub¬ ordinate and pupil, as a coworker, and as his administrative chief. During this term of years there inevitably developed situations which were complex, annoying and embarrass¬ ing to the scientific force. Yet in all such conditions I never knew him to display bad temper, to unduly prolong discussions, to ad¬ vance personal interests, nor to abate his most strenuous efforts to carry out such policies as were judged needful for the good of the serv¬ ice — even though they had not originally met with his approval. As a student in various subjects, such as light, heat, meteorology, etc., as a lieutenant I taxed for months his amiability and temper, for his very serious and methodical methods often excited my amusement and led to jocose 704 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1142 and sarcastic comments, which he always met with gentleness and sorrow. His weather forecasts, from which he gained deserved fame, were always deduced by strictly considering the effects that should follow cer¬ tain observed conditions. An amusing instance of that practise gained wide circulation among the office force. At 10 a.m. it suddenly began to rain in Washington, and at 10 :15 a.m. Abbe predicted that there would be no rain in the city for the 24 hours beginning at 8 a.m. that day. When taxed with it he simply said : “ There was nothing in the conditions shown by the map that scientifically indicated rain.” He was equally true to his beliefs in all other directions. Fidelity and loyalty marked his long public career, and in Browning’s words Cleveland Abbe could truthfully say that of his life, he “ learned to love the true.” A. W. Greely THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF NATU¬ RALISTS The American Society of Naturalists, in affiliation with the American Association of Anatomists, the American Society of Zoolo¬ gists, and the Botanical Society of America, will hold its thirty-fourth annual meeting at New York, under the auspices of Columbia University, on Friday, December 29, 1916, and, by invitation of the Carnegie Station for Ex¬ perimental Evolution, at Cold Spring Harbor on Saturday, December 30. The Botanical Society of America will place the genetical papers of its program on Thurs¬ day morning December 28, and the American Society of Zoologists will group its genetical papers in a program for Thursday afternoon. By this arrangement there will be sessions of genetical interest on the day preceding the meetings of the Naturalists and continuing with the Naturalists’ programs for Friday and Saturday. The Friday morning session of the Natural¬ ists will be open for papers on evolution, genet¬ ics, and related subjects from members or in¬ vited guests, titles of which with estimated length of delivery must be in the hands of the secretary by December 1. Requests for micro¬ scopes or for space for demonstrations should also be sent to the secretary. The program of Friday afternoon will be a symposium on “ Biology and National Exist¬ ence,” with papers by Stewart Paton, W. J. Spillman, Y. L. Kellogg, Jacques Loeb and E. G. Conklin. The annual dinner, in which members of the affiliated societies are invited to participate, will be held in the evening of Friday at the Hotel Manhattan, which has been selected as the headquarters of the Naturalists. There will be a joint smoker for members of the Naturalists and of the affiliated societies at the Columbia University Commons, Wed¬ nesday evening, December 27. Members of the American Society of Nat¬ uralists are invited by the Carnegie Station for Experimental Evolution to spend Satur¬ day, December 30, at Cold Spring Harbor. A morning session from 10.30 to 1 will be held in Blackford Hall for the presentation of genetical papers. After a lunch there will be opportunity to inspect the equipment of the station, the activities of which will be explained by the staff. Arrangements for trains will be announced in the final program. Bradley M. Davis, Secretary THE ENDOWMENT OF THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE UNIVER¬ SITY OF CHICAGO The General Education Board and the Rockefeller Foundation have appropriated $2,000,000 (each $1,000,000) for the establish¬ ment of a medical department in the Univer¬ sity of Chicago. It brings Mr. Rockefeller’s contributions to the university up to nearly $37,000,000. The university will set aside at least $2,000,- 000 for the same purpose, will give a site on the Midway valued at $500,000, and will raise a further sum of $3,300,000. The medical school will therefore start with an endowment of almost $8,000,000. Rush Medical. College, established seventy- five years ago, will go out of existence. The Presbyterian Hospital which Rush College November 17, 1916] SCIENCE 705 has used, will be taken over by the Univer¬ sity of Chicago and will be reorganized to provide adequate clinical and laboratory facil¬ ities. A new laboratory building will be erected in immediate conjunction with the hospital. The buildings and grounds of the Presbyterian Hospital are valued at about $3,000,000. A statement given out by Dr. Abraham Flexner says: This project will be giving the city of Chicago a high-grade medical school and it will also pro¬ vide for the first time in this country a post-grad¬ uate school adequately equipped and financed. The school will be erected on the Midway Plai- sance, and will thus form a part of the present University of Chicago plant. High-grade modern laboratory buildings will be provided for instruc¬ tion in the students’ first and second years, and a university hospital under complete control of the university, with laboratories and an out patient de¬ partment, will be built on the Midway. The entire teaching staff, clinical as well as laboratory, will be organized on the full time basis. That is, all the teachers for clinical as well as lab¬ oratory studies will give their entire time to teach¬ ing and research in the university hospital and medical school. Professors and their assistants will hold their posts on condition that they become salaried university officials and that they accept personally no fees whatever for any medical or surgical services. The only medical schools in the country to-day which have embraced the full time teaching plan are Johns Hopkins Medical School and the med¬ ical department of Washington University, St. Louis. The full-time scheme is a plan to insure to hos¬ pital work and medical teaching the undivided energy of eminent scientists whose efforts might otherwise be distracted by the conflicting demands of private practise and clinical teaching. The full time scheme is an appeal to scientific interests and devotion of the clinician, and the results so far realized through the plan at Johns Hopkins have been most satisfactory. It should be of increasing consequence to the public that the training of those studying to be¬ come doctors should be in charge of the most com¬ petent men obtainable devoting their entire time to this work. Greatly increased efficiency and thoroughness should result, to the alleviation of suffering and the cure of disease. The new institution thus to be established in Chicago will be equipped with every modern fa¬ cility for medical instruction and with ample funds for operation. SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS The American Academy of Arts and Sci¬ ences on November 15 presented the Rumford medals to Mr. Charles Greeley Abbot, of the Smithsonian Institution, for his researches on solar radiation. Dr. George F. Kay, head of the department of geology of the University of Iowa and state geologist of Iowa, has been elected university research lecturer for the current year. Dur¬ ing each year the university lecturer visits tlbe; educational institutions of Iowa and delivers a* lecture in which is involved the spirit of re¬ search. This policy has been followed sucqessr- fully for about ten years. Dr. Joseph J. Kinyoun, bacteriologist of the health department of the District of Columbia, who, at the request of the authorities of Wins¬ ton-Salem, N. C., has been for several months engaged in the reorganization of the health de¬ partment of that city, has resumed his duties in Washington. Major-General Goethals, governor of the Panama Canal Zone, will pass into the retired list of the army on his own application dating from November 15, after forty years’ service. The order of retirement affects only General Goethals’s military status and does not operate to relieve him from duty as governor of the Canal Zone, but is preliminary to his retire¬ ment. The Sociedad Argentina de Ciencias Natu- rales, Buenos Aires, has elected as correspond¬ ing members Sir Ernest Shackleton and Mr. W. H. Hudson, the author of “ Argentine Ornithology” and other works. On the occasion of his seventieth birthday on December 7, 1915, Professor A. Voss, of the University of Munich, received from the Munich technical high school the honorary de¬ gree of doctor of technical sciences. At the annual meeting of the British Astro¬ nomical Association on October 25, it was 706 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1142 stated that Major F. L. Grant, who had been severely wounded at the front, had resigned the secretaryship. Mr. W. Heath, M.A., was ap¬ pointed to the vacancy. Dr. J. L. E. Dreyer has resigned his office as director of the Armagh Observatory, a posi¬ tion which he has held since 1882. In addition to the awards announced in April for papers read at the meetings, the council of the British Institution of Civil Engineers have made the following awards for papers published in the Proceedings without discussion during the session 1915-16: Telford Premiums to Messrs. Hubert Mawson (Liver¬ pool), T. W. Keele (Sydney), R. W. Holmes (Wellington, 1ST. Z.), W. Fairley (London), J. M. Greathead (Johannesburg), T. C. Hood (Manmad, India), and J. B. Ball (London) ; the Manby Premium to Mr. W. C. Cushing (Pittsburgh, IJ. S. A.), and the Crampton Prize to Major C. E. P. Sankey, D.S.O., R.E. (London). The Indian Premium for 1916 has been awarded to Sir John Benton, K.C.I.E. (Eastbourne). Professor C. R. Orton, of Pennsylvania State College, is on leave of absence for one year and has registered for graduate work at Columbia University. He will spend some time at the Hew York Botanical Garden in connection with his researches on parasitic fungi. The steam yacht Alberta, which is to carry a party of scientific men headed by Dr. Alex¬ ander Hamilton Rice up the Amazon River, left Hew York City, Hovember 15, for South America. The expedition plans to make a topographical survey of portions of the Ama¬ zon valley and interior districts and studies of the diseases of natives in that section. The members of the party include, besides Dr. and Mrs. Rice, Dr. William T. Councilman, pathol¬ ogist of Harvard University; Earl S. Church, of Hewport, of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, and Ernest Howe, of Hew¬ port, geologist. At the recent meeting of the Clinical Con¬ gress of Surgeons held in the various institu¬ tions in Philadelphia, Dr. John C. Clark, chief operating surgeon at the University Hospital and professor of gynecology at the University of Pennsylvania, was elected president. The next meeting of the congress will be held in Hew York City. Dean Francis C. Shenehon, of the College of Engineering of the University of Minne¬ sota, has been engaged as consulting engineer since the middle of June on hydraulic investi¬ gations in Illinois and will be absent from the university almost continuously until the mid¬ dle of December. Dr. Robert M. Lewis has left for Shanghai, China, where he will be associated with Dr. McCracken, teaching in the University of Pennsylvania Medical School of China, which a few years ago became a department of St. John’s University. He goes as one of the rep¬ resentatives of the Christian Association of the University of Pennsylvania and expects to return some time in the spring. He has lately been associated with his uncle, Dr. Howard A. Kelly, in surgical work at the Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Edwin T. Hodge, who has been pursuing graduate studies in geology at Columbia Uni¬ versity for the past two years, and has spent one summer season in field investigation in Porto Rico, has been given a position on the instruction staff in the department of geology in the University of British Columbia. The Harveian oration before the Royal Col¬ lege of Physicians of London was delivered by Sir Thomas Barlow on October 18. The address of the retiring president at the anniversary meeting of the London Mathe¬ matical Society, on Hovember 2, was delivered by Sir Joseph Larmor, who took as his subject “The Fourier Harmonic Analysis: its Prac¬ tical Scope and its Limitations.” The Bradshaw lecture before the Royal Col¬ lege of Physicians of London was delivered on Hovember 2 by Dr. Hector Mackenzie, whose subject was exophthalmic goitre. The Horace Dobell lecture was delivered on Hovember 7 by Dr. H. R. Dean, on the mechanism of the serum reactions. Dr. W. H. R. Rivers has given a second course of FitzPatrick lectures November 17, 1916] SCIENCE 707 on medicine, magic and religion, on November 14 and 16. Another course of Chadwick public lectures has been arranged. Professor Stirling gave the first of three lectures on fatigue and its effects on industry and efficiency, at the Royal Society of Arts, Adelphi, on October 27. Dr. Charles Porter began a course of three lec¬ tures on the health of the future citizen, at the Norwich Museum on November 2; Dr. J. C. Nash, county medical officer and chief school officer, Norfolk, will give a lecture on baby saving for the nation, at the Hampstead Cen¬ tral Library on November 20; and Mr. Paul Waterhouse will give the first of three lectures on architecture in relation to health and wel¬ fare, at the Surveyors’ Institute, Westminster, on November 30. The birthplace of Weierstrass in Osterfelde in Westphalia has recently been marked by a memorial tablet. The death is announced of Arthur G-. Smith, head of the department of mathematics and astronomy in the University of Iowa. A. B. Alexander, assistant in charge of the Bureau of Statistics of the United States Fish¬ eries Commission at Washington, has died. Dr. Julius H. Eichberg, professor of ma¬ teria medica in the college of medicine. Uni¬ versity of Cincinnati, died on October 31, 1916. The death is announced of Dr. Jean- Joseph Picot, formerly professor of clinical medicine at the Bordeaux School of Medicine, at the age of seventy-seven years, and of G. Salomon, pro¬ fessor of physiological chemistry at the Uni¬ versity of Berlin, aged sixty-seven years. Maurycy Rudzki, since 1902 director of the Cracow Observatory, has died at the age of fifty-four years. At the invitation of Dr. E. C. Pickering, the fourth annual meeting of the American Association of Variable Star Observers will be held at the Harvard College Observatory, on November 18, 1916. It is announced from Sweden, that no Nobel prizes for science or medicine will be awarded for this year, but that the money will be re¬ served for 1917. The money for the prizes for 1915 has also been reserved and will be added to the special fund. We learn from Nature that Professor A. S. Donner, director of the observatory at Hel¬ singfors, has presented to the university, of which he was formerly rector, the sum of £8,000, to ensure the continuance, and indeed the completion, of the “ Catalogue photo- graphique du Ciel, Zone de Helsingfors,” be¬ gun under his direction in 1890. Hitherto the work has been paid for, partly by the univer¬ sity, partly by Professor Donner out of his private means. The sum now allotted by him is intended to cover all expenses for twelve years, when, at its present rate of progress, the task should be finished. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS Amherst College has received a gift of $100,000 from Mrs. Rufus Pratt Lincoln, of Plainfield, N. J., to establish a chair of science. Professor John M. Tyler, professor of biology in the college since 1879, has been elected the first Rufus Tyler Lincoln professor. Amherst College has also received a bequest of $5,000, to be known as the Edward Tuckerman Fund, for work in botany. Professor William Esson, late Savillian professor of geometry at Oxford, by his will gives ultimately to Merton College and the University of Oxford his estate, the value of which is about $55,000. Dr. John Sharshall Grasty, formerly asso¬ ciate professor of geology at the University of Virginia, has resigned to take charge of the new department of mining geology recently established at Washington and Lee University. Dr. Albert William Giles has been appointed adjunct professor of geology in the University of Virginia. The Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society announces appointments of instructors in mathematics as follows: C. H. Clevenger in the school of mines of the University of Min¬ nesota; C. N. Reynolds in Wesleyan Univer¬ sity; P. R. Rider in Washington University; 708 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1142 J. J. Tanzola, of Columbia University, in the U. S. Naval Academy, and Dr. C. H. Forsyth, of the University of Michigan, in Dartmouth College. Dr. Chas. H. Otis has resigned his position as instructor in botany and assistant botanist at New Hampshire College and Experiment Station, to accept a position in the biological laboratory at Western Reserve University. Dr. Otis will have charge of the instruction in botany in Adelbert College and the College for Women, taking the place of Dr. Wm. H. Wes¬ ton, who recently resigned. Mr. Paul C. Graff has been appointed in¬ structor in botany at the University of Mon¬ tana. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE FURTHER EVIDENCE BEARING ON THE AGE OF THE RED BEDS IN THE RIO GRANDE VALLEY, NEW MEXICO The almost total lack of invertebrate fossils in the Red Beds exposed on the eastern side of the Rio Grande Valley has made it very difficult to determine their exact position in the geologic column. In some localities defi¬ nite determinations have been made, largely upon stratigraphic evidence, showing that the red sandstones and shales occur at horizons ranging from the Upper Pennsylvanian to the Cretaceous. The work upon this region has been reviewed by Lee and Girty.1 During the last summer, while engaged in a survey of the Permo-Carboniferous boundary line for the Carnegie Institution, the writer was able to spend a short time in the Red Beds near Socorro, New Mexico. The examination was made possible by suggestions and maps furnished through the kindness of Dr. N. H. Darton, of the U. S. Geological Survey. Two or three miles north of Carthage, New Mexico, the prominent ridge of Dakota sand¬ stone is underlain by a series of shales and sandstone varying in color from bright green to brilliant red with a few patches of con¬ glomerate and impure limestone of limited i Lee, W. T., and Girty, Geo. H., ‘ ‘ The Manzano Group of the Rio Grande Valley, New Mexico,” Bulletin 389, U. S. Geological Survey, 1909. horizontal extent. The arid valley between the ridge and the hills to the north capped by the San Andreas limestone affords an ex¬ cellent exposure of the beds. Lee and Girty reported a few doubtful in¬ vertebrate fossils from the San Andreas at this place and speak of 200 feet of red beds overlying the limestone at the old lime kiln near Carthage. No. fossils were found in these upper beds and their age is a matter of conjecture. They also report the Abo and Yeso forma¬ tions as present, but the exact locality of their section is not given. The red beds above the San Andreas limestone are faulted down against it just at the old lime kiln and can be traced up the valley for several miles. Close to the lime kiln and about half way up to the base of the Cretaceous the writer found a small bed of conglomerate containing an abun¬ dance of lamellibranchs in a very small patch. These have not yet been identified. A few fragments of bone were found in the same bed and further up the valley, but at a lower level, other fragments were found. The following list shows them, and the containing beds, to be clearly Triassic. 1. A small section, about four inches, of the snout of a slender- jawed Phytosaur, suggest¬ ing Angistorhinus or Mystriosuchus, with teeth diverging at an angle of 15 to 20°. This was found in a concretion in a dark brown, impure limestone occurring as a lens in the red shale. 2. Three vertebrae, found at different local¬ ities, apparently Phytosaurian. 3. The proximal and distal ends of a large limb bone, badly worn and unidentified, but certainly not related to any of the known forms of Permo-Carboniferous vertebrates. 4. Two small dorsal plates. One with a median dorsal ridge and the other, regularly hexagonal and with a ventral rugosity evi¬ dently for attachment to the dorsal spine of a vertebra. 5. Several imperfect ends of large limb bones; two suggesting the ends of a tibia and a radius respectively. 6. Two fragments of thoracic plates. One November 17, 1916] SCIENCE 709 from a large plate with deep radial flutings and the other, smaller, with similar markings. Both are evidently Stegocephalian. 7. A large vertebral centrum, evidently from a sterospondylus Stegocephalian. Most of the bones were found in the con¬ glomerate beds, but a few in lenses of impure limestone. Lee and Girty also give a description of the beds near the Mesa del Yeso on the eastern side of the Valle del Ojo de la Parida and re¬ port typical Manzano fossils from the Yeso formation. The Red Beds were examined by the writer near the Ojo de la Parida about ten miles northeast of Socorro, where the Abo, Yeso and San Andreas formations are easily recognized. In the Yeso and the upper part of the Abo no vertebrate fossils were found, but in the lower part of the beds near the mouth of the Canyon- cito Colorado (see the Socorro topographic sheet) beds of dark red pebble conglomerate were found lying upon green, blue and drab shales which show in the bed of the arroyo. In this conglomerate were found typical Permo-Carboniferous bones such as were col¬ lected by Dr. Williston and the writer in Rio Arribo County, Hew Mexico. The following list shows the similarity : 1. A complete femur of Eryops sp. 2. The distal end of a clavicle of Eryops sp. 3. The distal end of a neural spine of Eryops sp. 4. A femur of Sphenacodon. 5. A fragment of the jaw with four teeth of Sphenacodon. 6. The distal end of the scapula of a Sphena¬ codon or Ophiacodon. 7. The distal end of a large scapula, pos¬ sibly Sphenacodon. 8. Fragments of a large pelvis, possibly Sphenacodon. 9. In the bluish shale in the bank of arroyo, the proximal end of a rib of diadectid type associated with poorly preserved plant remains. 10. In the drab shale below the blue, several invertebrates. The discovery of this fauna below the San Andreas limestone adds one more bit of evi¬ dence to those already cited by the author elsewhere, for the very early appearance of specialized reptilian life in North America. E. C. Case THE SWEET POTATO “SOIL ROT” OR “POX” ORGANISM 1 Since Halstead in 1891 published his results on the study of “ Soil Rot ” of sweet potatoes, which he credited to a fungus “ Acrocystis batatas,” little positive work seems to have been done on the causative organism. During the present season observations by the author of slimy masses on the surface of roots devel¬ oping large shallow “ pox ” marks, led to the discovery that the disease is due to a plas- modium and that there are two modes of in¬ fection. One is by the plasmodium as a whole, causing large shallow pits; the second is by means of swarm spores, which enter the grow¬ ing-points of stems or roots and cause the formation of deep circular pits, when the in¬ fection reaches the main root. The swarm spores first entering a growing-point go through a rapid development in the outer host cells, passing through an ameboid and a plas- modial stage. During the plasmodial stage d large number of nuclei are formed by mitotic division. The plasmodium then forms a heavy-walled cyst in which hundreds of spores are developed. The swarm spores are liber¬ ated within the cyst, which breaks down and releases the spores, when a further infection of host cells occurs. The infection spreads rapidly to the main root, causing a pit or “ pox ” scar. When the pit has reached the limit of its development the plasmodium as¬ sembles and breaks out, migrating into the soil. A secondary infection by swarm spores in small immature pits, causing extensive blister-like elevations in the skin of stored sweet potatoes, has been observed. White potatoes are also subject to the disease. The formation of a heavy-walled cyst con¬ taining several hundred swarm spores sepa¬ rates this plasmodium from the now-recog¬ nized genera of the Plasmodiophorales. Ac¬ cordingly, the name Cystospora batata gen. i A preliminary note. 710 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1142 nov., sp. nov. is proposed for this new organ¬ ism. A more complete description of the or¬ ganism and the histology of the disease will be published shortly. John A. Elliott Delaware College Experiment Station, September 18, 1916 THE SYNCHRONAL FLASHING OF FIREFLIES In Science for February 4, 1916, E. S. Morse, under the title, “ Fireflies Flashing in Unison,” mentions having seen fifty years be¬ fore a striking instance of the synchronal flashing of fireflies. Morse again discusses briefly the same subject in Science for Sep¬ tember 15, 1916. He states that he has never since observed this phenomenon in the flashing of these insects. McDermott, in Science for October 27, 1916, also discusses the question of fireflies flashing in unison. The synchronal flashing of fireflies appears to be a very rare phenomenon in North Amer¬ ica. So rarely does it seem to occur that one may consider himself fortunate if he has ob¬ served the phenomenon even once in a life¬ time. The writer about twelve years ago ob¬ served a most remarkable instance of the simultaneous flashing of fireflies in Oxford, Mass. On the night this phenomenon occurred a heavy thunderstorm had recently passed over, followed by a profound calm. From time to time dazzling flashes of lightning illuminated the landscape. The air was very warm and humid, and fireflies became unusually abun¬ dant and active, especially in a low field ad¬ joining some woods. Here thousands of these insects were sailing low over the ground, flashing incessantly as far as the eye could see. After a while a most remarkable synchronism in the flashing appeared to take place. From time to time, as if moved by a common im¬ pulse, great numbers would flash so closely in unison over the entire field that an extensive sheet of tiny light-points would gleam upon the vision for a moment — and then vanish. This remarkable synchronism in the flashing sometimes continued several times in succes¬ sion, giving one the impression of alternate waves of illumination and darkness in the dis¬ tance. At times the rhythmic impulse ceased for a considerable period over the entire field. At other times it appeared to take place only in large groups occupying particular areas of the field. Although the writer has given a great deal of attention to the flashing of fire¬ flies during the last twelve years, synchronism in the flashing of these insects has never since been observed. Depending more or less upon atmospheric conditions, fireflies show consid¬ erable variation in the character of their flight and the flashing impulse. At times the in¬ sects seem loath to leave the low herbage. On certain evenings they appear to confine their flight over the fields largely to the lowermost stratum of the atmosphere; at other times they rise upward in myriads from the grass early in the evening and drift away in all directions toward the crowns of the trees. At such times the upward flight is frequently accompanied by a weak, prolonged emission of light so that the insects appear to be tiny, glowing sparks propelled upward by gentle air currents. H. A. Allard Washington, D. C. QUOTATIONS THE NEWCASTLE MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION For the third time the British Association has held its annual meeting during the great war. There are some obvious reasons for sus¬ pending such meetings, to which brief refer¬ ence has already been made on the previous occasions, and to which has been since added the further restriction of available members by the adoption of universal service. But there are also good reasons for “carrying on,” the best of them being provided by experience. The meetings have been eminently successful, if success is properly gauged with due account taken of the difficulties. In using the word it is not implied that the numbers present were large compared with the average numbers in peace time: at Newcastle the tickets sold were indisputably below that average — even much below it : we must think rather of what might have been, under the deplorable circum¬ stances. The sections might have been empty, whereas they were well attended, in November 17, 1916] SCIENCE 711 some cases specially well attended even by any standard. It is a fair inference that many of the absentees were such as do not usually attend the section, preferring the lighter enter¬ tainments of the meeting. At Newcastle there were no general excursions, though the anthro¬ pologists made a sectional excursion to the Roman Wall; and there were no entertain¬ ments beyond a thoroughly enjoyable recep¬ tion by the Lord Mayor on one evening, and a very pleasant garden party given by Miss Noble and Mrs. Cochrane. There is no need to determine now whether the severe economy in general gatherings need be permanent: in our present mood we naturally regard their more frivolous characteristics with disfavor. But such general gatherings, where those usually separated in calling and locality may meet for interchange of ideas, have an un¬ doubted value which may be trusted to re¬ assert itself when the time comes. At present we have neither much inclination nor much time for them, seeing that the whole meetings have been reduced in length. Further, in estimating the success of the meeting, we must remember the actual diffi¬ culties to be overcome, especially by the city of Newcastle, and all who worked so devotedly in its interests. The invitation was given before the war, and it would have been quite rea¬ sonable to withdraw it under the entirely un¬ foreseen conditions, even in the interests of the guests themselves, who might not have cared to visit an east coast “fortified town” just now. But in March last, after the neces¬ sary limitations and modifications had been frankly stated, and a courteous enquiry had been made and answered, the invitation was cordially confirmed; and from that moment no more was said of the heavy load of anxiety which those responsible for the success of the meeting must have carried with them continu¬ ously until The concluding words were spoken. — From an Oxford Note-book in The Observa¬ tory. THE STATE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY That the State College of Agriculture at Cornell University is successfully solving the great problem of agricultural education is visibly evident from the fact that in a dozen years the enrollment of students in the college has increased ten-fold. Already the college of agriculture is the largest college in Cornell University, and the authorities and friends of the university share the hopes of the faculty of agriculture for a continued increase in the attendance and steady improvement and growing success in its work. The motive force behind this great move¬ ment for a more satisfying country life and a better agriculture is the conviction that properly trained men and women must be placed on the farms and in the rural commu¬ nities. Education and science are the hope of the farmers as they have already preyed the boon of manufacturers and transporters. Men and women of vision and well-disciplined minds are the prime agents in accomplishing progress in every field of human activity whether intellectual, economic or material. Under the terms of the Smith-Lever Bill New York state will in 1923, and annually thereafter, when the appropriations provided for will have reached their maximum, receive from the federal government $170,000 on con¬ dition that the state of New York provide an equal amount for cooperative extension work among the farmers of the state. Cornell Uni¬ versity being the federal land grant college of New York is the agent by which this ex¬ tension work is to be carried on. While the federal government has thus gen¬ erously encouraged education and investiga¬ tion in agriculture and the extension of the results of scientific investigation to farmers on their own farms, many of the state govern¬ ments have shown no less zeal for the better¬ ment of the farmers and the improvement of conditions of farming within their own bor¬ ders. Among these states New York stands conspicuous. The State College of Agricul¬ ture and Veterinary Medicine at Cornell Uni¬ versity as well as the state experiment station at Geneva are visible evidences of the wisdom with which, in this respect, the state has been governed. Briefly and broadly expressed, the State 712 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1142 College of Agriculture at Cornell University exists for the benefit of the farmers. It is a college of agriculture, it is not an institution of general education. The New York State College of Agriculture has stood in the forefront among the agricul¬ tural colleges of America. Its work, how¬ ever, has only just begun and vast possibilities are opening up for the future. The extent to which the college can realize these possibilities and the rate at which it can continue to progress will depend largely on how adequately its growing needs are met by appropriations from the state of New York. — President J. G. Schurman in his Annual Report. SCIENTIFIC BOOKS Catalogue of the Fresh-water Fishes of Africa in the British Museum. Vol. IV. By G. A. Boulenger. London, British Museum (Nat¬ ural History). The fourth volume completes the account of the fresh-water fishes of Africa, based on a col¬ lection of over 15,000 specimens, and includ¬ ing 1,425 species. In addition to the enormous collection of the British Museum, on which the work is primarily based, the author ex¬ amined many specimens belonging to other museums, and did everything possible to make a complete survey of the subject on the lines laid down. Like other British Museum “ Cat¬ alogues,” this is in reality a monographic re¬ vision of the whole group of animals discussed. When noticing a former volume, we had oc¬ casion to refer to the magnitude and im¬ portance of Mr. Boulenger’s labors in this field. It may perhaps be opportune to call at¬ tention to the extraordinary value of such a worker to any museum or country. We are not only amazed at the amount of work which may be accomplished by a single man, but we observe how he secures the cooperation of col¬ lectors, men who can not themselves do tech¬ nical work in zoology, but are more than glad to furnish materials to those who can make such good use of them. Collecting in tropical Africa is always difficult and often hazardous, but many enthusiasts have searched the rivers and lakes of that continent for Mr. Boulenger, proud to be partners in so great an undertak¬ ing. The aid thus rendered has been fully and exactly recognized in publication, following the excellent methods long ago established by the British Museum. In our own National Museum the staff in certain departments has always been inadequate, while the possibilities of development have never been appreciated by Congress. Curatorial work on the collec¬ tions is, of course, the first necessity; but it is not realized that it would be a splendid in¬ vestment to secure experts to take charge of those divisions of zoology and botany which have been least developed, and which super¬ ficially appear to stand least in need of atten¬ tion. The Museum, employing one man, really secures the services of many, who become col¬ laborators and contributors of specimens from all over the world. In 1870, only 255 species of fresh-water fishes were known from Africa; who could have guessed what intensive work would bring forth? The materials gathered together can not be sold; it is impossible to accurately define their value in money, but it ought to be sufficiently apparent that the work pays, whether we regard the tangible or in¬ tangible results. The volume under review begins with the Carangidse, and includes the more specialized or higher families of fishes. More than half, however, is occupied with “ Addenda,” descrip¬ tions of the numerous species discovered dur¬ ing the publication of the work. The addi¬ tional species belong mainly to the Cyprinidse, Siluridse and Characinidse, as might have been expected. The already enormous genus Barbus receives very many additions. The plan of the work does not permit any reference to the proposals by C. Tate Regan and others to break up the so-called family Characinidse ; nor does it allow the inclusion of those illumi¬ nating discussions of the geographical distri¬ bution of the various families which the au¬ thor himself has published elsewhere. Al¬ though scales are used continually in the keys and descriptions, there is no reference to the microscopical characters they present and no word or line indicates that they have ever re¬ ceived anything but the most superficial at- November 17, 1916] SCIENCE 713 tention. This is not a matter of lack of space ; it results from rigidly following a predeter* mined plan, and ignoring everything which does not fall within the artificially limited scope of the enquiry. It was the same attitude which caused Sir Geo. F. Hampson, in the great catalogue of moths published by the British Museum, to refuse to recognize or men¬ tion the genitalic characters of the segregates ■of Apamea nictitans, although the facts, ac¬ companied by prepared slides, were freely •offered for his use. This extreme rigidity of method has certain advantages; it permits •consistency of treatment, and allows the au¬ thor to base the whole classification on char¬ acters which he thoroughly understands and is accustomed to use. It may also be urged with reason that it is impossible to study or describe all the structures of animals, and consequently it is necessary to make a selection. Still another argument may be based on the fact which modern comparative morphology is daily making more apparent, that the minute study of almost any important structure in a long series of species will afford a fairly sound basis for classification. Thus Dr. Asa C. Chandler, in his remarkable account of the microscopical features of feathers, lately published by the University of California, shows that if we pos¬ sessed only feathers, the birds otherwise being wholly unknown to us, we could construct from them a rational classification of the class Aves. Similarly, Dr. Edna Mosher, in a study of the Lepidopterous pupa published this year by the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History, is able to construct a classification of moths and butterflies on the pupae alone. It is noteworthy, however, that while the feathers of birds and the pupae of moths essentially con¬ firm existing systems of classification, they afford some discordant facts, which at least sug¬ gest the propriety of certain modifications. Precisely the same thing is true of the scales of fishes. The development of organs and characters in animals does not present an even front; evolution within the limits of the or¬ ganism is unequal in degree and rapidity, and hence each set of structures teaches some les¬ sons which the others do not supply. No single worker, dealing with a large group, can take the time to search for all these illuminating footnotes to the book of nature. It is the work of the comparative morphologist to uncover them; and while the professional taxonomist may properly express an opinion whether in this or that case they are significant for his purposes, he can not safely look the other way, pretending that they do not exist. T. D. A. Cockerell University of Colorado J. L. Pagel’s Einfuhrung in die Geschichte der Medizin in 25 dkademischen Vorlesungen. Zweite Auflage. Durchgesehen, teilweise umgearbeitet und auf den heutigen Stand gebracht von Karl Sudhoff in Leipzig. Berlin, 1915, in 8°. Yerlag von S. Karger, pp. i-xv-f- 1-616. Within the past twenty years there has been developed, especially in Germany, an inter¬ esting subject — the history of medicine. There has been great progress in the develop¬ ment of this subject in all of its phases and much light has been thrown on many new lines of intellectual endeavor. There are two jour¬ nals which are devoted exclusively to the his¬ tory of medicine and related subjects. These are: ec Archiv fur die Geschichte der Medizin ” edited by Karl Sudhoff, in Leipzig, of which eight volumes have appeared, and the “ Zool- ogische Annalen, Geschichte der Zoologie,” edited by Max Braun, 1905 to date, of which likewise eight volumes have appeared. The two men involved in the production of the book the title of which is given above have been largely concerned in the development of the history of medicine, together with their co-workers Puschmann, Neuburger, Toply, M. Holl and others. It is an important event when the editor of the “ Archiv fiir die Ge¬ schichte der Medizin ” issues a second edition of Pagel’s Einfuhrung. After a lapse of seven¬ teen years this important work is issued in a second edition, which is increased in scope and brought down to date by Karl Sudhoff. The work was first issued by Pagel in 1898 as Part I. of a two-volume work ; the second part being : “ Historisch-medicinische Bibliographic 714 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1142 fur die Jahre 187 5-1895.” This later part has not been included in the new edition. In regard to the scope of the work, Sudhoff, in the preface to the second edition, says: “ Dass ich personlich unter ‘ Geschichte der Medizin ’ etwas mehr verstehe als eine med- izinische Literaturgeschichte : eine kultur- geschichtliche Erfassung der heilenden Kunst und Wissenschaft im Gesamtleben der Zeiten, diirfte bekannt sein, kommt aber hier nicht in Frage, wo.es sich um eine ‘ Einfiihrung,’ um ein Lehrbuch der Medizingeschichte handelt.” Pagel, likewise, has a broad idea of the im¬ portance of the history of medicine, for he says : “ Die ganze moderne Medizin baut sich auf dem Gedanken der Entwicklung auf.” As the title indicates, the volume was based originally on a series of lectures, more or less popular in nature, but all of them readable. The lectures are a little more thorough in their content than those of Ernst Schwalbe1 and the additions made by Karl Sudhoff raises it out of the ranks of a volume of lectures and forms the greater part of my excuse for re¬ viewing the work in this place. The work proceeds along well-defined and usual lines, taking up serially the develop¬ ment of medicine in the various countries. There is nothing new or startling in the method of their presentation, but the facts are essentially all there and the addenda and refer¬ ences by the editor make the book a most use¬ ful one for the beginning student. The first lecture deals with the beginnings of the healing art and discusses the nature of medical work in ancient and modern China and Japan and among the Aztecs of Mexico. The second lecture discusses medical history among the peoples of ancient India, Babylonia, Egypt, Palestine and the other countries of Asia Minor. The succeeding four lectures are devoted to the medical lore of the Greeks, with one entire chapter given to Galen. The lectures from this point take up the development of modern medicine, and the later lectures are given a more biographical i “ Vorlesungen ueber Geschichte der Medizin, ’ ’ Jena, 1909. cast as various eminent men exerted an influ¬ ence over various phases of medical work. Interpolated throughout these pages there is given by Sudhoff, in a way to be found no¬ where else, the sources of information, recent developments of each special topic and recent literature, but not in such abundance as to be tiresome to the general reader. So that in addition to being a volume of very readable lectures it may also be used as a work of refer¬ ence of no small importance, though of course not attempting to rank with the Handbiicher of Pagel and Haser. It will appeal to the general reader as being free from a number of technicalities and will be found to be one of the best one-volume presentations of medical history of recent years. Koy L. Moodie University of Illinois, College of Medicine, Chicago THE ZERO AND PRINCIPLE OF LOCAL VALUE USED BY THE MAYA OF CENTRAL AMERICA Historians of mathematics refer to the vigesimal system of the Maya1 of Central America and southern Mexico, but, to my knowledge, no historian conveys the informa¬ tion that the Maya, in the writing of numbers, employed symbols for zero and the principle of local value. Added interest attaches to this matter from the fact that the Maya appear to have done this earlier than any one else. My attention is called to this achievement of the Maya by a recent book issued by the Govern¬ ment Printing Office in Washington, entitled An Introduction to the Study of the Maya Hieroglyphs , by Sylvanus Griswold Morley, 1915. This publication constitutes Bulletin 57 of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Nearly all the information contained in this article is drawn from that source. The age of the Maya inscriptions and codices is a matter of vital interest and, as yet, of considerable doubt. It is known that i See, for instance, M. Cantor, 1 1 Geschichte der Mathematik, ’ ’ Yol. I., 3d ed., 1907, p. 9. November 17, 1916] SCIENCE 715 all dated monuments had their origin within 400 years of each other. The Maya had an accurate system of chronology, but the diffi¬ culty lies in establishing a correlation between their chronology and our own. Authorities differ on this point. Take one of the monu¬ ments, called Stela 9, in the ancient town of Copan in Honduras. Mr. Morley summarizes the various conclusions regarding the date for Stela 9 thus:2 Professor Seler’s date of 1255 B.c. for this is by far the oldest; Mr. Bowditch’s date, a.d. 34, comes next. My own correlation assigns a date to this monument somewhere between the years 284 to 304 A.D., which an assumption made by both Mr. Bowditch and Professor Seler in their correlations would narrow to A.D. 294. Finally, the passage from The Book of Chilan Balam of Mani, as I have amended it, gives the date of this monument as A.D. 282. The Ethnologist-in-Charge, F. W. Hodge, in his “ Letter of Transmittal ” of Morley’s book expresses himself thus: The earliest inscriptions now extant probably date from about the beginning of the Christian era, but such is the complexity of the glyphs and subject-matter even at this early period, that in order to estimate the age of the system it is neces¬ sary to postulate a far greater antiquity for its origin. For purposes of comparison, let us recall the dates of the number systems of the Baby¬ lonians and Hindus. The early Babylonians possessed the principle of local value, but, so far as now known, did not possess a zero. About two centuries b.c. they did have a zero- symbol, which was “ not used in calculation, nor does it always occur when units of any order are lacking.”3 They did not employ it systematically in writing numbers and not at all in performing computations. The Hindus certainly did not use their zero-symbol sys¬ tematically in their decimal number-system before probably the sixth century a.d.; the earliest undoubted occurrence of our zero in 2 S. G. Morley, ‘ ‘ The Correlation of Maya and Christian Chronology, ’ ’ American Journal of Archaeology , Yol. 14, 1910, p. 204. 3 D. E. Smith and L. C. Karpinski, ‘ ‘ Hindu- Arabic Numerals,” 1911, p. 51. India is a.d. 876. Mr. G. R. Kaye4 mentions a.d. 595 and a.d. 662 as dates when, as claimed by some, Indian figures were known ; “ on the other hand it is held that there is no sound evidence of the employment in India of a place-value system earlier than about the ninth century.” In view of this, special interest attaches to the occurrence of zero-symbols and the prin¬ ciple of local value among the inhabitants of the flat lands of Central America, at a period as early as the beginning of the Christian era, if not much earlier. It would seem that in this invention, the Maya in Central America possessed priority over the Asiatic peoples by a margin of five or six centuries. The Maya number system is remarkable for the extent of its early development. Records of Maya calendars and chronology are numer¬ ous and have been successfully deciphered. In fact, “ it must be admitted that very little progress has been made in deciphering the Maya glyphs except those relating to the calendar and chronology; that is, the signs for the various time periods (days and months), the numerals, and a few name-glyphs; how¬ ever, as these known signs comprise possibly two fifths of all the glyphs, it is clear that the general tenor of the Maya inscriptions is no longer concealed from us.”5 As far as known, the Maya used their numeral systems only in the counting of time, as it arose in their calendar, ritual and astronomy. Many numbers that are found in inscriptions and codices occur in connection with signs, the meanings of which have not yet been ascer¬ tained. Hence, after the meanings of more glyphs are deciphered, it may be found that the numeral system had much wider applica¬ tion than is evident at present. Of the several Maya numeral notations we briefly describe the one which is of greatest interest to mathematicians on account of its embodying the principle of local value and the use of symbols for zero. It is found in Maya codices, but not in their inscriptions. The 4 G. R. Kaye, ‘ ‘ Indian Mathematics, ’ ’ Calcutta and Simla, 1915, p. 31. s S. G. Morley, op. cit., p. iv. 716 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1142 ratio of increase of successive units in this and the other fully developed Maya systems was not 10, as in the Hindu- Arabic system; it was 20 in all positions except the third. That is, 20 units of the lowest order (kins, or days) make one unit of the next higher order (uinal, or 20 days), 18 uinals make one unit of the third order (tun, or 360 days), 20 tuns make one unit of the fourth order (katun, or 7,200 days), 20 katuns made one unit of the fifth order (cycle, or 144,000 days), and finally, 20 cycles make one great cycle of 2,- 880,000 days. It has been contended by some archeologists that in Maya inscriptions, not 20, but 13, cycles constitute a great cycle, but in the Maya codices all archeologists agree that the only break in the vigesimal system lies in the relation that 18 uinals equal 1 tun. Proceeding now to the notation, as found in the codices, we find symbols 1 to 19, both in¬ clusive, expressed by bars and dots. Each bar stands for five units, each dot for 1 unit. Eor instance, • • • , _ • • - - ■ 1 2 4 ~5 7 11 19 The values of the bars and dots are added in each case. The zero, which plays a leading part in the notations found on inscriptions as well as those on codices, is represented in the codices by a symbol that looks roughly like a half-closed eye. This zero and the symbols for 1 — 19 in the Maya vigesimal notation correspond to the symbols 0, 1, 2, ... 9 in our decimal notation. In writing 20, in the Maya codices, the principle of local value enters for the first time. It is expressed by a dot placed over the symbol for zero. The numerals are written, not horizontally, but vertically, the unit of lowest order or value being assigned the lowest position. Accord¬ ingly, 37 was expressed by the symbols for 17 (three bars and two dots) in the kin place and one dot, representing 20, placed above the 17, in the uinal place. The number 300 is ex¬ pressed by three bars drawn above the symbol for zero (3X5X20 = 300). The largest number which can be written by the use of only two places or positions is 17 X 20 + 19 = 359. To write 360, the Maya drew two zeros, one above the other, with one dot higher up, in third place. Using three places to repre¬ sent kins, uinals and tuns, they could write any number not larger than 7,199. Proceed¬ ing in this way the Maya wrote numbers in very compact form. The highest number found in the codices is 12,489,781. It occurs on page 61 of what is known as the “ Dresden Codex,” a fiber-paper booklet that was repro¬ duced facsimile by Professor E. Eorstemann in 1880 and 1892. The symbols representing this number occupy six different places, one above the other. Proceeding from bottom up, the symbols in the six places are, respectively, one dot, three bars, two bars and three dots, two bars and four dots, one bar and one dot, four dots. Thus the numerals in the six places are, respectively, 1, 15, 13, 14, 6, 4. Applying to these the principle of local value, they represent altogether : 1 -f- 15 X 20 + 13 X 18 X 20 + 14 X 20 X 18 X 20 + 6 X 20 X 20 X 18 X 20 ■+ 4 X 20 X 20 X 20 X 18 X 20 = 12,489,781. From these illustrations it is seen that the Maya used the zero and the principle of local value consistently in the writing of numbers reaching into the millions. The second numeral notation that was fully developed and employed by the Maya is found in their inscriptions. It employs the zero, but not the principle of local value. Special glyphs are employed to designate the different units. It is as if we were to write 1203 as “ 1 thousand, 2 hundred, 0 tens, 3 ones.” We omit a detailed description of the system. The ratios of successive orders of units are the same as in the preceding, with the exception, perhaps, of the unit of the sixth order. In this second notation, that unit may rest upon the ratio 13, instead of 20, as we stated above. The numerals in the Maya codices appear to the present writer to disclose traces of an imperfect quinary system, as seen in the use of the bar to represent 5. Similarly it seems to the present writer that there is a trace of an imperfect decimal system in Maya numerals found in inscriptions, where 16 — 19 are represented by two symbols, one symbol for 10 and the other for 6, 7, 8, 9, respectively. November 17, 1916] SCIENCE 717 We shall not attempt to describe the Maya chronology. It is a complicated and highly de¬ veloped system. The larger part of Morley’s book is devoted to the description of it. His exposition is admirably clear. No specimens of Maya computation are extant. Maya records contain only the results of computa¬ tion. It is evident that considerable reckon¬ ing is involved in Maya chronology. The Maya had a sacred year of 260 days, an official year of 360 days and a solar year of 365 + days. The fact that 360 = 18 X 20 seems to account for the break in the vigesimal system, making 18 (rather than 20) uinals equal to 1 tun. Apparently, the Maya found the lowest common multiple of 260 and 365, or 18,980. In their calendar 18,980 days con- situted the “ Calendar Round,” a period of 52 years which is “ the most important period of Maya chronology.” Using this period, the Maya developed an elaborate system of count¬ ing time, “ wherein any date of the Calendar Round could be fixed with absolute certainty within a period of 374,400 years.” Ulorian Cajori Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colo. SPECIAL ARTICLES THE FOCUS OF THE AURORAL STREAMERS ON AUGUST 26, 1916 In a recent number of Science1 the remark¬ able auroral display of August 26 was de¬ scribed by Professor C. C. Nutting, as ob¬ served by him at Lake Douglas in northern Michigan. The phenomenon was reported to have been of unusual intensity and beauty. The appearance of streamers in the southern sky was particularly noted, as well as the fact that the auroral glow prevailed around the entire vault of the heavens, causing the earth to be illuminated without shadows. This aurora was widespread because it was also seen in northern New York, in New Hampshire, in Nova Scotia, and over the Gulf of St. Lawrence. According to a letter in the current issue of Science,2 it was observed as far south as Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. In 1 N. S., Vol. XLIV., October 6, 1916. 2N. S., Vol. XLIV., October 20, 1916. each case the characteristics so well described by Professor Nutting were observed. It has been reported as far west as Washta, la., by F. S. Carrington.3 In this case the streamers in the northeast passed to the south of the zenith, and the glow in the southern horizon reached to about 30°. The aurora evidently extended eastward to the British Isles, because a bright display was reported by Mr. W. F. Denning at Bristol, England, from 2 to 4 a.m., August 27. The streamers were observed to an altitude of 70° in the northern sky, and moved rapidly from west to east.4 It was seen at Eskdalemuir, Dumfriesshire, from 9 p.m., August 26, to past midnight, ac¬ companied by considerable disturbance of the magnets at the Ivew Observatory. The mag¬ netic storm commenced suddenly at 7 :45 p.m., August 26. It was observed at Seskin, Water¬ ford, in Ireland, from 10 :05 to 10 :40 p.m., August 26, the streamers in the northern sky stretching to within 20° or 30° of the zenith.5 The aurora was seen on the north shore of Prince Edward Island by the writer, who noted some of its interesting features; among which was the location of the apparent focus of the auroral streamers with respect to some readily identified stars. To this particular attention was paid. general features of the aurora The writer was on a wide stretch of water and observed the beginning of the aurora, which occurred at 8 :15 p.m. Atlantic time, the sky being perfectly clear. The glow at first showed dimly in the southern sky, but rapidly increased in intensity until the entire south¬ ern portion of the vault of the heavens was pierced by pale greenish lance-like streamers. Those overhead terminated in a well defined focus, southeast of the zenith, as shown in Fig. 1. For some minutes there was no evidence whatever of an aurora to the north. Later, streamers rose in that section, and soon the s The Guide to Nature, November, 1916, p. 191. 4 Nature, Vol. 97, 2444, August 31, 1916. s Nature, Vol. 98, 2447, September 21, 1916. 718 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1142 entire sky had the appearance of a luminous umbrella; the well defined center of which was southeast of the zenith. A short time after the commencement of the aurora a band¬ like corona stretched across the greater por¬ tion of the heavens from east to west through the focus, as shown in Fig. 2, and at another time a large irregular corona formed around that region of the sky. Hampshire. In the report it was stated that the aurora covered the southern sky and that the “ umbrella ” effect of the streamers showed a center a short distance south of the zenith. It was seen also by Dr. J. A. Brown, pro¬ fessor of physics in the Syrian Protestant Col¬ lege, Beirut, Syria, who was on a lake in the Adirondacks, H. Y., and who described the display to the writer as a very remarkable one. Pig. 1. Auroral focus as it appeared at 8:20 p.h., August 26, at Prince Edward Island. ( The heavens are shown as they appear when facing south and looking at the zenith.) The auroral glow showed the very rapid kaleidoscopic changes described by Professor Hutting and the phenomenon was indeed in¬ spiring on account of the unusual grandeur of the display. The color of the streamers as seen from Prince Edward Island throughout the entire evening was pale greenish; almost white, and at no time reddish or the intense light green frequently observed. The earth appeared as if illuminated by bright moonlight, except the striking effect due to the absence of all shadows, as already reported by Professor Hutting. The aurora has been reported in a letter to the Monthly Evening Shy Map by Mr. Frank C. Porter, who observed it at Ashland, Hew His attention was directed to the aurora with special interest on observing the streamers in the southern sky. The occurrence of the aurora borealis in the southern half of the heavens appears to be an infrequent phenomenon; at least in the tem¬ perate zone of Horth America. An aurora was observed by the writer some years ago on September 11 at Grand Lake, Maine, which completely arched the southern sky with bright streamers. That display began about eight o’clock in the evening and lasted several hours. At first, no auroral phenom¬ enon appeared north of the zenith, but as the evening advanced a faint glow was seen in the north. Particular note was made at the November 17, 1916] SCIENCE 719 time that the streamers in the southern as well as the northern sky appeared to meet a con¬ siderable number of degrees to the southeast of the zenith, but the exact location was not observed. One fact of similarity between these two appearances of the aurora in the southern sky was that in both cases the stream¬ ers appeared in the southern half of the heavens before any indication of an aurora showed in the north; as if some condition of the atmosphere susceptible to an auroral dis¬ play had been reached to the south before it has been reached to the north of the point of observation, indicating some progressive change in the atmosphere from south to north. .Fig. 2. Auroral corona forming a luminous band across the sky passing through the focus as observed about 8:25 p.m. the heavens could apparently be located within an area of the size of the full moon, which has an angular diameter of about one half degree. Professor Nutting, describing the aurora in his article in Science, states that the “ focus of the spectacle was the zenith itself.” So it might appear with a casual glance, being near the zenith, and with nothing to mark that point. His paper is mainly concerned with other features of the display and is an excel¬ lent description of them, but the position among the stars toward which the streamers converged was evidently not noted. The place of observation where the aurora was observed by the writer was about four¬ teen miles north of Charlottetown, Prince THE FOCUS OF THE STREAMERS The position of the apparent focus of the streamers near the zenith is of special impor¬ tance owing to the relation of the direction of the streamers to the direction of the lines of force of the magnetic field of the earth. The point of focus was located about two degrees south of the star 7 Lyra at 8 :20 o’clock At¬ lantic time. The time was later verified through the local telegraph office. The spot in Edward Island, which is at latitude 46° 13' 58.48", longitude 63° 7' 23.64" according to values provided by the Department of Mines, Canada. The latitude of the place of observa¬ tion is taken as 46° 26' and longitude as 63° 8'. Mr. C. S. Brainin, of Columbia Uni¬ versity, has kindly computed the position of the zenith with respect to the stars at the time of observation, which gives that point as shown in Eig. 1. The zenith distance of the 720 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1142 auroral focus thus determined is 16° 54' and the azimuth of that point, 22° 42' E. The accuracy of the observation, however, can not be considered better than about one degree. It is of course desirable to compare these values with the magnetic elements of the place of observation. The Canadian government is now engaged in making a magnetic survey, and has made observations at nearly five hundred stations in Canada, but none recently on Prince Edward Island. Fortunately, the department of ter¬ restrial magnetism of the Carnegie Institu¬ tion of Washington has been able to provide values for the magnetic declination and in¬ clination at Charlottetown, P. E. I., which were determined in 1908. They are as follows : Declination 23° 46'.4 W. for the epoch 1908.8 Inclination 74° 59'.3 N. for the epoch 1908.8 Dr. L. A. Bauer has kindly given me the average rates of annual change of both the declination and inclination during the period from 1908 to 1916, as well as the direction of the isogonics and isoclinals for 1916.8, which makes it possible to give the declination at the place of observation as 24° 36" W., and the inclination 75° 04' 1ST. A comparison of the focus point of the aurora and the above values is as follows: Magnetic Field Auroral Focus Declination, 24° 36" Azimuth, 22° 42' Inclination, 75° 04' Altitude, 73° 06' Difference . 1° W 1° 68' While the accuracy of the determination of the auroral focus is only one degree, it is about as close as other determinations. The observation may be unique, owing to the fact that the focus was formed by streamers in the southern as well as in the northern sky, that the point in the heavens was determined from the focus itself, and not from a corona, and at a station as far south as latitude 46°. Elaborate observations have been made during several Arctic expeditions of the azi¬ muth of the summits of aurora arcs, but there seems to be no definite coincidence be¬ tween the azimuth measured and the magnetic meridian, the angular differences being often many degrees, sometimes as great as 20° to 40°. No explanation has been given for this anomaly. The corona center has been meas¬ ured at a number of stations at high latitudes, and as a rule has been found to agree with the magnetic zenith to within about one degree. At Cape Thorsden (78° 28' N. Lat.) the mean of a considerable number of observations made the angle between the auroral focus and the lines of the earth’s magnetism 1° 7', the magnetic inclination being 80° 35', while the coronal center had an altitude of 79° 55'. Somewhat smaller differences have been re¬ ported at other far northern stations. The height of this aurora may be taken at about sixty-five miles above the surface of the earth, if the results of Carl Storm er’s auroral expedition are accepted, as recorded in Nature ,6 and reproduced in Fig. 3. Approxi¬ mately 2,400 of these determinations have been transferred from the chart in Pro¬ fessor Stormer’s report and used to make the curve in Fig. 4. It is seen that the maximum height for the aurora according to this set of observations is between 55 and 80 miles. The position of the auroral focus thus shows the direction of the field of terrestrial magnet¬ ism at about sixty-five miles above the sur¬ face of the earth. The lines of force of the earth’s magnetism as determined by the auroral focus should curve downward and pierce the earth’s crust at about the place of observation, 14 miles north of Charlottetown. It is therefore proper to compare the direction of the magnetic field shown by the auroral streamers with the mag¬ netic declination and inclination at that place. The observed values of both declination and inclination at 65 miles altitude are less than the values at the surface of the earth (each by about two degrees). This is exactly what should be expected since above the surface of the earth the lines of force curve towards the south pole as in the case of any magnet. Assuming the aurora to be at this height, the point on the surface of the earth directly be¬ neath the apparent focus was about 14 miles e Nature, Yol. 97, No. 2418, March 2, 1916. November 17, 1916] SCIENCE 721 southeast of Charlottetown and on Prince Edward Island at approximately latitude 46° 6', longitude 62° 53'. The auroral stream¬ ers near the zenith may be regarded as ap- observed to remain visible in the laboratory for 20 minutes. There is much evidence in favor of the view that the meteor train is phosphorescent nitrogen and formed in the Fig. 3. The altitude of aurora borealis seen from Bossekop during the spring of 1913. Each calculated attitude is marked by a dot and the several hundred simultaneous photographs of aurora from the stations — Bossekop and Store Korsnes — (mutual distance 27^ kilometers) gave about 2,500 determinations of height, which are seen above. (Reprinted from Nature.) proximately parallel and their apparent focus is of course due to perspective. HEIGHT OF THE AURORA AND THE METEOR TRAIN ZONE One of the results of the study of meteor trains has been the discovery of a definite meteor train zone between 50 and 70 miles’ altitude. When certain large meteors pass into this zone, a train is observed to remain in the track, apparently composed of self-lumi¬ nous gas and which frequently remains visible for half an hour. Nitrogen has been found to assume a true phosphorescent state similar to the afterglow of zinc sulphide.7 It has been i C. C. Trowbridge, Phys. Beview, Yol. XXVI., June, 1908. same zone in the atmosphere which is suscep¬ tible to electrical discharges and results in the aurora. In Fig. 4, curve A, the heights of 2,400 ob¬ servations of the aurora made by Carl Stormer’s expedition are shown. Curve B shows the heights of the middle portion of 30 meteor trains, and curve C gives the heights of the lower ends of 21 meteor trains. The initial intensity of gas phosphorescence has been found to be proportional to the third power of the gas pressure;8 hence it is to be expected that meteor trains would show a pre¬ dominance at slightly lower elevation than the aurora, as indicated in Fig. 4. s C. C. Trowbridge, Phys. Bev., Vol. XXXII., February, 1911. 722 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1142 It is thus evident that there is a zone in the atmosphere susceptible to electrical conduc¬ tivity beginning at about 50 miles from the surface of the earth as shown by both the auroral height determinations and those of focus of the aurora of August 26 were at a height above the earth’s surface not far from sixty to sixty-five miles. C. C. Trowbridge Columbia University Fig. 4. Comparison of the heights of the aurora, determined by Carl Stormer ’s expedition at Bossekop during the spring of 1913, and the heights of meteor trains. In both cases the alti¬ tudes were determined by triangulation from two stations. Curve A — 2,400 determinations of the heights of the aurora. Curve B — the heights of the middle portion of 30 meteor trains. Curve C — the heights of the lower end of 21 meteor trains. the meteor trains. The conducting layer in the earth’s atmosphere which has been much discussed by those interested in the propaga¬ tion of long electric waves is usually given as at an altitude of 35 to 40 miles by various writers on wireless telegraphy, as based on some theoretical deductions of Professor J. J. Thomson. The results given above seem to show that the main conducting layer of the atmosphere is considerably above the altitude heretofore accepted, and is at a height of from 50 to 70 miles. The general agreement between the recently determined values of auroral heights and the altitude limits of the meteor train zone shown in Pig. 4 is very significant, and there is thus good evidence that the streamers forming the THE NINETEENTH MEETING OF THE AMERICAN ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY The nineteenth meeting of the American Astro¬ nomical Society was held in the Sproul Observa¬ tory of Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Penn¬ sylvania, on August 30 to September 2, 1916. This was the first meeting held east of the Alle¬ gheny Mountains since 1911, intervening meetings having been held in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, At¬ lanta, Evanston, and San Francisco. It has been the policy of the society for some years past to hold its meetings at some one of the active observatories of the country. Astronomers are dependent, in a considerable measure in the nature of their contributions, on the equipment of their various observatories, and for a large part on the character and size of the telescope. It is, therefore, always of interest in the meetings to November 17, 1916] SCIENCE 723 see the observatories and instruments in detail ; and by following the policy adopted the society will have eventually visited, and become directly ac¬ quainted with, the principal observatories of the country. The Observatory at Swarthmore College has been recently constructed, through the gener¬ ous gift of the Honorable William Cameron Sproul. The principal instrument is a 24-inch refractor, constructed by the John A. Brashear Company. It is being devoted, for the most part, to photographic observations for the determina¬ tion of stellar distances, and already has con¬ tributed, through the hands of the director, Pro¬ fessor John A. Miller, and his able staff of as¬ sistants, a considerable series of results of very high quality. This instrument was at the disposal of the members of the society on each evening, and we viewed with it star clusters, nebulae, double stars, and the planets Jupiter and Uranus. Swarthmore College is in beautiful surroundings ; and the b’eauty of its campus was well matched by the generous hospitality extended to the so¬ ciety. Relaxation from the rather severe scien¬ tific program was provided in a reception by Pro¬ fessor and Mrs. Miller, a Pennsylvania Country Supper in the home of Senator Sproul, and in an excursion by automobile through the suburbs of Philadelphia to Valley Porge. The return from Valley Porge was made through Bryn Mawr to Haverford College, where we were welcomed by President Isaac Sharpless, and where tea was served by some of the ladies of the faculty. We visited here some of the buildings, and naturally took great interest in the well-found observatory. Continuing the ride, we arrived at dusk at the Flower Observatory of the University of Pennsyl¬ vania at Upper Darby. Here we were greeted by Provost Edgar P. Smith, Professor Erie Doo¬ little and his wife, and Professor C. L. Doolittle and his wife. We were the guests of the Univer¬ sity of Pennsylvania for dinner, which was spread under the trees on the observatory grounds. Un¬ fortunately it was cloudy in the evening, so that we were unable to have the expected opportunity of observing with the 18 J-inch refractor. We did have opportunity, however, of inspecting the vari¬ ous instruments of this well-equipped observatory, and to see the work on double stars which Doo¬ little is so ably conducting. The return to Swarth¬ more was made late in the evening. The following members of the society were in attendance : Leah B. Allen, Willis I. Milham, A. T. G. Apple, John A. Miller, S. G. Barton, S. A. Mitchell, L. A. Bauer, A. P. Beal, Harriet W. Bigelow, E. W. Brown, Annie J. Cannon, C. A. Chant, W. A. Cogshall, R. H. Curtiss, C. L. Doolittle, Eric Doolittle, J. C. Duncan, W. S. Eichelberger, Philip Pox, Edgar Prisby, Caroline E. Purness, W. E. Harper, Margaret Harwood, Francois Henroteau, Wm. T. Herriott, Kiyotsugu Hirayama, Mary M. Hopkins, Charles J. Hudson, Louise P. Jenkins, C. C. Kiess, O. M. Leland, Walter A. Matos, Paul Merrill, C. P. Olivier, Edison Pettit, E. C. Pickering, John H. Pitman, John M. Poor, A. W. Quimby, E. D. Roe, H. N. Russell, Prank Schlesinger, Frederick Slocum, M. B. Snyder, Joel Stebbins, Hannah B. Steele, H. T. Stetson, Florence J. Stocker, Helen M. Swartz, John Tatlock, Stephen D. Thaw, Robert Triimpler, A. B. Turner, P. W. Very, A. van Maanan, J. van der Bilt, W. R. Warner, D. T. Wilson, W. L. Wright, C. C. Wylie. New members to the society were elected as follows : H. C. Bancroft, 412 Taylor Avenue, West Collings- wood, N. J. Ruth D. Bannister, Dearborn Observatory, Evans¬ ton, Ill. Arthur Floyd Beal, Albion College, Albion, Mich. Martha Clare Borton, Princeton Observatory, Princeton, N. J. Frederick Lyons Brown, Dearborn Observatory, Evanston, Ill. Allan B. Burbeck, North Abington, Mass. Clifford Charles Crump, Carleton College, North- field, Minn. Edith Eleanor Cummings, Laws Observatory, Co¬ lumbia, Mo. Clinton Harvey Currier, Brown University, Provi¬ dence, R. I. William Ewart Glanville, St. Peter ’s Rectory, Solomons, Md. Edward Gray, 2635 Channing Way, Berkeley, Calif. William LeRoy Hart, Harvard University, Cam¬ bridge, Mass. Prangois Henroteau, Detroit Observatory, Ann Arbor, Mich. William T. Herriott, Allegheny Observatory, Pitts¬ burgh, Pa. Kiyotsugu Hirayama, Astronomical Observatory, Tokyo, Japan. Arthur S. King, Solar Observatory, Pasadena, Calif. Ora Miner Leland, 150 Triphammer Road, Ithaca, N. Y. C. B. Lindsley, 855 East Ridgeway Ave., Cincin¬ nati, Ohio. Walter A. Matos, 309 College Ave., Swarthmore, Pa. Harriet McWilliams Parsons, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N. Y. Jesse Pawling, Naval Observatory, Washington, D. C. Edison Pettit, Washburn College, Topeka, Kansas. 724 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1142 David B. Pickering, 81 South Burnett St., East Orange, N. J. William Francis Bice, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Ill. Bobert Triimpler, Allegheny Observatory, Pitts¬ burgh, Pa. J. van der Bilt, Utrecht Observatory, Utrecht, Hol¬ land. Beynold K. Young, Dominion Observatory, Ottawa, Canada. At the last meeting, the election of officers took place. President — E. C. Pickering. First Vice-president — Frank Schlesinger. Second Vice-president — W. W. Campbell. Treasurer — Annie J. Cannon. Councilors for 1916-18 — E. W. Brown, J. S. Plaskett. The following officers continue in service: Councillors, 1915-17 — Edwin B. Frost, Joel Steb- bins. Secretary — Philip Fox. It was voted to hold a meeting of the society in conjunction with the American Association, at its coming general quadrennial meeting in New York, on December 26 to 30, 1916. Further, accepting the invitation of Professor Benjamin Boss, it was voted to hold the annual summer meeting of 1917 at the Dudley Observatory, in Albany, N. Y. A committee composed of Messrs. W. W. Camp¬ bell, chairman ; E. E. Barnard, F. B. Littell, Frank Loud, S. A. Mitchell and Edison Pettit, was ap¬ pointed to further and facilitate cooperation for the observation of the coming favorable solar eclipse of June 8, 1918. The Committee on Meteors was enlarged by the appointment of C. P. Olivier, secretary; E. E. Barnard, W. J. Hum¬ phreys, F. B. Moulton and W. H. Pickering. A committee to consider instituting the grade of As¬ sociate Membership was also appointed. The mem¬ bers of this committee are: Messrs. Frank Schles¬ inger, chairman; C. A. Chant, G. C. Comstock, Philip Fox, W. T. Olcott and E. D. Boe. Other committees of the society made reports on their work, but only one led to a motion recom¬ mending a course of action by the society. This was the Committee on Standard Equinoxes for Use in the Publication of Star Positions. The recom¬ mendation of this committee, which was adopted by the council and recommended for practise by members of the society, was “that in any pub¬ lication involving star positions no equinoxes should be used intermediate between the years 1900 and 1925. ’ ’ If the plan of widely spaced standard equinoxes is adopted, it will greatly reduce the amount of labor now involved in the treatment of the star positions given for such a multiplicity of equinoxes. The great European War, which has affected profoundly the whole world, has put its blighting hand on our society, in the death of Professor Karl Schwarzschild. At the last meeting of the society, the following resolution was unanimously adopted: . Whereas: In the death of Karl Schwarzschild on May 11, 1916, many of the members of this so¬ ciety have lost a warm friend, the society itself one of its most eminent members, and astronomy a brilliant and remarkably versatile contributor: Besolved: That the society record in its minutes its sense of deep loss, and that copies of this reso¬ lution be engrossed and sent to Mrs. Schwarzschild, and to the Astrophysical Observatory at Potsdam. Aside from committee reports, the scientific pro¬ gram consisted of fifty-two papers. The titles are given here, in the order of presentation: 1. F. Slocum: The Van Vleck Observatory. 2. E. W. Brown: The Progress of the New Lunar Tables. 3. Annie J. Cannon: Peculiar Spectra Found in Preparing the New Draper Catalogue. 4. C. P. Olivier: The Meteor System of Win- necke’s Comet. 5. E. C. Pickering: Proper Motion of Stars in the Zone — 10° to — 14°. 6. J. A. Miller: Summary of the Sproul Observa¬ tory Parallax Work. 7. Hannah B. Steele: The Parallax of Certain Binary Stars. 8. John H. Pitman: Choice of Comparison Stars in Parallax Determinations. 9. Philip Fox: First Besults on the Dearborn Observatory Parallax Program. 10. K. Burns, W. H. Meggars, P. W. Merrill: De¬ termination of Wave-lengths by Interfer¬ ence. 11. A. van Maanen: Bemarks on the Motion of the Stars in hx Persei. 12. W. S. Adams: Becent Stellar Spectroscopie Besults. 13. C. J. Hudson: Irregularities in Befraction. 14. A. Hall: The New Bepsold Micrometer for the 26-inch Befractor of the Naval Observatory. 15. H. L. Alden: Calibration of the McCormick Observatory Photometer Wedge. 16. S. A. Mitchell: Parallax Work at the Mc¬ Cormick Observatory. 17. B. H. Curtiss: The Widths of Hydrogen Emis¬ sion Lines in Class B Spectra. 18. B. H. Curtiss: Some Structure Variations in Hydrogen Emission Lines in Class B Spectra. 19. H. N. Bussell, Mary Fowler, Martha C. Bor- ton: Photographic Observation of Eclipsing Variables. November 17, 1916] SCIENCE 725 20. H. Shapley: Colors of the Brightest Stars in Seven Globular Clusters. 21. H. Shapley: Notes on the Spectra of Cepheid Variables. 22. Leon Campbell: Cooperation in Variable Star Observing. 23. J. Kunz and J. Stebbins: Progress in Photo¬ electric Photometry. 24. P. H. Seares: The Color of the Polar Sequence Stars. 25. F. H. Seares: Distribution of Color in the Spiral Nebulas. 26. Edison Pettit: Circumstances of the Solar Eclipse of June 8, 1918. 27. E. P. Hubble: On the Variable Nebula N. G. C. 2261. 28. F. W. Very: Lunar and Terrestrial Albedoes. 29. F. W. Very: The Spherical Albedoes of the Planets. 30. L. A. Bauer: Note on the Rotation Periods of the Planets. 31. C. C. Crump: Preliminary Note on the Spec¬ trum of Gamma Lyras. 32. H. N. Russell: On the Capture of Comets by Planets. 33. F. W. Very: Examination of “New Evidence” on the Solar Constant. 34. F. W. Very: Planetary Evidence in Respect to Solar Radiation. 35. F. W. Very: The Radiant Properties of the Earth from the Standpoint of Atmospheric Thermodynamics. 36. R. E. DeLury: The Effect of Haze Spectrum on Spectrographie Determination of the Solar Rotation. 37. R. E. DeLury: Note on a Supposed Variation in the Solar Rotation. 38. S. G. Barton: The Interrelations of the As¬ teroid Elements. 39. H. N. Russell: The Visibility of Jupiter by Daylight. 40. E. E. Barnard: A Small Star with the Largest Known Proper Motion. 41. W. W. Campbell, J. H. Moore: The Spectral Type and Radial Velocity of Barnard’s Proper Motion Star. 42. F. G. Pease: Rotation and Radial Velocity of the Spiral Nebula N. G. C. 4594. 43. C. O. Lampland: Measurements of the Spiral Nebulae N. G. C. 4254 and 5194 for Motion. 44. H. D. Curtis: Forms of Planetary Nebulae. 45. Eric Doolittle: An Extension of Burnham’s Catalogue of Double Stars. 46. J. A. Parkhurst: The Bases of Photographic Stellar Magnitudes. 47. Sarah F. Whiting: Diaries of the Tulse Hill Observatory. 48. V. M. Slipher: Spectrographie Observations of Nebulae. 49. W. W. Campbell and J. H. Moore: Spectro- graphic Observations of Motion in the Planetary Nebulae. 50. V. M. Slipher: Spectral Evidence of a Per¬ sistent Aurora. 51. C. E. St. John, Louise W. Ware: Systematic Errors in Rowland Table for Close Pairs of Solar Lines. 52. C. E. St. John: On the Mutual Repulsion of Solar Lines. Abstracts for these papers are given in a some¬ what fuller report of the meeting in the current numbers of Popular Astronomy, and only the main lines of the papers are commented on here. Those which pertain to details of observation are pos¬ sibly sufficiently well described by the title. It is very gratifying to hear from Professor Brown that the printing of the New Lunar Tables, computed along the lines of his complete Lunar Theory, is progressing rapidly, and that in the Ephemerides for 1923, we will, for the first time, have the results from them. In the report by Miss Cannon on the peculiar spectra found in the observations for the new Draper Catalogue, we find that this catalogue, which is to be of immense service, also is nearing completion. Mr. Olivier, following lines laid down by Schiaparelli, points out a new coincidence between a meteoric system and a comet’s orbit. Papers were presented by Miller, Steele, Pit¬ man, Fox and Mitchell, dealing with stellar paral¬ lax results. Few movements in American astron¬ omy are progressing more favorably than the cam¬ paign for extension of our knowledge of stellar distances. Many observatories are taking part in the campaign, and all are now contributing results. From the Sproul Observatory was a report on the parallax of 64 objects; the University of Vir¬ ginia reported on the parallax of 96 stars; the Dearborn Observatory on 4 stars. The paper of Mr. Adams was also of interest from the stellar parallax point of view, in that he here gives results from his very original and im¬ portant spectroscopic method of estimating stellar distances. Spectroscopists in general will be interested in the work of Burns, Meggars, and Merrill, who are extending the determinations, by interference methods, of wave-lengths of lines spaced at short intervals through the spectrum which may well be 726 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIAr. No. 1142 used as standards in other determinations of wave¬ lengths. The fact that certain stars vary in brightness has of course long been recognized, and there are several papers here presented bearing on stellar magnitudes or on variables, by Leon Campbell, who comments on the rich and important contri¬ butions being made by associated amateurs; by Russell, who brings out some exceedingly impor¬ tant points from his treatment of eclipsing vari¬ ables; by Shapley; by Kunz and Stebbins, who are developing their photo-electric cells; by Seares, who continues his contributions on the standard photometric field of the polar sequence; and by Parkliurst, who gives the results of his valuable experience on the bases of photographic stellar magnitudes. From various sources, important con¬ tributions are now being made, showing that the variation of light is not alone confined to the in¬ tegrated light, but that marked changes of the character of the spectrum are also involved. At this meeting there were papers by Shapley, by R. H. Curtiss, by Adams, and by Miss Cannon, on this very fundamental matter. In other directions where constancy had come to be regarded as perhaps the general condition, we are now finding marked changes. Mr. Hubble’s paper on a variable nebula presented photographs of this remarkable object, showing that it had undergone astonishing change of form. Whether or not there is any relation between the change of form and the light variation of the associated star is not yet revealed. In 1914, at the Evanston meeting of the society, Slipher showed his first spectroscopic results, proving the rotation of cer¬ tain nebulae. At this meeting, he presented further evidence on the rotation of nebulae, and contributions of similar nature were presented also by Campbell and Moore, and by Pease. Lampland gives evidence of rotation of two nebulae from measurements of direct photographs. It was following the presentation of Pettit ’s paper on the Circumstances of the Solar Eclipse of June 8, 1918, that the committee to further the cooperation in observing the eclipse was ap¬ pointed. Very’s papers on the albedoes of the Moon, the Earth and the Planets, and the discussion which followed, particularly that by Mr. Russell, did much to clarify the ideas on this matter, where the results by given observers have been at variance and very perplexing. Professor Barnard has recently found a faint star of about the eleventh photographic magni¬ tude which, in individual proper motion, exceeds that of any heretofore recognized. In addition to Barnard’s paper on this star, Campbell and Moore and also Adams contributed certain observations on its motion. There have been very perplexing deviations in the values for the rotation of the Sun, as deter¬ mined by various observers using the spectro¬ scopic method, and also from observations made at different times by a single observer. The papers by DeLury give a sufficient and positive explanation of these deviations, and leave no rea¬ son for supposing that the rate of rotation of the Sun is variable from season to season. In a paper on the extension of Burnham’s Cata¬ logue of Double Stars, Doolittle summarizes the work, which he has carried forward since Burn¬ ham turned over his manuscript and material to him. In doing this work, Doolittle is in a position to state at once whether any double star suspected of being new by any observer had already been noted as such. He is also in a position to state what objects have been recently and sufficiently observed, and he offers to give information on either of these points to any one who may wish to profit by such service. Double star observers, to work efficiently, must have information, at least on the latter point, and to have available the in¬ formation which Doolittle has at hand will mini¬ mize the labor which its duplication would other¬ wise necessarily involve. At the conclusion of the meeting, the following resolution of appreciation of courtesies was adopted: Resolved: That the American Astronomical So¬ ciety express to the President and Board of Man¬ agers of Swarthmore College, its thanks for the courtesies extended to the members of the society during the meetings at Swarthmore. The society desires also to express its appreciation of the numerous arrangements made for their comfort and convenience by Professor Miller and Presi¬ dent Swain, and of the manner in which these have been carried out by the matron of Wharton Hall and others who have assisted in looking after the welfare of the visitors. Resolved: That the thanks of the society be ex¬ tended to Senator William Cameron Sproul, to the citizens of Swarthmore, to the president and trus¬ tees of the University of Pennsylvania, and to the president and board of managers of Haverford College for their hospitalities in connection with the visit of the society and its appreciation of the courtesies extended to its members. Resolved : That the secretary be directed to communicate the substance of these resolutions to Presidents Swain, Smith and Sharpless, and to others who have assisted. Philip Fox, Secretary SCIENCE Friday, November 24, 1916 CONTENTS Is the Eight-hour Working-day national? Pro¬ fessor Frederic S. Lee . 727 The Care of Pamphlet Collections: Tracy I. Storer . 735 The Brain Collection of the U. S. National Museum: Dr. Ales Hrdlicka . 752 The Yale Chapter of Sigma Xi . 739 The Endowment of a Medical School at the University of Chicago . 740 The Council of National Defense . 741 Scientific Notes and News . 742 University and Educational News . 746 Discussion and Correspondence : — Can a Body exert a Force upon Itself? Pro¬ fessor Gordon S. Fulcher. Lateral Vision and Orientation : T. G. Dabney. The Num¬ ber of Bacteria in Milk: Robert S. Breed. Ostwald’s Handbook of Colloidal Chemis¬ try: Professor W. A. Patrick. The Re¬ lation of Osmotic Pressure and Imbibition in Living Cells: Professor Wolfgang Ost- WALD . 747 Scientific Books: — Weather Forecasting in the United States: General A. W. Greely . 752 Special Articles: — Extirpation Experiments in Rana pipiens Larvae: Professor Bennet M. Allen. Plant-sucking Insects: Kearn B. Brown. 755 The Ecological Society of America: Dr. For¬ rest Shreve . 759 Societies and Academies : — The American Mathematical Society: Pro¬ fessor F. N. Cole . 762 MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended for review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrisnn- on-Hudson, N. Y. IS THE EIGHT-HOUR WORKING-DAY RATIONAL? i May I say at once that it is not my in¬ tention to consider the political aspects of the eight-hour problem? There should not be political aspects in a topic that is so preeminently a problem of science. Fur¬ thermore, considered as a problem of sci¬ ence, the eight-hour day is rarely viewed in its proper light. In the voluminous liter¬ ature that has been published concerning it economic and social considerations have been too often paramount. Yet in an ade¬ quate analysis of it the real basis of the whole matter is physiological — the eight- hour problem is primarily a problem of physiology; if the physiological effects of any kind of labor are bad, the conditions of such labor ought to be changed. This is fundamental, and should precede any consideration of the economic and social effects of a change of conditions. This basic fact is continually overlooked. The eight-hour day is the result of an evolution, beginning in human aspiration and fostered largely by humanitarian mo¬ tives. That baser considerations, the de¬ sire to earn wages at the minimum cost of personal effort, impel many advocates of the eight-hour principle, can not be denied, but this need not blind us to the fact that there are higher grounds on which the prob¬ lem can legitimately be discussed. In the evolution of the eight-hour day England, of all countries, presents the most interesting history. Diligent search has failed to reveal the origin of the tra- i Read before the Section on Industrial Hygiene of the American Public Health Association, Cin¬ cinnati, October 25, 1916. 728 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1143 ditional division of the diurnal twenty- four hours into eight hours each of work, recreation and sleep. It is said that the customary duration of the working-day of the fifteenth century was eight hours. Whether this be true or not, during the sub¬ sequent three hundred years all the evils of unrestricted labor flourished vigorously. At the beginning of the nineteenth century most English artisans were accustomed to work from eleven to fifteen hours in the day. No delicate physiological tests were needed to demonstrate what such a sys¬ tem was doing to destroy the vital mechan¬ isms of men, women and children. The results were sufficiently obvious, and the next one hundred years were marked by a series of struggles between workers and humanitarians on the one side, and capi¬ talists on the other, in which progress toward a physiological working-day was gradually, though slowly, made. After sporadic reductions of the working-period to twelve hours or less, a ten-hour move¬ ment was succeeded in time by a nine-hour movement, and by the middle of the cen¬ tury the eight-hour day had been definitely proposed. It was won first, not in the mother-country, but by the artisans of Mel¬ bourne, Australia, in 1856, and this date marks the beginning of achievement of the eight-hour movement. In the United States agitation in its favor began immediately after the close of the Civil War, stimulated, no doubt, by the great extension of indus¬ trial work which then occurred. Thus, since the middle of the nineteenth century the eight-hour day has been the goal of labor. Such a day presupposes one day’s rest in every seven and thus signifies a forty-eight-hour week. It is usually coupled, however, with an extra half holiday, which for the majority of per¬ sons would be taken on Saturday after¬ noon. In this manner the week’s work would be reduced to forty-four hours, and this represents the present demand of the eight-hour movement. Partly by law and partly by private agreement between employer and employed the eight-hour day has been granted in recent years to one group of workers here and another there, usually localized groups and rarely in¬ cluding all the workers in a single industry of a single country. At the present time it has become legalized in our own country for public employees and employees on public works in the federal service and in thirty states and territories; for miners in the service of fourteen states ; for em¬ ployees in smelting and reduction works in nine states; for railroad telegraphers in six states ; for employees in rolling, rod and stamp mills in five states; for em¬ ployees in tunnels and in coke ovens in three states; for employees in blast fur¬ naces, in cement and plaster mills, and .those who work under high air pressure in two states ; for employees in electric light and power plants, glass works and irrigation works in one state ; and for employees in day’s work, unless otherwise stipulated, in nine states. In 1913 of the 1,276,048 employees constituting the shop force of the 51,118 factories in the state of New York, 354,641, or 28 per cent., worked 51 hours or less in the week. The eight- hour day will doubtless ultimately be achieved by a very large proportion of the world ’s workers in the more highly civilized countries. What should determine the duration of daily labor? Here I would place, as of first importance, the physiological effects of the work and, as secondary and subordi¬ nate factors, its economic and social fea¬ tures. The physiological effects of labor are now so well known as to require here only brief mention. The expenditure of energy by the bodily organs involves chemical and physical changes in them which, if con- November 24, 1916] SCIENCE 729 tinued, leads to the physiological state of . fatigue. Fatigue is characterized chem¬ ically by the diminution within the acting tissues of chemical substances that have previously been stored within the living cells and either serve as sources of energy or are otherwise essential to tissue activ¬ ity; and by the appearance within the liv¬ ing cells of other chemical substances, products of katabolic action, which are known as fatigue substances and react upon the tissues to decrease their power of responding to stimuli. If the same amount of work as before is then to be performed by the organs, the nervous system must send to them more powerful impulses, and when this becomes no longer possible the amount of work decreases. Fatigue sub¬ stances spread from the place of their origin to other organs and react upon them, and thus the activity of one physiological mechanism, such, for example, as a neuro¬ muscular mechanism, fatigues others. In fatigue the senses are less acute ; attention is less sharply focused ; the power of dis¬ crimination is lessened ; the muscles are weakened; the quickness and the accuracy of muscular action are decreased; glandu¬ lar secretions seem to be decreased ; the heart-beat may be slowed ‘or, in extreme cases, possibly quickened and irregular ; the blood vessels of the skin are dilated and draft an undue quantity of blood away from the brain. In fatigue the sense of weariness obtrudes and oppresses; but it can not be too strongly emphasized or too often reiterated that the feeling of fatigue is a very uncertain index of the presence of a measurable degree of the fatigue of the tissues. The feeling may, indeed, ap¬ pear just at the time when its warning note is really needed; but it may sound an un¬ duly early and a false alarm; and again, and especially when other potent psychic influences inhibit it, its coming may be un¬ duly postponed. It is a fitful, capricious thing, and this fact is too often overlooked in the consideration of industrial fatigue. All these physiological changes may be within normal limits, and by rest the irri¬ tability of the tissues can then be readily restored and the freshness of sensation and the vigor of mind and muscle can be brought back. But if the work has been too strenuous or too long-continued, if the chemical changes in the tissues have gone too far, or if rest has been unduly cur¬ tailed, fatigue passes over into a patholog¬ ical state which is known as exhaustion and is far less easily recovered from. Not only is the power of achievement then further diminished, but susceptibility to specific disease is increased. There may be a gen¬ eral neurasthenia or other diseases of the nervous system, including nervous affec¬ tions of the bodily organs. The will may be weakened, and resistance to immoral temptations may be lessened. Intemper¬ ance is one of the common results of bod¬ ily exhaustion, and even crime itself finds here one of its prolific sources. Resistance to infectious disease may be diminished, ap¬ parently because of a diminution of the protective antibodies. Thus, excessive fatigue may bring in its train many disas¬ trous sequel® with much physical and moral misery. The seeds of this more serious state are often sowed in industrial work, when the conditions of labor and liv¬ ing are such that a residuum of the fatigue of one day is carried over to the next and from day to day there is a cumulative, even if slight, diminution of physiological powers. Let us develop a little further this topic of the physiological effects of labor. Lab¬ oratory experiments have demonstrated that the degree of fatigue of a muscle in a given time varies in accordance with both the amount of the weight lifted and the rapidity with which stimuli are sent to the tissue. Increasing the weight, or making 730 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1143 the muscle contract more rapidly, in¬ creases the degree of fatigue in a given time and, if continued, brings on earlier exhaustion. These facts have their counter¬ part in industrial work, for fatigue here too depends on the intensity and the ra¬ pidity of repetition of the individual acts performed by the laborer. In general it may be said that the introduction of so- called labor-saving machinery has dimin¬ ished the intensity and increased the ra¬ pidity of repetition of the laborer’s acts. Lifeless machines now often lift the heavy weights once raised by human muscles. Other lifeless machines, intricate and auto¬ matic, relieve the laborer of much of his former light muscular work. But these same machines need to be tended by hu¬ man agencies and set the pace for human activities, and the tendency is ever toward increasing the quickness and the constancy with which sense-organs, brain, spinal cord, and muscles must act. The introduction of periods of rest while a laboratory experiment with a muscle is in progress diminishes the fatigue of the moment, aids recuperation, and delays the oncoming of exhaustion. This is demon¬ strated very perfectly in each of us several times in a minute, since each beat of the heart is followed immediately by a resting period of sufficient length to enable the cardiac muscle completely to recuperate from the fatiguing effects of the previous contraction. The beneficial effects of simi¬ lar resting periods in industrial labor are shown by the custom, not uncommon since the striking demonstration of the late Mr. Frederick Taylor in the lifting of heavy iron pigs, of giving workers occasional brief intervals of freedom from their tasks. The defenders of the twelve-hour duration of work in blast furnaces attempt to justify their attitude by the contention that the workman actually works but a fraction of the whole time on duty. A timely and striking instance of the value of frequent resting periods is reported by the British • Health of Munition Workers Committee: Two officers at the front recently, for a friendly wager, competed in making equal lengths of a cer¬ tain trench, each with an equal squad of men. One let his men work as they pleased, but as hard as possible. The other divided his men into three sets, to work in rotation, each set digging their hardest for five minutes and then resting for ten, till their spell of labor came again. The latter team won easily. Fatigue is modified by the external con¬ ditions under which the work is performed. Thus, it was found by Scott and myself that when an animal had been exposed for six hours to an atmosphere with a tempera¬ ture of 91° F. (33° C.) and 90 per cent, relative humidity the fatigue of the ani¬ mal’s muscles came on more rapidly and their working power was diminished by about one quarter. Certain industrial oc¬ cupations too require their work to be per¬ formed in the midst of excessive heat and humidity and thus afford the conditions of an early oncoming of fatigue and exhaus¬ tion. Doubtless other environmental con¬ ditions, such as excessive or deficient light, noise, and gross mechanical vibrations, in¬ fluence the fatigue process, but these have not been adequately and experimentally studied. Attention might here be called to the suggestive little book recently published by the Gilbreths, which shows by what easy and simple means unnecessary fatigue may often be avoided. It is obvious that if, under any given con¬ ditions of intensity and rate of labor and of its environmental features, the working- day is of such a length as to bring about the evil physiological results here men¬ tioned, the surest way to avoid them is to shorten it. There exist few, if any, stud¬ ies devoted to the specific physiological ef¬ fects of a reduction of the working-hours, and this. gap in our knowledge it is desir¬ able to fill; but that the general health of November 24, 1916] SCIENCE 731 laborers has thereby been benefited is testified to by many observers, and this is equivalent, in other words, to an improved physiological status among them. The economic argument, that industry can thrive only with a long working-day and that any curtailment of it would be de¬ structive, is perennial and has often been potent in discussion. This argument can be met very effectively by pointing to the effects of shortening the working-period on the quantity and quality of output in man¬ ufacture. These effects are so uniform that it may be stated as a general law that upon reduction of the daily hours of labor the average quantity of the output of the in¬ dividual worker undergoes a preliminary decrease, then a return to the original amount, and finally a permanent increase. This augmentation of output occurs, not only with a reduction to ten, but even to eight, hours. Instances of this are nu¬ merous. Thus, the very careful study by Professor Abbe of the effects of reducing the working-day in the Zeiss Optical Works in Jena from nine to eight hours shows an average increase of about three per cent, in the daily output of the employees. A cer¬ tain steel works in England reports that each of its machines turns out in eight hours the same amount of work formerly produced in nine hours. In the steel-sheet and tin-plate trades of South Wales it is stated that after the change from the twelve- to the eight-hour day the increase of output in the rolling-mills amounted to twenty, and in the open-hearth melting process to twelve and one-half, per cent. In the year following the introduction of the eight-hour day into some of the coal mines of South Yorkshire it was reported that the production was “ greatly in excess of what was ever produced by an equal number of men when the men worked twelve or thirteen hours.” In the mining of bituminous coal in the state of Illinois during the three years previous to a re¬ duction, in 1897, of the working-day from ten to eight hours the average amount of coal turned out daily by each individual was 2.72 tons and during the subsequent three years 3.16 tons, an increase of 16 per cent. The president of a granite-cutting company which had kept for many years a careful record of each employee’s work, writes in 1912 that the system shows that the same man under identically the same conditions, accomplished more, of exactly the same kind of work when he was working nine hours, than he did when he was working ten hours, and again when the hours were reduced to eight hours this same man accomplished still more in an eight- hour day than he did in a nine-hour day, or a con¬ siderable amount more than he did when the day was ten hours long. A German proprietor of glass-works re¬ ports that in a very short time after the re¬ duction of the working-day from twelve and eleven to eight hours ‘ ‘ there was produced, without increase of staff, as much as before the reduction”; and a proprietor of glass works in the north of France says: I must acknowledge that the men produce just as much, if not more, in their seven and a half hours’ actual work than during the ten-hour day that preceded it. At the Engis Chemical Works near Liege, where a very exact study was made of the results of introducing the eight-hour day, it was reported that In an eight-hours’ day (seven and one half hours’ actual work) the same men at the same fur¬ naces with the same tools and raw material have produced as much as before in a twelve-hour day (ten hours’ actual work). A very significant comparison of the ef¬ fects of long and short hours was made in connection with the building in the same years of two of our battleships, the Louisi¬ ana and the Connecticut. The Louisiana was built at Newport News by a private company working its men ten hours a day ; the Connecticut was built at the Brooklyn 732 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1143 Navy Yard under the eight-hour system. In a report on the progress of the work during the first nineteen months it is stated by the compiler: No other factor is considered than the produc¬ tive ability of the two bodies of men doing ex¬ actly the same kind of work, using the same kind of tools and the same kind of material. It is prac¬ tically all hand work, as the output of the auto¬ matic machines, with their speed limitations in production per hour, does not enter into this work. The final computation showed that “the average production of a man per hour on the Connecticut exceeded by 24.28 per cent, the average production per man per hour on the Louisiana.” Thus, the statistics reveal the utter fal¬ lacy of the notion that a longer working- day means a larger output. But the greater product of the short day, is, I sub¬ mit, at first thought a very surprising fact, and its cause should be inquired into. It undoubtedly rests on a physiological basis, but without more accurate data any expla¬ nation of it must be only tentative. If man were a mere non-living automatic ma¬ chine it would not occur. But his is a very different mechanism, in which that portion which does work, the effector machinery, is directed by a nervous system, which acts now consciously, now unconsciously, and through its receptor machinery is being continually influenced by external stimuli. All employers testify to the increased good¬ will, better spirit, and improved morale of the workers, that result from the shorter day. Because of these things the workers arrive more promptly at their places and tend to shirk less as the day proceeds. It is not inconceivable that in many cases there is a residuum of fatigue accumulated from the previous longer working-period, which must first be gotten rid of, and that there¬ after the effector mechanism is less clogged. It is not improbable that realization of the brevity of the day and the early relief from toil act as a tonic. Such tonics exist: The spurt that occurs during the last hour of labor, irrespective of its length, is a com¬ monly alleged, if not an attested, fact, and is ascribed to anticipation of release. Care¬ ful observation has shown too that other psychic influences increase markedly the output of a man’s energy. All these varied influences acting upon the nervous system doubtless contribute to increase the expenditure of productive energy in the shorter time. Their combined influence is largely unconscious, and it is reported that the greater output is often a surprise to the workers themselves. That it has an origin largely in the action on the nervous system of such external stimuli as have been mentioned, is supported by the further facts that with the eight-hour day the work¬ man makes fewer mistakes and spoils less material, and, in general, the quality of his work shows a distinct improvement. Thus, in the light of the facts of experi¬ ence, the alleged economic necessity of the longer working-period because of the ne- eessity of a greater output falls to the ground. The long working-period defeats its own object. But the question may still be raised whether the greater output of the eight- hour day does not produce correspondingly greater fatigue and thus in turn defeat its object. I do not think so. If the day’s fatigue were measured merely by the amount of energy transformed in producing the product, if here again man were a mere automatic machine, then surely there would be a direct ratio — the greater the product, the greater the fatigue, and nothing would be gained. But the case is not so simple as this. The day’s fatigue is a sequel not simply of the amount of energy directly transformed in producing the material out¬ put. It is derived also from other sources ■ — from the continuance of one bodily posi¬ tion, perhaps a strained position, from the noise and gross vibration of machinery, November 24, 1916] SCIENCE 733 from strained attention, from all those minor factors which Abbe has grouped to¬ gether as sources of his well-named “pas¬ sive fatigue.” A shorter day eliminates these by so much and at its end leaves the worker so much better off than his longer- laboring fellow. The argument for shorter hours that is most frequently put forward, by labor leaders at least, is the social one. Thus, Mr. Samuel Gompers says : The shorter workday is something more than an economic demand. It is a demand for an oppor¬ tunity for rest, recuperation, development; things which make life more than mechanical drudgery. This is undoubtedly a legitimate de¬ mand, but it in turn is dependent on the physiological requirements of the labor. If a man is worked beyond his physiolog¬ ical limit he is incapacitated for his duties to his family and to society. The history of labor has demonstrated this abundantly, and the experience of reducing the hours pf labor has almost universally been fol¬ lowed by marked moral and social im¬ provement, such as is shown by decrease in intemperance and crime, improvement in living conditions, greater efforts toward education, greater intelligence and greater industrial efficiency — all this in contradic¬ tion, not only to the vivid predictions of disaster pronounced by active and unprin¬ cipled opponents of the change, but to the fears of those who were well-meaning hut timid. As possible factors in determining the duration of labor I might mention the de¬ gree of skill required by the laborer and the degree of responsibility devolving upon him. These may rightly be potent in de¬ termining the amount of wage to be paid, since they are the accompaniments of greater intelligence and the results of greater training; but in their bearing on the length of the working-day they can be considered, it seems to me, only in the light of their physiological demands on the la¬ borer. If the exercise of greater skill and the possession of greater responsibility de¬ plete his physical and mental powers more quickly, he has earned a shorter working- period. If they do not, I see no reason why he should be granted time privileges. Let me here summarize. Of the various agencies that have been considered as legiti¬ mate factors in determining the length of the working-day that which appears to me the most weighty is the physiological one, the physiological effects of the labor on the individual laborer. In the pursuit of his vocation as the employee of another every human being has a right to the preserva¬ tion of his physiological powers, to the avoidance of excessive fatigue, to the con¬ tinuance of his health. All questions of the percentage of financial profit, all questions of social demands or social opportunity, are subordinate to this. Moreover, this is essential to the other considerations men¬ tioned, for only by the preservation of his health can the economic demands of his work be satisfied, only by this can he ac¬ quire and maintain skill and be worthy of responsibility. The whole question of the length of the working-day thus rests pri¬ marily on a physiological basis. In decid¬ ing the length of the working-day, there¬ fore, the first and all-important query is : Is a long day physiologically detrimental to the individual? If so, it should be short¬ ened. If the long day is not physiolog¬ ically detrimental, then it is a fair ques¬ tion whether, because of his employer’s in¬ terests or his own relations to society, his day should be long or short. Is the reduction of the working-period to the eight-hour day a physiological ne¬ cessity? Here two factors are to be con¬ sidered: The characteristics of the labor and the capacity of the laborer. Different occupations differ greatly in their fatigu¬ ing power. Especially productive of fa- 734 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1143 tigue are those that are characterized by- great muscular effort; unusual quickness or complexity of muscular action; single acts, however simple, that are monoton¬ ously repeated over long intervals of time ; constant strain in attention or bodily posi¬ tion; and those in which the work is car¬ ried on in excessively crowded places, in excessive heat and humidity, in the midst of excessive noise, or under other unfavor¬ able environmental conditions. While different occupations thus differ in fatiguing power, not only in themselves, but in accordance with the external condi¬ tions under which the work is performed, fhere exist also great differences among hu¬ man beings in their susceptibility to fatigue from a given occupation. This also is par¬ alleled by individual muscles in a familiar laboratory experiment: Homologous mus¬ cles from different experimental animals or even from opposite limbs of the same ani¬ mal, when stimulated at the same rate and lifting equal loads, do not usually perform the same amount of work. In industrial work every observant foreman who knows his men recognizes their individual differ¬ ences in working power. Neither the fatiguing effects of the mani¬ fold varieties of labor nor the susceptibili¬ ties of different laborers to fatigue have been studied with the degree and the care that the subjects demand, and with such paucity of knowledge it seems hardly pos¬ sible at present to attempt to answer the question whether the reduction of the working-period to eight hours is a physio¬ logical necessity. The universality of the beneficial effects of such a reduction, how¬ ever, argues strongly in favor of an affirma¬ tive reply. There has been no more clear¬ sighted observer and more logically ana¬ lytic thinker on this topic than the late Professor Abbe, of Jena, in whom the breadth of scholarly culture was combined with a keen sense of efficient business or¬ ganization. Ten years ago, after carefully analyzing the results of the reduction of the working-day in the Zeiss Optical Works and elsewhere, and considering the general condition of German industries, with their then prevailing long, and English indus¬ tries, with their short, working-day, Abbe came to the conclusion that by far the ma¬ jority of industrial workers do not reach their optimum in nine, and do not surpass it in eight, hours. With him the shorter day represents the physiological ideal and the goal for which industries should strive. I am disposed to agree in general with Professor Abbe’s conclusion for the pres¬ ent day. But it is evident, I think, that such a conclusion offers merely a tempo¬ rary expedient. The establishment of a rigid and universal eight-hour system would probably prove not to be the best for all industries and for all individuals. In prder to enable the wisest decision of the question to be made there is needed not mere opinions — not the opinions of employ¬ ers, however broad-minded or narrow¬ minded ; or of laborers, however indus¬ trious or indolent ; or of labor leaders, how¬ ever generous or selfish their ambitions; or of the laity, however philanthropic their motives; or of statesmen, whether they are impelled by a high idealism or by practical politics ; but a rigidly scientific study of the question, through the medium of labora¬ tory tests, of the physiological effects of different occupations and the physiological capacities of different laborers and a re¬ sultant classification, on a physiological basis, of work and workers. Such a study is not impossible, and it would afford the only basis for a rational and really intelli¬ gent solution of the problem. It would doubtless lead to the establishment of no rigid, but an elastic system, in which the work would be adapted to the worker, and the worker to the work. In one industry the duration of labor might be eight hours, November 24, 1916] SCIENCE 735 in another it might be more or less than eight hours. So too within a single indus¬ try one worker might labor longer than another. Such a solution could be made to satisfy both economic and social demands and lead to the maximum of individual and national efficiency. I quite realize the difficulties inherent in putting into practise a system which does not recognize the magic eight hours as the ideal, and especially the still greater diffi¬ culties in the establishment of a system in which within a single occupation one per¬ son works longer than another. But I be¬ lieve that these difficulties would prove less formidable if we would once get accus¬ tomed to the notion that individual capac¬ ity is the first criterion to be considered in deciding upon labor’s duration. The ad¬ justment of wages according to individual capacity I will leave to the economists. In view of all this how fatuous was the action of the state of California in voting, in 1914, on the question whether the eight- hour day should be adopted! The propo¬ sition was defeated by about two to one, but the decision was necessarily a matter of sentiment, resting on no basis of adequate knowledge. An affair of such serious moment ought not to be decided by unin¬ structed popular feeling. The recent ac¬ tion of Congress in imposing, after a few hours’ consideration, an eight-hour day upon railway employees can hardly be called more sagacious than the action of California. The Adamson bill, however, has little bearing on the general principle of the eight-hour day. It is obvious that any formal regulation of the duration of daily labor is for those whose daily services are employed by others. By so much as a man rises above this stage he becomes free to choose his own working-time. It is a noteworthy fact that with the world’s leaders, in industry, in finance, in professional life, the duration of the daily task is wholly secondary to its accomplishment. They are limited by no eight-, or ten-, or twelve- or sixteen-hour considerations. This indicates why such men become leaders. Laborers can learn a valuable lesson from this fact. The greedy employer who constantly saps the energies of those who are the medium by which he gains his wealth is to be condemned no more than is the “slacker” whose only guiding principles are a minimum of effort and a maximum of wage. Moreover, it is trite to say that the obligation rests upon the laborer that rests upon all men, so to use his free hours as to benefit himself, his fam¬ ily and society. In conclusion I can not refrain from quoting, with warm approval of their senti¬ ments and of their application to our own country, the recent significant words of Sir George Newman regarding British indus¬ tries : Our national experience in modern industry is longer than that of any other people. It has shown clearly enough that false ideas of economic gain, blind to physiological law, must lead, as they led through the nineteenth century, to vast national loss and suffering. It is certain that unless our industrial life is to be guided in the future by the application of physiological science to the details of its management, it can not hope to maintain its position hereafter among some of its foreign rivals, who already in that respect have gained a present advantage. Frederic S. Lee Columbia University THE CARE OF PAMPHLET COLLECTIONS1 The published articles pertaining even to the most restricted fields of science are scat¬ tered through a very large number of serial publications* of which only the larger institu¬ tions of learning and research are able to pos¬ sess complete sets. The high cost and large bulk of such series preclude their being owned i Contribution from the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology of the University of California. 736 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1143 by individual investigators or by the smaller institutions, and the general result is that the worker who desires to cover the literature of his particular field must have access to a col¬ lection of reprints and excerpts of such ar¬ ticles, gathered either independently, or by the institution with which he is connected. Thus most investigators have occasion to as¬ semble and care for a pamphlet collection. The present paper considers some of the ex¬ pedients commonly employed for this purpose and calls attention to a particular scheme which has been found satisfactory in the care of one collection. Before a pamphlet collection can be effi¬ ciently used it must be properly arranged. The time thus spent will bring ample return in the added facility with which particular papers can be located when they are desired. In addition to this the exercise of a few simple precautions will do much to prolong the life and increase the usefulness of the pamphlets in a library. Dust, strong light and careless handling all help to depreciate the value of pamphlets. As time goes on and by one means or another, the copies of certain papers de¬ crease in number; those which remain inevi¬ tably increase in value and become more diffi¬ cult to obtain. It is needless to insist on the advisability of arresting these losses. The methods in use for assorting and con¬ serving pamphlets are various. Some collec¬ tions are arranged to satisfy special needs, while others have no further purpose in their organization than that of general convenience. A popular method is to keep the reprints in fiat piles on shelves. This, however, does not permit ready location, and removal of single papers from the pile involves a risk of tear¬ ing either them or the sheets adjacent to them. A second device is to place the pamphlets vertically on a shelf. This makes it possible to remove any desired paper without disturb¬ ing those adjacent to it. But unless there are frequent vertical partitions for support, the pressure exerted by the weight of the papers on either side makes the removal of thin pamphlets difficult. Both of these methods expose the collection to light and dust. A third method is to bind the pamphlets in vol¬ umes. This obviates the danger of damage by light or dust, but is still open to several serious objections. Chief among these is the difficulty of arranging the papers in a thor¬ oughly convenient manner for ready refer¬ ence. Of course where there are a number of papers by a single author these may be readily bound together chronologically in one or more volumes, but where the assortment is varied the problem of assembling for binding is more complex. All of the papers of one author may not be on hand when the binding is done; the contents of bound volumes can not be so readily indexed as can separate papers; and the papers contained therein can not be so easily laid out for study as when separate and unbound. A final objection to binding is that it involves considerably more expense than most of the other modes of filing. A fourth method is to place the pamphlets in vertical filing cabinets. This economizes space as regards depth more than any of the other systems here mentioned but the cost of the containers is quite high — ranking close to or above that of binding the papers in vol¬ umes, according as the cabinet selected is of the rough “ transfer ” or highly finished type. The last plan we shall notice is one that is probably in more general use than any other, namely, placing the pamphlets in narrow pamphlet cases. These are of three general types. The first resembles a small letter file with a hinged back which completely protects the contents from dust and light. This case is heavier and much more expensive than the others and is slightly more inconvenient to handle because of the necessity of opening the back when removing the contents. The second type has both top and back open and while it will accommodate pamphlets of widely differ¬ ent sizes it exposes portions of the papers to the harmful action of dust and light. The third type, a box open only at the back, seems by far the most convenient, as when pushed against a wall it is practically dust and light proof, though still permitting ready reference to its contents. Cases 12 inches high, 8 inches deep and 2J inches wide, made of a November 24, 1916] SCIENCE 737 good weight of strawboard faced on the in¬ side with white paper and entirely covered on the outside with black binder’s cloth, have been found to give excellent results. These seem even more durable than cases with wooden tops and bottoms, as they have a slight “ give ” which seems to make them more lasting. A set of cases of this sort has been in constant use at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology of the University of California for more than six years without showing appreciable wear. The size suggested will take all octavo publi¬ cations and even the smaller quartos, and when completely filled the weight is still not too great for easy handling. Cases measuring more than inches in width are not satis¬ factory; they soon break to pieces under pres¬ sure of the greater weight of the material they hold. They often, moreover, hold too many papers for quick reference, while the narrower boxes permit of a finer classification. With the smaller size additional boxes may be interpolated as necessity arises, before a com¬ plete revision of the collection is required. Three methods of filing the pamphlets of a collection are in general use; filing by subject, by author’s surname, and by date of accession. For a small collection with which the worker is well acquainted and where there are few if any papers of such a nature as not to fall readily into one class or another, or in very large collections comprising papers on such distinct subjects as geography, geology and zoology, the subject classification is possibly the most convenient. But in large collections devoted to a narrower field the alphabetical segregation by authors is much more satis¬ factory. With papers so arranged and those of single authors in chronological order, no author index is needed. A third system, used somewhat more rarely, is to file pamphlets in the order of their receipt, giving them serial numbers, and maintaining both author and subject indexes for reference purposes. Such an arrangement has the advantage of not being disturbed by later accessions, these being added at the end of the collection. Under this system, however, the papers must be kept abso¬ lutely in order if they are to be found at all. If cases are used to shelter the collection, some kind of case inscription is necessary, whatever system is adopted. When the cloth- covered cases described above are used, pieces of white paper, about If inches square, are pasted on the fronts of the boxes near their tops. On these labels are placed inscriptions designating the case contents. If the subject arangement is used, the title is made compre¬ hensive enough to include all papers which are or may be filed in that case. If the author classification is used, a large initial letter is placed at the top and below it abbreviations indicating the names of the authors whose papers are filed in that case. Thus, for the case containing papers from Brown to Burns the inscription would be B Br-Bu. If one author’s papers are sufficiently numer¬ ous to require one or more complete cases their fronts bear his initial and name and an indication of the years covered by the papers included, thus: O O Oberholser, H. C. Oberholser, H. C. 1905-1914 1914 - When first arranging or when revising the ar¬ rangement of a pamphlet collection, sufficient room should be left in individual cases to anti¬ cipate considerable expansion — no case should be more than two thirds filled at first, save for a single author, unless the collection is al¬ ready large and the expense of additional cases is an object for consideration. Thus a large number of papers can be added to the collec¬ tion before it need be completely revised and relabelled. Whatever method of arrangement is adopted some sort of finding index is necessary to make all the papers readily accessible. If any sys¬ tem other than that of filing by authors’ names is adopted a catalogue of authors is needed. If the subject classification is adopted a card should be used for each author, the entries being made as follows : Ridgway, R. 1892. Hummingbirds (Aves: systematic) 1897. Galapagos Is. birds (Faunal: S. Amer.) 738 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1143 The words in parentheses indicate where the paper is filed. When papers are filed by the accession method the same sort of entries are made in the author catalogue save that the serial number of the paper is included in the parentheses at the right. Thus: Eidgway, E. 1892. Hummingbirds (642) 1897. Galapagos Island birds (1489) Where papers are arranged by authors a sub¬ ject index only is needed. Tor example, in the writer’s own index for papers in vertebrate zoology there are included cards for systematic, and for geographic or faunal entries. Many papers require entry under both headings and some under even more. Thus, a paper by Euthven, Thompson and Thompson, entitled “ The Herpetology of Michigan,” would be entered under “ Reptiles,” “ Amphibians ” and “Michigan.” In this way the paper can be found under any of the three titles carded. The form of subject index entries is indi¬ cated by the following samples: Eeptiles nw. Nevada — Eichardson 1915 Michigan — Euthven et al. 1912 San Jacinto Mts., Cal. — Atsatt 1913 Deer Situation in Calif.-Clarke in Cal. F. & G. Comm. 1913 Farming in U. S. — Lantz 1914 Colorado Eiver Fishes — Gilbert and Scofield 1898 Birds and mammals — Grinnell 1914 (review Sumner 1915) Papers often occur which are difficult of exact classification and it is well to have general headings under which these may be included, as for example “Birds,” “Mammals,” “Vari¬ ation,” etc. These titles may be subdivided, as the papers accumulate. Por all indexes the standard sized 3 by 5 inch cards of librarians and bibliographers are the most suitable. In entering the references a carbon ink such as Higgins Eternal is recommended because of its permanency of color and the uniformity of entries made at different times. As a result of the great variation in the manner of placing the title, author’s name and date of publication on the covers of reprints or pamphlets considerable time is lost in searching for these items when looking through a file. An easy way of overcoming this difficulty is to annotate the upper left- hand corner of the front of each paper with the author’s name and initials, the date, and a catch title, in the form used by Professor E. L. Mark, of Harvard, thus: Euthven, A. G., et al. Eutter, C. :12 : 08 Herpetology of Sacto.-San Joaquin Michigan Yalley Fishes Eidgway, E. : 92 Hummingbirds The catch titles are arranged so that in look¬ ing down the left-hand margin the eye en¬ counters the most important words first. With pamphlets so marked only a few sec¬ onds are required to secure any particular paper and it is often possible to locate it without removing the others from the case. Where there are a number of papers by a single author it is well to number them serially beginning with the oldest one. Then when a paper is withdrawn it can be quickly and cor¬ rectly replaced by its number without having recourse to the date. Eor these annotations, as with catalogue cards, carbon ink should be used. Another method which has been used for the same purpose as these corner annota¬ tions is to underscore the author’s name, the date and the title. Serial publications are best kept in sets by themselves as they are received, but where the individual articles comprising a volume are issued in separate form these may be run into the general collection along with other pamphlets. Later on they can, if desired, be removed and bound in complete volumes. The writer has a considerable number of pamph¬ lets relating to subjects outside his main line of work but which for one reason or another he desires to keep. These are arranged ac¬ cording to the names of their authors, and kept in a “ reserve ” file, where they can be November 24, 1916] SCIENCE 739 easily located. Many of them are comple¬ mentary parts of complete volumes, the other papers of which are in his main pamphlet collection. The date of receipt should always be written on the pamphlet as soon as it comes to hand. With some series no date of publication is given on the separate papers, and as they may have been issued in advance of the appearance of the complete volume, it often becomes im¬ portant to know their dates of receipt, as in the case of papers describing new species of animals or plants. In summary, then, the writer would recom¬ mend that a pamphlet collection be placed in cloth-covered cardboard cases open only at the back and not larger than 12 x 8 x 2£ inches, that it be arranged alphabetically by authors’ names and chronologically under authors, that the corner of each pamphlet be annotated with the author’s name, the date, and a catch title, and that a subject index be maintained to facilitate the location of particular pamph¬ lets. A collection so arranged and housed renders the greatest amount of service, and is reasonably insured against deterioration. Tracy I. Storer Berkeley, California THE BRAIN COLLECTION OF THE U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM The division of physical anthropology of the United States National Museum has been recently enriched by a most valuable accession of brains of some of the higher anthropoids. The accession consists of no less than eleven well-preserved brains of gorillas, and three chimpanzees. With the exception of two of the specimens belonging to young animals, the brains are in excellent condition for study. No less than six of the fourteen brains are those of adults, while most of the remaining, though not quite adult, are full-grown or nearly so. A justifiable allusion may perhaps be made in this place to the rest of the collection of primate brains now in the division of physical anthropology, U. S. N. M. The total collection, which was started by the writer thirteen years ago, counts now ap¬ proximately 1,500 human and animal brains. Of these 223 are human, including 128 of other races than whites; while 348 belong to other primates. The latter are distributed as follows : Other Old World monkeys 11 ( 5 adults) 6 ( 1 adult) 36 (23 adults) 55 (most adults) 17 ( ( (l 22 i i ( i 75 H U * 64 C ( n 45 i i a 17 a a A large proportion of the 'above valuable material has been collected directly in or for the institution, and is in a very good condi¬ tion for study. The number of adult anthro¬ poid brains, excepting those of the chimpan¬ zees, exceeds probably that of all other known collections of similar material not only singly, but even collectively. Besides those of the primates, there are now in the collection the brains of 165 carnivora and cetacea; 50 insectivora ; 266 ungulata ; 81 rodentia ; 47 edentata and marsupialia; and 287 aves and reptilia. The whole collection, in common with others in the division and in the U. S. National Mu¬ seum in general, is freely accessible for consul¬ tation to well-qualified scientific workers; and in suitable cases facilities could be extended for full elaboration and description of some of the series of specimens. Ales Hrdlicka PROGRAM OF THE YALE CHAPTER OF SIGMA XI FOR 1916-1917 The meetings of the Yale Chapter of Sigma Xi for the present college year promise to be of unusual interest, for there are to be pre¬ sented, instead of the usual mutually irrel¬ evant papers, a series of lectures which to¬ gether will constitute a symposium on the origin and evolution of the earth and its inhabitants. Each paper will be authoritative, the result of original research, and the series 740 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1143 after presentation is to be brought out in book form by the Yale University Press. The pro¬ gram follows: I. The Genesis of the Earth. Professor Joseph Barrell. November 23. II. The Earth’s Changing Surface and Climate. Professor Charles Schuchert. December 13. III. The Origin of Life. Professor Lorande Loss Woodruff. January 24. IV. The Pulse of Life. Professor Richard Swann Lull. February 15. Y. Climate and Civilization. Dr. Ellsworth Huntington. April 20. Thus there will be discussed: (1) The genesis of the earth and the rise of conditions necessary for the maintenance of life; (2) the surface changes, the great cycles of climatic change, and their cause or causes; (3) the origin of organic life on earth, the time, place and conditions necessary, and the changes undergone by matter to render it organic or possessed of life; (4) the march of organic evolution, not a slow process progressing at a constant rate of change, but rhythmic, the pulses or times of acceleration being coincident with and the direct outcome of the climatic and geologic changes already described. This includes the origin of man from his prehuman ancestry. (5) The recent climatic changes whose existence has been traced and recorded and which are found to have influenced the growth of civilization, the rise and migrations of peoples, and in some instances their fall from an estate of commanding importance. A prophecy of human destiny may here be given. These lectures are to be given at the regular meetings of the society and therefore will not be open to the general public, but are to be the especial privilege of the members of Sigma Xi and a limited number of their friends to whom tickets of admission will be given. The lec¬ tures are to be held in Osborn Memorial Laboratory. THE ENDOWMENT OF A MEDICAL SCHOOL AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO A correspondent at the University of Chi¬ cago sends us the following information con¬ cerning the endowment of a medical school noted in the last issue of Science: In outlining the plans and hopes of the Univer¬ sity of Chicago at it’s recent quarter-centennial celebration President Harry Pratt Judson said that what was needed to complete a school of medi¬ cine at the university was provision for clinical work and a clinical staff at the Midway, and that in his judgment the first need was for a hospital wholly under the control of the university, for med¬ ical teaching and for medical research; and the second need was provision of adequate endow¬ ment, in order that the hospital itself might be be¬ yond the necessity of being financed by income from its patients, and in order that the medical faculty might be free to pursue their work of in¬ vestigation and instruction without recourse to personal practise. In direct fulfilment of this hope and plan, the university board of trustees has just made one of the most important announcements in the history of the institution. The plan announced to be put into early operation provides for an undergradu¬ ate medical school, a graduate medical school and medical research. The first mentioned will be on the Midway Plaisance, in close connection with the science departments of the university. The stand¬ ards of admission and of graduation will be as high as those of any medical school in the country. The number of students will be limited to such as can receive the best possible training with the facilities available. A teaching hospital, duly equipped with neces¬ sary laboratories and lecture rooms, will provide for clinical instruction. Suitable endowments will free the hospital from the necessity of depending on paying patients, and the faculty from the ne¬ cessity of practise for a livelihood. The graduate medical school will be on the west side in connection with the work now done by the Rush Medical College and the Presbyterian Hos¬ pital. It will provide for medical graduates who wish further training and for practitioners who wish to keep in touch with progress in medical science. Research will be carried on in both places under arrangements to be announced later. The plan involves an addition to the resources of the university of the sum of five million three hun¬ dred thousand dollars, one million for the hospital on the Midway, three hundred thousand for a lab¬ oratory on the west side and four millions for en¬ dowment. Towards the endowment fund the Rockefeller Foundation offers one million dollars and the November 24, 1916] SCIENCE 741 General Education Board one million dollars, pro¬ vided the entire sum of five million three hundred thousand dollars shall be raised. Further pledges of individuals have been made to the amount of seven hundred thousand dollars. Thus two million seven hundred thousand dollars have already been secured. Two million six hundred thousand dollars remain to be secured and in the near future a campaign will be initiated to complete the fund. In speaking of this announcement, which is prob¬ ably the most significant that has ever been made in connection with higher medical education in Chicago, President Harry Pratt Judson says : ‘ ‘ The medical plans which have just been an¬ nounced represent many years of hoping and work¬ ing and dreaming. These plans, we think, will not merely be, when carried out, a great addition to the resources and power of the university, but will render a very valuable service to Chicago, and to the cause of medical teaching and investigation in the entire country.” A later announcement is just made that half a million dollars toward this new medical fund for the University of Chicago has been given by Mr. and Mrs. Julius Bosenwald, of Chicago. Mr. Bosenwald, who is a trustee of the university andi donor of the new Julius Bosenwald Hall devoted to the work of geology and geography, is one of the university’s most generous and loyal friends; and Mrs. Bosenwald, who shares in this great gift,, is widely known for her practical and constant, sympathy with many movements for social and artistic advancement in Chicago. At the meeting of the board of trustees of the university on November 14, the following com¬ mittee was named to conduct the campaign for funds : President Harry Pratt Judson, chairman; Adolphus C. Bartlett, Dr. Frank Billings, Thomas E. Donnelley, Andrew MacLeish, Martin A. Byer- son, Julius Bosenwald, Bobert L. Scott and Harold H. Swift. THE COUNCIL OF NATIONAL DEFENCE President Wilson announced recently the appointment of the members of the advisory commission to be associated with the Council of National Defence created by congress at the last session. The seven men named are : Daniel Willard, president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad; Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor; Dr. Franklin H. Martin, of Chicago; Floward E. Coffin, of Detroit; Bernard Baruch, of New York; Dr. Hollis Godfrey, of Philadelphia, and Julius Bosenwald, of Chicago. A statement by the President in connection with the announcement follows: The Council of National Defence has been created because the congress has realized that the country is best prepared for war when thoroughly prepared for peace. From an economic point of view there is now very little difference between the machinery required for commercial efficiency and that required for military purposes. In both cases the whole industrial mechanism must be organized in the most effective way. Upon this conception of the national welfare the council is organized in the words of the act “for the creation of relations which will render possi¬ ble in time of need the immediate concentration and utilization of the resources of the nation.” The organization of the council likewise opens; up a new and direct channel of communication and! cooperation between business and scientific men and all departments of the government, and it is hoped that it will in addition become a rallying point for civic bodies working for the national defence. The council’s chief functions are: 1. The coordination of all forms of transporta¬ tion and the development of means of transporta¬ tion to meet the military, industrial and commer¬ cial needs of the nation. 2. The extension of the industrial mobilization work of the committee on industrial preparedness of the naval consulting board. Complete informa¬ tion as to our present manufacturing and producing facilities adaptable to many-sided uses of modern warfare will be procured, analyzed and made use of. One of the objects of the council will be to in¬ form American manufacturers as to the part which they can and must play in national emergency. It is empowered to establish at once and maintain through subordinate bodies of specially qualified persons an auxiliary organization composed of men of the best creative and administrative capacity, capable of mobilizing to the utmost the resources of the country. The personnel of the council ’s advisory mem¬ bers, appointed without regard to party, marks the entrance of the non-partisan engineer and profes¬ sional map into American governmental affairs on a wider scale than ever before. It is responsive to the increased demand for and need of business organization in public matters and for the pres¬ ence there of the best specialists in their respective fields. In the present instance the time of some of the 742 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1143 members of the advisory board could not be pur¬ chased. They serve the government without re¬ muneration, efficiency being their sole object and Americanism their only motive. SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS The University of Iowa at the last com¬ mencement bestowed the degree of doctor of laws upon Professor J. C. Arthur, emeritus professor of botany in Purdue University. In the presentation made by Mr. D. D. Murphy, president of the State Board of Education, the services of Dr. Arthur to pure and applied science were reviewed. Special emphasis was placed on his contributions to agriculture and horticulture in the study of plant diseases. This work began when, as the first botanist in an American experiment station, pear blight was investigated, and may be said to have cul¬ minated in the discovery of formaldehyde as a fungicide, especially for diseases of potatoes and grains. Studies on the relation of weeds to effective cultivation resulted in new methods for their control and extermination. His work in physiological botany, and his fundamental studies in mycology, have given occasion for the introduction of new technical terms, which have entered into general use. Other matters pertaining to the long and eminent services of Dr. Arthur were touched upon by President Macbride in conferring the degree. Alumni of the department of geology and geography of the University of Chicago have presented to the university a portrait of Pro¬ fessor Rollin D. Salisbury, head of the depart¬ ment of geography and dean of the Ogden School of Science. The portrait, recently fin¬ ished by Ralph Clarkson, the Chicago painter, is now at the Art Institute and will later have a permanent place in the new Julius Rosen- wald Hall at the University of Chicago. Professor M. Pasch, who holds the chair of mathematics at the University of Giessen, celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his doc¬ torate on August 21, 1915. On this occasion the University of Breslau renewed his di¬ ploma. The Bakhuis Roozeboom medal has been awarded to Professor Schreinemakers, pro¬ fessor of inorganic and physical chemistry in the University of Leyden. Dr. M. 0. Forster, who was elected as a prospective Unionist candidate for parliament, has resigned. He is engaged in assisting the state-aided organization for producing dyes, work which absorbs all his time, and in the let¬ ter of resignation he says that the energy and resources of those occupied in the British dye industry must, if possible, be increased on the advent of peace. We learn from Nature that the Chinese gov¬ ernment has appointed as the head of a geo¬ logical survey, Dr. J. G. Andersson, formerly chief of the Swedish Geological Survey, and with him already are Dr. Tegengren and Pro¬ fessor U. Nystrom. Dr. T. G. Halle, assistant in the paleobotanical department of the Riks- museum at Stockholm, is to travel in China for one year, mainly in the interests of his own department, for which he will collect paleo¬ zoic plants, but partly for the Chinese govern¬ ment, to which he will report on the age and character of the coal-seams inspected, and for which a duplicate series of fossils will be pro¬ vided after their determination. A young Chinese geologist will accompany Dr. Halle, and will be trained by him as a paleobotanist. Mr. Julius Lemkowitz, during the past year computer in the Yerkes Observatory, has gone to Princeton as observatory assistant. Harvard University has granted a leave of absence for the second half of the academic year, 1916-17, to Professor W. C. Sabine, Hollis professor of mathematics and natural philosophy. Mr. Roy Chapman Andrews, in charge of the American Museum’s Asiatic zoological ex¬ pedition, reports that nearly two hundred mammals and four hundred birds have been collected in the vicinity of Foochow, in the province of Fu-kien. Mr. Edmund Heller has joined the expedition, which on August 10 was on the way to Yunnanfu, to make collec¬ tions in Yunnan Province. Professor W. B. Scott, of Princeton Uni¬ versity, gave an illustrated lecture on “ The Relations of South America to other Conti- November 24, 1916] SCIENCE 743 nents, especially North America,” in the geo¬ logical lecture room of Harvard University on November 15. The lecture course of the Washington Uni¬ versity Association for 1916-17 opened this year with an illustrated lecture by Dr. H. M. Payne, of New York, formerly dean of the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy, on “ The Gold Fields of Alaska and Siberia.” The Worcester Polytechnic Institute held a memorial service for the late Dr. Levi L. Conant, professor of mathematics, in Central Church, on November 19. The faculty and students attended in a body. The speakers were Hon. Charles G. Washburn, president of the board of trustees ; Professor Z. W. Coombs, representing the faculty; Mr. C. H. Dwinnell, vice-president of the First National Bank of Boston, representing the alumni, and partic¬ ularly the class of ’94, with which Professor Conant began his work at the institute; and Dr. Homer P. Lewis, superintendent of the Worcester schools, representing the school board, of which Dr. Conant was a member for nine years. The late Professor Clinton DeWitt Smith was the organizer and first director of the Agricultural College of Brazil, the first of its kind in that country. The present director writes that in token of grief for Professor Smith’s death the college was closed for two days and the flag was draped in mourning and hoisted at half-mast. We learn from Nature that Lord Rayleigh presided at the meeting held at University College, London, on October 31, to take steps to establish a memorial to the late Sir William Ramsay. Mr. J. A. Pease, M.P., postmaster- general, in moving that a memorial fund should be raised, to be utilized in promoting chemical teaching and research, under a scheme to be approved hereafter, said he was glad on behalf of the government to pay a tribute to the memory of Sir William Ramsay and to take part in the great object of the meeting. The memorial should be not merely national, but international. Sir J. J. Thomson seconded the motion, which was supported by the Belgian Minister, who wished to convey the respectful homage of Brussels University, and by Mr. W. H. Buckler, who testified to the interest of the American Ambassador and his countrymen in the movement. The resolution was carried. It was also agreed that the meeting should resolve itself into a general committee, with Lord Rayleigh as chairman, to raise the necessary fund, and an executive committee was appointed to circulate an appeal. Dr. Percival Lowell, director of the Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff, Arizona, which he established in 1894, died of apoplexy on November 12, aged sixty-one years. Dr. Walter S. Sutton, professor of surgery at the University of Kansas, died at his home in Kansas City, Kansas, on November 10. He was known to biologists for his service in pointing out the mechanism in the germ cells for Mendelian inheritance. Charles Ellery Avery, at one time instruc¬ tor in the Massachusetts Institute of Tech¬ nology and later professor in the Massachu¬ setts College of Pharmacy, known for his in¬ vention of the process of manufacturing lactic acid, has died, aged sixty-eight years. Charles Francis Roper, to whom was due important inventions on automatic screws and in other directions, died on November 14, at the age of sixty-seven years. S. B. MacLaren, professor of mathematics in University College, Reading, died on Au¬ gust 14, from wounds received in battle. The death is also announced, at the age of fifty-two years, of Dr. David Maron, a Rus¬ sian research chemist who had been resident in England for many years, as the result of an ex¬ plosion in a munition factory in London, where he was carrying on experiments in the manufacture of high explosive shells. Mr. M. W. Dominick has arranged to equip and endow the new medical library of the New York Medical College and Hospital for Women. Mr. Dominick offers this library as a memorial to his son, Dr. George Carleton Dominick, who recently died at sea. Dr. Dom¬ inick served the college for several years as lecturer and instructor. 744 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1143 A plan for the employment of the Sage Re¬ search Fund of the Medical College of Cornell University has been adopted. This fund of $50,000 was bequeathed to the university by Mrs. Sarah Manning Sage, widow of Dean Sage, for research in medicine. The plan adopted provides that a yearly appropriation from the income of the fund shall be adminis¬ tered by a committee composed of the presi¬ dent of the university and the heads of the departments that will participate in the fund; that a minimum be assigned by this committee each year to each of the departments; that a reservation be made for a specific research, and that each participant make an annual report. By action of the board there is an appropria¬ tion of $1,500 available for 1916-17. The Lee Museum of Biology at Bowdoin College has been given a collection of Hawai¬ ian ferns by John A. Cone, Topsham; a gift of shells and mounted birds by Mrs. John S. Towne, Brunswick, and the Rev. H. W. Winkley, Danvers, Mass., has added to his previous gift of Hew England shells. Leland C. Wyman has been appointed custodian of the collections of fossils and fishes. At the invitation of the state geologist of Florida a conference of geologists and anthro¬ pologists was held at Yero, Florida, from October 23 to 30, the object of the meeting being to examine the locality near that place from which fossil human remains have been obtained. Those present at the conference were Dr. George Grant MacCurdy, Yale Uni¬ versity; Dr. A. Hrdlicka, U. S. National Mu¬ seum; Dr. T. W. Vaughan, U. S. Geological Survey; Dr. O. P. Hay, Carnegie Institution; Dr. R. T. Chamberlin, University of Chicago; E. H. Sellards and H. Gunter, Florida Geo¬ logical Survey; and I. M. Weills and Frank Ayers, of Yero. We learn from the Journal of the American Medical Association that a South American Society for Microbiology, Pathology and. Hy¬ giene was organized at the National Medical Congress held at Buenos Aires in September. The new society is to publish a review at Rio de Janeiro and at Buenos Aires, in Spanish, Portuguese, French, English and German. The editorial staff consists of R. Krauss, di¬ rector of the Bacteriologic Institute of Buenos Aires, and O. Cruz, director of the similar institution in southern Brazil and formerly chief health officer of Rio de Janeiro. The magnetic survey vessel, Carnegie, left San Francisco, on November 1, on her home¬ ward cruise of about 31,000 miles. She will make stops at Easter Island, Buenos Aires, Bahia, Porto Rico and return to Brooklyn in the fall of 1917. She has been gone on her long circumnavigation cruise since March, 1915, during which she has been in command of J. P. Ault of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism. The German Ophthalmologische Gesell- schaft has divided between Lindner of Vienna and Ohm of Bottrop the von Graefe-von Welz prize for the best article published in 1911-1913 in the Archiv fur O phthalmologie. Their articles were on trachoma and inclusion blennorrhea, and on miner’s nystagmus. The Observatory remarks: “The sending of most kinds of printed matter from Britain to neutral countries (except by duly licensed publishers and booksellers) is now prohibited, and many astronomers must have wondered whether reprints of astronomical papers, re¬ ports of observatories, etc., which are usually posted privately, come under the ban. We have ascertained that these may possibly arrive at their destination, provided the full name and address of the sender is on the envelope; but they are liable (and quite likely) to be stopped. We may add that slip proofs sent for correction can be sent as usual. Also (for our foreign readers) that we duly receive scientific papers sent to this country from abroad.” Replying to a question raised in the British House of Commons, Mr. Forster stated that up to August 25, 1916, 1,501 cases were finally diagnosed as typhoid fever amongst the Brit¬ ish troops in France, 903 amongst inoculated men and 508 amongst uninoculated men. There were 166 deaths, 47 of which were amongst the inoculated and 119 among unin¬ oculated. To the same date there were 2,118 cases of paratyphoid fever, 1,968 amongst in- November 24, 1916] SCIENCE 745 oculated men, and 150 amongst men who had not been inoculated. There were 29 deaths — 22 of which were amongst the inoculated and seven amongst the uninoculated. The Jesup lectures of the American Mu¬ seum of Natural History are being given this year by Dr. R. S. Woodworth, of Columbia University, who has taken as his subject “ Dynamic Psychology.” The separate sub¬ jects and the dates of the lectures, which are on Friday evenings at 8:15, are as follows: November 10, The Modern Movement in Psy¬ chology; November 17, The Problems and Methods of Psychology; November 24, The Native Equipment of Man; December 1, Ac¬ quired or Learned Equipment; December 8, The Factor of Selection and Control; Decem¬ ber 15, The Factor of Originality; December 22, Drive and Mechanism in Abnormal Be¬ havior; December 29, Drive and Mechanism in Social Behavior. Dr. Herman M. Adler, assistant professor of psychiatry, Harvard University, has commenced a study of the facilities for dealing with mental diseases and mental deficiency in Cook County, Illinois. The survey is under the general direction of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene and the expenses will be met by a special appropriation made by the Rocke¬ feller Foundation. At the request of gover¬ nors of the states, state boards of control, state boards of charities and social or civic organizations, the National Committee for Mental Hygiene has conducted or is at pres¬ ent undertaking such studies in Tennessee, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Louisiana, Cali¬ fornia, Connecticut, Georgia and Texas. The mayor and the board of estimate of New York City have seen growing up in their community a number of unorganized attempts to deal with what are apparently different phases of the same problem and within a few weeks a special committee has been appointed by the mayor consisting of the commissioner of ac¬ counts, the commissioner of public charities, the commissioner of corrections, the chair¬ man of the parole board and the presiding justice of the children’s court, to present a constructive plan for the examination, classi¬ fication and proper treatment of mental de¬ fectives. The mayor’s committee has re¬ quested the National Committee for Mental Hygiene to make for it such a survey as the study about to be commenced in Chicago. Thus studies of the same subject will be car¬ ried on simultaneously under the same general direction in the two largest cities of the country. The annual meeting of the American Social Hygiene Association and joint conference with the St. Louis Social Hygiene Society and Committee of One Hundred of St. Louis was held in St. Louis, November 19 to 21. The chief subjects for discussion were “ The New Public Conscience,” “ Health Aspects of Social Hygiene,” “ Ways and Means of Public Edu¬ cation regarding Social Hygiene ” and “ Re¬ pression of Commercialized Vice.” Ti-ie orthopedic department of the Chil¬ dren’s Hospital, Boston, will offer a course, be¬ ginning on December 1, 1916, in muscle train¬ ing and in the principles of the nursing after¬ care of infantile paralysis. This course will be open to a limited number of properly qualified women and will be an all-day course covering a period of about six weeks, most of the work being in the clinics and practical in character. The course will be under the general super¬ vision but not under the actual instruction of Dr. R. W. Lovett, surgeon to the hospital to whom application for admission should be made. The Peabody Museum of Harvard Univer¬ sity has received from Arthur Bowditch, Jr., ’03, a large collection of spears, household articles and wearing apparel of the Bagoba, Manoba, Moro and other tribes of the Philip¬ pine Islands. The collection was made by him in 1914. The botanical collections of Mr. S. B. Par¬ ish, comprising over 50,000 herbarium sheets, have been, purchased by Stanford University. Mr. Parish has devoted about forty years to the flora of southern California, and his her¬ barium contains the most complete collection of plants from that region that has been brought together. 746 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1143 Stanford University, with the cooperation of Dr. N. L. Britton, director of the New York Botanical Garden, has arranged to finance the publication of an Illustrated Flora of the Pa¬ cific Coast. Dr. LeBoy Abrams will edit the work, with the assistance of a number of the leading American botanists as collaborators. The flora will comprise four volumes contain¬ ing illustrations and descriptions of every species of ferns and flowering plants on the Pacific coast. At a meeting of the council of the National Museum of Wales, held at Cardiff, on October 28, it was announced, according to Nature, that a sum of £10,000 had been received from Capt. W. B. Smith, senior partner of the firm of W. B. Smith and Son, Cardiff, and Mrs. Smith, towards the building fund of the new museum. The donors had made this gift in the belief that the National Museum would be one of the first educational influences in the principality. There were other donors, who wished to re¬ main anonymous for the present, and it is ex¬ pected that when the present contract has been paid there will be a balance of about £16,000 towards the £50,000 which is needed to com¬ plete the furnishing and equipment of the portion of the building at present in course of erection. The Embar formation of Wyoming is known chiefly for its extensive phosphate beds, which are supposed to have been derived in some manner from animal remains. The rocks contain abundant fossils, many of which are phosphatic, and all of which prove that the Embar beds of western Wyoming were deposited in the sea. Becent study of the east¬ ward extension of the Embar formation in Wyoming shows that along the east margin of this ancient sea, or throughout the Bighorn Mountain region, the climate was probably more arid than that of any part of Wyoming to-day. By long evaporation beds of gypsum were deposited at some places in arms of this sea to a thickness as great as 100 feet. It is a question of practical importance whether beds of salt, and perhaps of potash salt, may also have been deposited in this formation and whether they may now be found below the surface. The United States Geological Sur¬ vey, Department of the Interior, urges that oil men, in drilling through the Chugwater and Embar red beds in Wyoming collect samples of drillings and of brines and submit them to the survey for examination as to their possible potash content. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS At the meeting of the trustees of the Car¬ negie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, held in New York on November 15, the proposal to make the pension system con¬ tributory was considered and action was post¬ poned. This was the recommendation of the committee of the American Association of University Professors which was represented at the meeting of the trustees by Professor Ed¬ win B. A. Seligman, vice-president of the as¬ sociation, and Dean Harlan F. Stone, chair¬ man of the committee that drew up the report on the subject. The proposed plan of contrib¬ utory pensions was referred to a committee composed of Dr. Henry S. Pritchett, president of the foundation; Dr. W. F. Slocum, president of Colorado College, chairman of the board; Sir William Peterson, president of McGill University; President Charles B. Van Hise, of the University of Wisconsin; President A. Lawrence Lowell, of Harvard University, and Chancellor T. B. McCormick, of the University of Pittsburgh, representing the foundation, and five representatives from the American Association of University Professors, the As¬ sociation of American Universities, the Na¬ tional Association of State Universities and the Association of American Colleges. The chemistry building at the State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts of the Uni¬ versity of Montana, Bozeman, was completely destroyed by fire on October 20. This build¬ ing furnished quarters for the college and ex¬ periment station departments of chemistry, the state food and water laboratory and the de¬ partments of physics and geology. The fire occurred in the day time and all department’s records, the chemical library and the materials in the chemical and geological museums were November 24, 1916] SCIENCE 747 saved together with part of the apparatus. Chancellor Elliott has announced that a new chemistry building will be erected as soon as possible. Final plans have been drawn for a head house for the school of applied science of the Carnegie Institute of Technology, which is to cost $300,000. A portion of the building will be four stories high and the remainder ten. Construction work will start as soon as steel deliveries can be made. The structure will house the executive offices and library of the engineering school, and the departments of modern languages, machine design and com¬ mercial engineering. Dr. IT. E. Eggers has been appointed pro¬ fessor of pathology and bacteriology, Dr. Amos W. Peters, assistant professor of biochemistry, and Dr. John T. Myers, instructor in bac¬ teriology, in the college of medicine of the University of Nebraska, Omaha. Professor J. Yersluys, who has held the chair of zoology and comparative anatomy at Giessen since 1907, has been appointed to the corresponding chair in the new Flemish Uni¬ versity at Genth. The Journal of the American Medical As¬ sociation indicates that negotiations are pend¬ ing that may bring Professor R. Barany, of Vienna, to the University of Stockholm as professor of otology and rhinolaryngology. He recently delivered at Stockholm the customary address describing his research when presented with the Nobel prize. It will be remembered that he was a war prisoner in Russia when notified that the prize in medicine had been conferred on him. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE CAN A BODY EXERT A FORCE UPON ITSELF? In connection with our annual attempt to give our students a few clear ideas about ele¬ mentary dynamics, the question of the mean¬ ing to be assigned to the word force peren¬ nially arises. May I call attention to a well- known phenemenon which seems well suited to serve as a shibboleth in distinguishing be¬ tween clear and hazy conceptions of force? Let a liquid be uniformly rotated in an open vessel. What are the forces acting on each surface particle? Why is the free surface parabolic ? In answering these questions one recent author finds it necessary unwittingly to deny all three of the laws of motion. He states that “ When a liquid is at rest or in equilibrium the resultant of all the forces acting on a par¬ ticle in its free surface is perpendicular to the surface at that point ” [whereas according to the first law the resultant force must be zero]. In the case of a rotating liquid, we are told, “the resultant force acting on the surface particles is due not only to gravity, but to centrifugal force. ... It will be noted that the resultant force [shown drawn perpendic¬ ular to the free surface] is greater at points higher up on the surface, so that a surface particle near the top presses against the sur¬ rounding liquid with far more force than it would if at the bottom of the curve.” But according to the second law the resultant force must be in the direction of the resultant ac¬ celeration, which in this case is obviously centripetal; and according to the third law, if the particle presses against the surrounding liquid, the liquid must press back upon it with an equal and opposite force not mentioned by the author. Such an explanation is evidently completely misleading. Yet another recent text-book does equal violence to the laws of motion in ex¬ plaining the same phenomenon. “ The result¬ ant force,” we are told, “ is made up of two components; one of these is the weight of the particle, mg, the other is the reaction which the particle offers against acceleration toward the center by the centripetal force mrw2.” Of course the trouble is that among mathe¬ matical physicists it has been customary to reduce such problems to purely statical ones by introducing centrifugal forces in accord¬ ance with D’Alembert’s principle; but authors of elementary texts sometimes forget that the forces so introduced are purely imaginary. Does not the third law mean this: A body A can not exert a force upon itself as a whole; any force acting on it must be due to, that is, associated with, the existence of, some 748 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1143 other body or medium B; and that other body or medium B while exerting a force on A, is experiencing an equal and opposite force due to A ; whenever the existence of a force on A is discovered we should immediately seek out the body or medium B which is the other party to the transaction; whenever a force is men¬ tioned, the body or medium exerting the force should be clearly in mind. Considered from this point of view, the answers to the above questions regarding a rotating liquid would run somewhat as follows : The forces acting on a water particle in the free surface are (1) its weight, due to the earth, (2) a force due to the liquid in con¬ tact with it, and (3) a force normal to the surface, due to the atmosphere. The resultant of these is a centripetal force since the accel¬ eration is centripetal. If we can prove that the second force is normal to the free surface, then it follows immediately from the force triangle that the normal to the surface makes an angle with the axis of spin whose tangent is equal to the ratio of no2 to g, and that the section of the free surface is parabolic. The proof we need is the following: Sup¬ pose a closed, cylindrical can, full of liquid and with its bottom horizontal, is uniformly rotating around the vertical axis of symmetry. On any co-axial cylindrical surface within the liquid with a radius r there is a pressure be¬ cause of the rotation equal to $pr2 to2 per cm.2; at any height y above the bottom there is also a hydrostatic pressure due to gravity equal to P — pgy • The equation for a surface of con¬ stant pressure within the liquid is therefore IprW + P — pgy — constant, r2a>2 — 2 gy = constant. But the force on any particle due to the sur¬ rounding liquid is, of course, normal to the surface of constant pressure at that point. If we now suppose the can opened on top and all the liquid within a surface of constant pres¬ sure removed, the pressure formerly exerted by the removed liquid would be supplied by the atmosphere and the remaining liquid would continue to rotate exactly as before. Thus the free surface of our rotating liquid must coincide with a surface of constant pressure, and the force on a surface particle due to the liquid in contact with it (including surface tension), being normal to the surface of con¬ stant pressure, is normal to the free surface. In a similar manner the more general proposi¬ tion may be proved that the free surface of any liquid whose particles remain at a con¬ stant distance from each other during any motion, is normal to the force with which the liquid acts on the surface particles at each point , and is not, as often stated, normal to the resultant force acting on them. When a student finds in an elementary text the statement that “ when a body is accelerated we may consider the force of reaction as one of the forces acting upon the body,” and is told that one of the forces acting on one of the masses of an Atwood’s machine, mv is “ the reaction of the mass m1 against its upward acceleration ” [which is equivalent to the statement that a body when accelerated acts upon itself with a force ma, so that the result¬ ant force is always zero] — when a student tries to reconcile such assertions with the laws of motion, is it surprising that he be¬ comes confused and discouraged? Why not use force only in the single definite sense implied in the laws of motion ? The fact that the two authors quoted are unusually experienced and successful teachers suggests that they are not the only ones who are making the path of freshmen unnecessarily difficult. I have taken the liberty of using them as “ horrible examples ” in this respect because their text-books are for the most part admirably clear, and because I know them to be men who are big enough not to resent well- meant criticism. If there is any question as to the wisdom of the conclusion suggested above, let us thrash the matter out now. To avoid misunder¬ standing, let me add that in using the phrase “ force due to — ” for the sake of brevity, no relation of cause and effect is implied in any critical philosophical sense. Gordon S. Fulcher University of Wisconsin, November 3, 1916 November 24, 1916] SCIENCE 749 LATERAL VISION AND ORIENTATION To the Editor of Science : Professor C. C. Trowbridge furnished an illuminating paper, printed in Science September 29, on “ The Importance of Lateral Vision in its Relation to Orientation.” In dealing with the question of the process used by man, with his binocular frontal vision, in estimating distances to objects that come within his observation, Professor Trowbridge says : It is a well-established principle that binocular vision gives to human beings a means of determin¬ ing the relative distances between near-by objects, as well as the distances of these objects from the observer. The basis of this power lies in seeing the objects from two points of view, giving a stereoscopic effect, which, however, is decreasingly effective as the objects are removed from the eyes. It is apparently partly the decreasing stereoscopic effect with increasing distance which forms the basis of measurement, and partly a judgment of distance in some way through the muscular move¬ ments of the eyes, and those governing the ac¬ commodation of the lenses. . . . From the above quotation it appears to the writer that Professor Trowbridge has missed the fundamental principle of estimating dis¬ tances to observed objects by human binocular vision. If the writer’s view or theory is cor¬ rect, when a man estimates such distances by his vision, he unconsciously performs a trig¬ onometrical operation, in which the distance between the pupils of the eyes is the base of a triangle, the two lines of vision from the pupils, converging in the observed object, being the other sides of the triangle. The same principle is used by the “ range¬ finder ” on a ship of war, who has a rod about ten feet long as the base of his triangle, from each end of which is measured the angular inclination of the two lines converging in the target, five or ten miles distant. The “ binoc¬ ular ” observer has a base two and a half or three inches long, for objects a few hundred feet distant and less. The range-finder makes accurate calculations based on measurements; while the “ binocular ” observer, from long practise, acquires a sort of “ rule of thumb ” facility in making such estimates with more or less approximate accuracy, which operation from long habit is performed intuitively and without conscious mental effort. A man with only one eye, or with defective vision in one of his eyes, finds a difficulty in estimating the correct distance to an object which he extends his hand to grasp; or when inserting a key in a keyhole he must some¬ times aid his vision by the touch of a finger to locate the keyhole. It follows of course that a man with only one eye is without the power to invoke the principle of trigonometry in the estimating of distances to observed objects. If the above theory is unsound the writer will be glad to have further enlightenment on the question discussed. rp q Dabney A COMMON, BUT INCORRECT, STATEMENT CONCERNING THE NUMBER OF BACTERIA IN MILK The literature discussing sanitary milk problems is full of statements like this ; “ Cer¬ tified milk is not allowed to have more than 10,000 bacteria per c.c.” ; or “ Grade A milk should not have over 60,000 bacteria per c.c.” ; and many other similar statements specifying the number of bacteria per c.c. in milk of vari¬ ous grades. These counts are commonly made by the standard agar plate method recom¬ mended by the American Public Health Asso¬ ciation. A perusal of a number of bacteriological text-books by American authors shows a gen¬ eral recognition of the fact that these counts are probably counts of groups of bacteria rather than of individual bacteria and that they are probably always lower than they should be because of the fact that not all bac¬ teria will grow on nutrient agar at the incu¬ bation temperature used. In spite of these qualifications specifically stated in the majority of these text-b.ooks, their authors ignore them in all subsequent discussions and accept agar plate counts as showing the number of bac¬ teria per c.c. Occasionally in these books or elsewhere in bacteriological literature, one even finds the bald assertion that each colony 750 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1143 on an agar plate develops from a single bac¬ terium. The development of microscopical methods of counting bacteria in milk have now made it possible to check up this matter. Studies at the N. Y. Agricultural Experiment Station by J. D. Brew, as well as cooperative analyses carried out by the dairy husbandry depart¬ ment of the N. Y. State College of Agricul¬ ture at Ithaca and the bacteriological depart¬ ment of the Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva have shown that the number of bacteria in market milk is rarely less than twice the number of colonies developing on agar plates even after prolonged incubation at two different temperatures ; and that the num¬ ber of bacteria is usually from three to six times the number of colonies. In those fairly common market milk samples where the predominant bacterial flora consist of long chain streptococci, the actual number of bac¬ teria present may be fifteen to twenty-five times the number of colonies on agar plates. With these facts established, there seems to be no justification for continuing the present unscientific custom of referring to agar- plate counts as showing the number of bac¬ teria in milk. As a matter of fact they show the number of colonies developing on nutrient agar (or other culture medium) under the conditions of incubation used, and nothing more. In the earlier literature the latter form of expression was common and is still used by some investigators. Americans, however, gen¬ erally use the inaccurate form of expression especially when discussing sanitary milk prob¬ lems. It does not require a vivid imagination to picture the dismay of the layman, whether consumer, milk dealer or farmer, when he dis¬ covers that what he has been told about the number of bacteria in milk is all based on a fallacy and that the real numbers are from one and a half to twenty-five or more times the figures which have been given to him. Neither does it require a vivid imagination to predict that those forces which find it to their advantage to resist the efforts which are being made to control our milk supplies will be quick to seize upon the seeming inconsistencies of bacteriologists as a means of discrediting the use of bacterial counts for controlling milk supplies. So long as there was no available method by which the actual number of bacteria in milk could be counted, the use of the short form of expression had some excuse because of its convenience. Now that the real facts are known, its continued use will increase the present confusion. This confusion does not trouble bacteriologists, nor will it do so, for the majority of them have understood all of the time that they were probably not telling the truth about the matter; but it does be¬ wilder the uninitiated. Robert S. Breed N. Y. Agricultural Experiment Station OSTWALD’S HANDBOOK OF COLLOIDAL CHEMISTRY In a criticism1 of my review2 of Professor Fisher’s translation of Wo. Ostwald’s “ Hand¬ book of Colloidal Chemistry ” Professor Richard C. Tolman disagrees with my state¬ ments concerning negative surface tension, and submits certain thermodynamic considerations and experiments as evidence of the existence of negative surface tension. The question is one over which two people may disagree inas¬ much as it depends solely on their point of view. Professor Tolman relies principally upon thermodynamic considerations, while I refuse to consider energetics as infallible in the present case, but base my reasoning on ordinary atomistics. In fact I regard the application of thermodynamics to disperse systems as decidedly hazardous. In the first place it is well known (Max¬ well) (Smoluchowski) that the second law is no longer valid when applied to particles ap¬ proaching molecular dimensions. Secondly the first characteristic of all colloidal solutions is unstability. I have yet to experience an abso¬ lutely stable permanent colloidal solution. Once we admit the absence of true thermo- 1 Science, 44, 565, 1916. 2 Science, 43, 747, 1916. November 24, 1916] SCIENCE 751 dynamic equilibrium Professor Tolman’s rea¬ soning loses its validity. What is our criterion of stability? Colloidal gold solutions pre¬ pared by the reduction of dilute gold chloride solutions with phosphorus are looked upon as being exceedingly stable, in fact they appear almost optically homogeneous under the ultra microscope; yet those prepared by Faraday by this method are still preserved at the Royal Institution — long since coagulated. And of course the rate of change (viscosity) of the hydrophyllic sols mentioned by Professor Tol- man is measured in hours and minutes, i. e., they are to be regarded as anything but stabile in the thermodynamic sense. Are we not to consider this question of time at all? Are we to abandon our hope of a kinetic explanation of the change of size of particles when under the ultra microscope we can observe the clump¬ ing together of particles and the cessation of the Brownian movement? As experimental evidence of negative sur¬ face tension Professor Tolman cites the gel-sol change of a number of reversible colloids. Perhaps there is an increase of surface in such changes, but our knowledge of the internal surface of gels of gelatine, agar-agar, ferric hydroxide, etc., is, at best, somewhat limited. It can, however, be experimentally shown, from vapor pressure studies of these same gels, that the internal surface is enormous.3 Furthermore if the internal surface of the gel is decreased (dehydration) the gel-sol change in many cases does not take place. It is there¬ fore an open question as to just what increase of surface occurs in the gel-sol change. But Professor Tolman should not limit him¬ self to the gel-sol change as experimental evi¬ dence of negative surface tension; as a matter of fact he is forced to extend it to include the solution of all substances. For in the process of solution we surely have an enor¬ mous increase of surface, consequently an ex¬ hibition of negative surface tension. This leads at once to a general theory of solution. Here we meet an old idea that one frequently 3 1 have calculated that the internal surface of one gram of silic acid gel is approximately 2,000,- 000 cm2. comes across in scientific literature, but which has never been seriously considered because it represented no real progress. The fundamental concept of surface tension is molecular attraction, and until we can ex¬ perimentally show repulsion between molecules without the addition of external energy , we must regard negative surface tension as a mathematical quantity to which not much meaning may be attached. In other words, until we can obtain a substance which spon¬ taneously increases its surface (wrinkles and folds), and we must here clearly separate phe¬ nomena of solution, vaporization and osmose, we have not much right to speak of negative surface tension. Professor Tolman quotes Professor F. G. Donnan as a possible exponent of negative surface tension. I can say from a year’s asso¬ ciation with Professor Donnan that he has long since recognized the futility of ordinary ener¬ getics in giving a solution to the perplexing and intricate problems of disperse systems. Is it not better, in view of the multitude of factors involved, to push our experimental study of these systems a bit further, before we burden ourselves with an intricate systematic of doubtful validity ? The lines of attack laid out by Freundlich, Zsigmondy, Svedberg and van Weimarn are infinitely more hopeful. W. A. Patrick Syracuse University THE RELATION OF OSMOTIC PRESSURE AND IMBIBITION IN LIVING CELLS In Ho. 1115 of this journal Jacques Loeb1 publishes some ideas regarding the above, which he himself considers “so self-evident that their publication would seem superfluous were it not for the fact that Wolfgang Ostwald and other colloid chemists deny the existence of semi-permeable membranes in the muscle on account of the fact that acid causes proteins to undergo imbibition.” Since this article by Jacques Loeb is, therefore, published chiefly for my benefit, I beg to point out the following : Never, and in none of my publications, have I said anything of this kind. I have never i Jacques Loeb, Science, 43, 688 (1916). 752 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1143 denied the " existence ” of semi-permeable membranes in muscle nor have I ever discussed them in any publication. Neither have I denied the existence of such membranes, be¬ cause proteins swell more in acids than in water. In fact, I see no cogent reason for even thinking of these two things as at all related to each other, wherefore the conclusion attrib¬ uted to me by J. Loeb becomes entirely unin¬ telligible, and appears, as a matter of fact, absolutely absurd. It is true that I have, at various times, lectured on the “ role ” of semi- permeable membrane in muscle, and, with many other physiologists and colloid-chemists, have come to the conclusion that these mem¬ branes play a much smaller part in the problem of water absorption than many physiologists formerly thought and J. Loeb still thinks. I still regard the role of osmotic processes in the problem of water absorption by muscle as only of secondary importance, yet even in my latest publication2 I state that “ I do not wish to uphold the somewhat extreme view that osmotic changes play no role whatsoever in the problem of water absorption by organisms.” I know full well, moreover, that this position is regarded as too conservative by some of my colloid-chemical colleagues and as inadequate in the light of the newer developments of our knowledge. These facts make it evident that J. Loeb is absolutely wrong in his statement that I have denied the existence of semi-permeable mem¬ branes in muscle, and still more wrong when he says that I have done this “ on account of the fact that acid causes proteins to undergo imbibition.” So far as my published thoughts regarding this question go, the statements in the article of J. Loeb appear, as a matter of fact, not only, as he says, “ superfluous,” but wrong and misleading. The whole argument of J. Loeb is based upon an entirely arbitrary distortion of my views. Wolfgang Ostwald University of Leipzig, August 5, 1916 2 Wolfgang Ostwald, “Die Welt der vernach- lassigten Dimensionen, ’ * 133. Dresden and Leip¬ zig, 1915. SCIENTIFIC BOOKS Weather Forecasting in the United States. By a Board consisting of Alfred J. Henry, Edward H. Bowie, Henry J. Cox, Harry C. Frankenfield. Washington, 1916, Weather Bureau, No. 583. C. F. Marvin, Chief. Pp. 370, 119 charts. This volume of meteorological studies is timely in its appearance and creditable as to its contents. Time and again the question has been raised as to whether weather fore¬ casting is entirely empirical or based on scien¬ tific principles within ordinary comprehension. Almost synonymously with these memoirs ap¬ peared the bulletins of the Carother’s Ob¬ servatory, Houston, Texas, on the correlation of solar and weather phenomena, with which system of long-time weather predictions Pro¬ fessor Willis Moore, former chief of the Weather Bureau, is associated. This observa¬ tory announces the issue, for each state, of long-time forecasts ranging from eleven to eighteen days in advance. These forecasts are based on variations in the solar radiation received by the earth, which are said to cause rotating cyclonic eddies in recurring periods of eighteen days. The Carother’s method of forecasting is only one of several systems ad¬ vanced by individual scientists in the United States, which seek public recognition as to the value of their theories and as to the accu¬ racy of their weather predictions. At times the U. S. Weather Bureau has issued forecasts for even a week in advance. It has remained for the Argentina service, beginning in 1915 under Professor Wiggins, to regularly issue forecasts for a week, indi¬ cating the temperatures for 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., as also the days on which rain is expected. Since Professor Marvin, the chief of the Weather Bureau, has officially stated that systems of the Carothers and allied types are fallacious, it is of special importance that the general public should be definitely informed as to groundwork of the national weather fore¬ casting. This system has been developed dur¬ ing the past forty-six years under the control and direction of Generals A. J. Myer, W. B. November 24, 1916] SCIENCE 753 Hazen, A. W. Greely, followed by Professors H. W. Harrington, Willis Moore and Charles P. Marvin. The theoretical evolution has been principally accomplished by a civilian staff, among whom may be mentioned Perrel, Abbe, Maury and Humphreys, and the prac¬ tical work by officers of the army, by observers and professors. The present force has risen from the lower grades through successful work of a quarter of a century or more to command¬ ing positions. This review does not discuss the relative merits of the various systems, official and non¬ official, but seeks to summarize with brief com¬ ments the accuracy or fulness of the official national methods herein presented, concerning which the public is not generally informed. The reviewer prefaces his comments by stating that notwithstanding his open mind to scientific discoveries in meteorology, yet his views on long-time forecasts were formulated and published more than a quarter of a cen¬ tury since, in American Weather, N. Y., 1888. In this publication, the first American work wherein definite rules for forecasting were advanced, after quoting Blanford as to droughts and temperatures, the present writer found the sun-spot theory fallacious as to rainfall in the United States, but added: The advances of meteorology are insufficient to justify predictions of the weather for a season in advance. There are apparently good grounds for believing that general laws can be deduced by which, from abnormal distributions of atmospheric pressure, to predict for prolonged periods in ad¬ vance the general character of the coming season, as warm or cold, and wet or dry. Almost without exception the authors of the various memoirs in weather forecasting have had practical experience in meteorolog¬ ical work with the Weather Bureau for thirty years, and so speak with a degree of authority that makes their opinions worthy of careful consideration. The first essay, modestly styled Introduc¬ tory Note, by Professor C. F. Marvin, sets forth clearly and succinctly the theory of atmos¬ pheric circulation, the essential basis of the science of forecasting. His action in promptly initiating these investigations, in 1913, gives promise of further memoirs as later studies add to meteorological knowledge. Professor W. J. Humphreys has brought to¬ gether a comprehensive summary of existing knowledge as to winds, cyclones and anti¬ cyclones. He advances reasons as to why the average velocity of winds steadily increases to 600 meters’ elevation, decreases to 1,000 meters, and after fluctuations steadily increases from 2,000 meters upward. In this connection he believes that: The horizontal pressure gradient maintained by the temperature difference between adjacent re¬ gions is approximately constant with a tendency towards a maximum gradient at about 8 kilo¬ meters roughly. In connection with the origin of cyclones and anti-cyclones Humphreys considers the various hypotheses: Ferrel’s convectional, Hann’s driven-eddy — both discussed by Pro¬ fessor Davis — and Mitham’s counter-current. He believes that none of these theories con¬ tains clear and workable conceptions of “the origin, mechanism or maintenance of the extra-tropical cyclones,” but that they “ still remain the meteorological mysteries they have always- been.” He points out that tornadoes, “ well-nigh peculiar to the United States east of the Rocky Mountains,” develop usually in the southeast quadrant of a low-pressure area, the tornado being “ a vigorous convection be¬ tween strong neighboring counter-currents.” He indicates the presence of permanent and semi-permanent low areas. It is to be regretted that he did not con¬ sider in this connection the normal transfer to and from various regions, in the northern hemisphere of pressures from month to month, which, deduced largely from the international series of simultaneous observations, were charted and briefly described by the writer twenty-six years ago. Coming to the practical problems, Professor A. H. Henry treats the subject under the head of weather forecasting, pressure changes, highs and lows, and forecasts in the Washing- 754 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1143 ton district. He outlines clearly the synoptic chart method, the basis of all American weather forecasts. The general control of the weather through atmospheric changes of pres¬ sure are shown, with their general course from west to east. Illustrating typical lows by charts, he indicates seven separate types : cir¬ cular, secondary, Y-depressions, cols or sad¬ dles, anti-cyclone, wedge-shaped and straight isobars. The result of such typical forma¬ tions are discussed quite fully. Speaking of the maps of temperature and pressure changes, the two most valuable charts in forecasting, an error is committed in speak¬ ing of them as made thrice daily. The writer reduced the observations from tri-daily to semi-daily about thirty years since — a great reduction in expense, much criticized at the time, but which did not reduce the efficiency of the service. While the associations of high temperatures with low pressures, and of low temperatures with high pressures are noted, yet Henry frankly admits that allobars — -the technical term for areas of pressure changes — remain a mystery. Forecasts from katallobars, areas of falling pressure, are considered under the headings : changes in form, greatest fall at center in twelve hours, and concentration of fall. While allobars are perfected in twelve hours in Canada, the time increases south¬ ward to thirty-six hours in the Gulf States. The memoir on highs and lows is quite com¬ plete. Henry points out that “ the movement of lows seems to coincide with the seasonal di¬ rection of the planetary winds, of which they are doubtless a part,” and states that the “ speed of lows varies directly with the strength of the general winds.” As to precipi¬ tation, in addition to other comments, he con¬ siders that “ when the high is north or north¬ east of the low, the tendency to unsettled weather and precipitation in the regions be¬ tween them is at a maximum.” The lows are considered by groups, according to their pri¬ mary appearance, as follows: North Pacific, South Pacific, Alberta, Northern Pocky Moun¬ tain, and Colorado, Texas, East Gulf, South Atlantic. Highs are similarly treated. Forecasting in the Washington district, by Henry, contains treatment of seasonal influ¬ ences. He gives for Ohio five rules for warmer weather, and six for colder weather. It would have been most valuable if he had added sim¬ ilar rules for other states. As to the prolonged heated terms in the middle Western States Henry says: They are probably due to fundamental causes in the general circulation, the nature of which we do not know. They end with the disintegration of a south¬ eastern high and the formation of a north¬ western high. Cold-wave forecasts are fully treated by Professor H. J. Cox, who finds the pressure- change charts far the most important element therefor. Cold waves usually occur through the rapid advance, with steep barometric gra¬ dients, of highs in rear of well-marked lows. Cox describes the various types of cold-waves, and sets forth the effect thereon by topography, especially by the Great Lakes and by the prox¬ imity of the ocean. Well-selected charts illus¬ trate the formation and advance of such waves. He points out that atmospheric conditions for vast distances, even over an area of 4,000 sq. miles, are potent factors, through temperature, pressure, humidity, pressure gradients, cloudi¬ ness and snow-covered areas. Supplementary to cold waves Cox discusses frost warnings, indicating the modifying influ¬ ences of topography, especially in the shape of large bodies of water, moist soils and drained land. He also dwells on the different effects of fast and of low moving highs, the latter often producing frosts for successive nights. Dew-point readings in the evening are consid¬ ered fallacious indications as to frosts, while humidity percentages have influences not clearly understood as yet. Local peculiarities as to cold waves and frost-warnings, of much value and interest, are presented by Forecasters John W. Smith, of New England, L. M. Cline for the West Gulf, F. H. Brandenburg for Denver, E. A. Bealls for the North Pacific and G. H. Willson for the South Pacific. These experienced fore- November 24, 1916] SCIENCE 755 casters also present valuable data and opin¬ ions as to weather and temperature forecasts in their respective districts. The subject of high winds is efficiently treated by Forecaster E. H. Bowie, who indi¬ cates the various types of pressure from which they occur. While pressure gradients induce high winds of definite relative force, yet excep¬ tions to the rule are noted. Hurricanes, northers and blizzards receive due considera¬ tion. He mentions the intensity of action caused by twelve different types of lows. Spe¬ cial supplementary treatment of the storm winds of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts is pre¬ sented by Professor H. C. Frankenfield, and similar data for the North Pacific coast by Forecaster Bealls, for the South Pacific coast by Forecaster Willson, and for the Great Lakes by Professor Cox. Professor H. C. Frankenfield discusses the forecasting of snow, of sleet and ice storms, dwelling especially on their seasonal and geo¬ graphic distribution. He indicates seven dis¬ tinct conditions precedent to sleet and ice storms, and five necessary conditions preceding fog formation. Similar treatment of thunder¬ storms comes from Professor Henry. Forecaster Bowie in discussing long-range weather forecasts considers seasonal forecasts as improbable even in the near future. He indicates, however, sixteen types of pressure conditions in various regions of the northern hemisphere which enable meteorologists to forecast conditions, elsewhere consequent, from two days to two weeks in advance. The bibliography and index are unsatisfac¬ tory, and most annoying to any student. There are about a score of publications referred to in the text which do not appear in the bibliog¬ raphy, while titles of small import are given place. This is a small matter, but it mars the publication. As a whole, while these memoirs will be in¬ dispensable to every forecaster and experienced meteorologist, as far as the public is con¬ cerned they will be valuable only to advanced students of the science. They are quite be¬ yond the scope indicated by Chief Marvin as a text-book or manual suitable for the guid¬ ance and instruction of beginners. It is to be hoped that in due time there will appear a series of local manuals — not more than 24 pages in length — wherein should be presented such simple rules as would enable business men to still further utilize the daily weather map. The writer had a similar intent when he incorporated in American Weather twelve rules for general use in weather forecasting, which the board of professors has generously recognized in their preface. Doubtless a hun¬ dred similar rules — simpler and better — could be deduced by the experienced professors who have prepared these memoirs, whose value to students is recognized as of the highest order. A. W. Greely Washington, D. C. SPECIAL ARTICLES THE RESULTS OF EXTIRPATION OF THE ANTE¬ RIOR LOBE OF THE HYPOPHYSIS AND OF THE THYROID OF RANA PIPIENS LARViE The writer has long been impressed with the desirability of testing the effects of extir¬ pation of the glands of internal secretion at the very beginning of their development in order to determine the part that they play in the development and differentiation of the em¬ bryo. Of all the vertebrates the anurans seemed to offer the greatest opportunities for such work. Adler (’14) 1 performed experi¬ ments of this kind, but the operation was car¬ ried out at a late stage and consequently did not entirely exclude the early influence of the gland. Early in the spring of 1915 the writer removed the anlage of the anterior lobe of the hypophysis at the time of closure of the medul¬ lary folds by removing the surface ectoderm from which it would shortly afterwards de¬ velop. This attempt resulted in a large de¬ gree of mortality and was abandoned. This spring the operation was successfully accom¬ plished by making a transverse frontal cut ex¬ tending back the entire length of the fore brain and parallel to it a sufficient distance below to just expose the ventral surface of the hy- i Adler, L., * 1 Metamorphosestudien an Betra- chierlarven. I. Extirpation endokriner Driisen. A. Extirpation der Hypophyse. ” Arch. f. Ent- wiclcelungsmech. d. Organ., Bd. 39, 1914. 756 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1143 pophysis ingrowth. When this is performed at the stage of from 3.5-4 mm. total body length the hypophysis anlage can be readily seen and removed. The wound heals in from 20 to 30 minutes and the tadpoles quickly recover. In the course of these experiments the anlage was successfully removed from 430 tadpoles. This phase of my work was duplicated by Dr. P. E. Smith,2 who published a preliminary account of his work in the August 25, 1916, number of Science. During the month of July prior to this time I had the pleasure of discussing my work with Dr. Smith at Berke¬ ley. Previous to this time I had no knowledge of his work nor of his plans and he assures me that he was equally ignorant of my work. We both presented papers upon our experi¬ ments at the meeting of the Western Society of Naturalists at San Diego, August 9 to 12. On the 7th of June, before starting west, I demonstrated specimens and explained my re¬ sults to a number of scientists, including Pro¬ fessor Frank E. Lillie, Dr. Emil Goetsch, Dr. Chas. H. Swift and a number of others whom I met in Chicago at that time. It is thus clear that these experiments were independently con¬ ceived by Dr. Smith and myself and that we worked contemporaneously upon them each without knowledge of the other’s work until July, 1916, two months after the experiments had been performed. It was impossible to give an earlier report upon this work because the experiments upon thyroid removal required a long period of time to establish definite re¬ sults. Our results are in accord in showing that the removal of this gland has an early effect in producing a great contraction of the super¬ ficial pigment cells. The results in my speci¬ mens were very striking. I found that my tad¬ poles assumed a uniform creamy silver color. This change was evident on the seventh to eighth day after the operation. Our work is further in accord in that we both observed a retardation in growth very marked in my ma¬ terial and a striking retardation in the de¬ velopment of limbs. The buds appeared but 2 Smith, P. E., ‘ ‘ Experimental Ablation of the Hypophysis in the Frog Embryo/ ’ Science, Au¬ gust 25, 1916, p. 280. remained very small. One specimen kept alive until August 30 had only reached a length of 30 mm. and the limb buds were still extremely small after the controls had all fully meta¬ morphosed into frogs. Through all this time it maintained its silvery color. Dr. Smith found that there was no more mortality among his operated tadpoles than among the controls. This is quite contrary to my experience; but is no doubt explainable upon the grounds that he had a more favorable water supply than ours. In my experiments upon removal of the hypophysis there was a very heavy mortality. I am convinced that this must be explained upon the ground that the presence of the hypophysis anlage is neces¬ sary for the proper adjustment of the tad¬ poles to these injurious influences. It might be mentioned at the outset that in roughly one third of the operated tadpoles the upper part of the mouth was defective. This was due to the removal or disturbance of its anlage in the operation. These tadpoles were of course doomed to die, but this can not account for the fact that in one experiment in which 30 were operated only 4 remained alive at the end of 33 days. In another experiment the case was made still more clear. Of 100 operated tadpoles only 7 remained alive at the end of 32 days — of these there had been failure to remove the hypophysis in one case and in another there had probably been partial failure. A control set was reared in which the cut was made as though for removal of the hypophysis, but the gland was left intact. Of the 28 thus treated 14 were alive at the end of 42 days. At this time they were in a very flourishing condition, although the operation caused a temporary retardation of growth. In other sets of experiments there were usu¬ ally one or two tadpoles that failed to show the characteristic color change. These were in¬ variably hardy. Upon sectioning them the hypophysis was found intact. Operated tadpoles and control lots were kept side by side in the same or neighboring aquaria and the operated ones invariably showed heavy mortality while the control tadpoles were healthy. This mortality did not appear until November 24, 1916] SCIENCE 757 at least a week after the operation, long after complete recovery, and it was not evident in certain cultures so long as they were kept in well water, appearing only after they were placed in our city water. The interesting thing is that other tadpoles that had undergone a more severe operation in the removal of the thyroid gland showed no appreciable mortality until after the lapse of a month, when they had grown so large as to crowd the aquaria. These were kept in con¬ ditions identical with those under which the tadpoles deprived of the hypophysis showed such heavy mortality. I propose next spring to determine if pos¬ sible whether this lack of resistance is of a general character or whether the absence of the hypophysis causes a heightened suscepti¬ bility to specific injurious substances or con¬ ditions. These experiments upon removal of the hy¬ pophysis represent only one phase of my work ; similar methods were applied to the extir¬ pation of the thyroid anlage. This was re¬ moved at a slightly later stage 6-6.5 mm. total length shortly after it appeared. In this case a transverse cut was made between the heart and the thyroid anlage and the latter was read¬ ily removed. In some instances a small por¬ tion of it may have been left behind, but in the main the operation proved successful as demonstrated in sections of operated tadpoles. Recovery from the operation was quite as rapid and complete as in the case of hy¬ pophysis extirpation. This operation was suc¬ cessfully performed upon 336 tadpoles. As indicated above, for a long time after the operation the tadpoles showed no ill effects from the absence of the thyroid gland as re¬ gards either size or vitality. In fact they ap¬ peared in every way normal up to the time when the hind limbs began to form. When they began to die as a result of overcrowding and other unfavorable conditions that became marked at about 6 weeks after the operation, there was an even greater mortality among the controls. The metamorphosis of the controls began about the middle of July and continued to August 13, when the last control tadpole meta¬ morphosed. Five of the operated tadpoles metamorphosed at about the same time as the controls. One metamorphosed much later — September 20. At the present date, October 1, twelve oper¬ ated tadpoles ranging in length from 85 mm. to 123 mm. are living and show no tendencies toward metamorphosis. The hind-limb rudi¬ ments are rather uniformly about 4 mm. in length. The knee is evident and the toe points distinguishable. The larval characters as a whole are maintained. The intestine, the mouth, eyes, etc., are all larval in character, although a peculiar modification in the form of the head is noted in that the portion in front of the eyes is lengthened, broadened and flat¬ tened dorsoventrally. It is thus clear that the removal of the thyroid gland has caused these tadpoles to remain in a larval condition for a month and a half after the controls have com¬ pleted metamorphosis. Section of 7 operated tadpoles at various stages from 9 to 24 mm. showed no vestiges *f the thyroid gland. A careful study of the operated animals that have undergone metamorphosis is being carried on to determine whether small portions of the gland have remained after the operation or whether there may not have been new forma¬ tion of thyroid tissue. Upon sectioning one of these a single well-developed thyroid gland was found on one side. This clearly shows that we were here dealing with a case of im¬ perfect removal. The results of this experiment establish a corollary to the experiments by which Guder- natsch and others have shown that thyroid feeding — hyperthyroidism — greatly accelerates metamorphosis. Conversely, in the absence of the thyroid gland metamorphosis is at least greatly retarded. ITow long this may continue remains to be seen. A careful study of the material is being made to observe the effects of the removal of these glands of internal secretion upon the body as a whole and upon the various organs. The results should be especially interesting because we are dealing with material in which the earliest anlagen of these glands have been removed. Bennet M. Allen University of Kansas 758 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1143 P. S. As this goes to press, November 1Y, nine of the thyroidless tadpoles are still alive and have increased in size. One has been fed thyroid preparations for 25 days but in very small amounts and at long intervals for fear of fatal results. The hind legs have reached a length of 9.5 mm. and the fore legs are evi¬ dent beneath the skin. The tail has become greatly shortened and the head is assuming the character of a frog’s head. The legs of all the other tadpoles have remained stationary in development at a length of 4 mm. and the tadpoles as a whole show no further signs of metamorphosis. Another tadpole of 29 mm. heavily fed with thyroid, died after 4 days. When compared with a thyroidless tadpole of practically equal body length it was found the intestine of the thyroid fed tadpole had been reduced to a length of 143 mm. as compared with 237 mm., the length of the intestine of the thyroidless tadpole that had not been fed thyroid. B. M. A. MICROTECHNICAL METHODS FOR STUDYING CERTAIN PLANT-SUCKING INSECTS IN SITU A problem on which the writer has been working for the past year, viz., determining the relation of certain sucking insects to their host plants, has necessitated the development or adaptation of several points of microtech¬ nique which may be of use to other investiga¬ tors along similar lines. Sectioning insect and plant tissue together has not been at¬ tempted often, as the usual methods suitable for one are out of question for the other. It is also necessary to cut quite hard tissues and to employ stains for chitin which also will not dissolve the middle lamellse separating the plant cell-walls. The material for study must be fresh. Usually most satisfactory results are obtained if the bottles of killing fluid are taken into the field, the parts of plants bearing the in¬ sects cut off with a sharp knife, and immedi¬ ately immersed. Aphididse and others of the more active forms must be removed with the part of the plant on which they are feeding and killed before they have time to pull out the proboscis, otherwise their natural positions in feeding can not be studied. For the gelatine method of embedding, which the writer has used quite extensively, pieces of pine needles, each bearing a coccid at one end, are tied in bundles of ten to twenty, making it possible to get sections of many needles at once; with the use of a killing and fixing agent which pene¬ trates rapidly and easily no difficulty from im¬ proper fixing of parts of these bundles is ex¬ perienced. Of the killing solutions a variety was tried, Jeffry’s1 proving in most cases the most satis¬ factory, as the picric acid in it stains chitin. Also it softens hard plant tissues so that it is possible to cut paraffin sections of leaves as hard as Citrus without further softening. It may be used hot for twenty minutes or cold for several hours. Care must be taken to wash thoroughly in alcohol or iodin alcohol (30 per cent, alcohol which has been turned to a light wine color by the addition of iodin), otherwise crystals of mecuric bichlorid will remain. Carnoy’s fluid-2 also proves successful, partic¬ ularly with active insects having much secre¬ tion of wax, e. g., the aphid Chermes , which with less quickly penetrating solutions en¬ closes a drop of air, thus enabling the insect to free its beak before death. Its hardening properties are overcome by thorough washing in absolute alcohol, followed by 95 per cent., 85 per cent., 70 per cent., 50 per cent., 30 per cent, strengths, and then softening in Jeffry’s solution. The gelatine method for embedding3 has been found by the writer very successful for many hard tissues. It deserves extended trial with plant tissues usually considered too hard for sectioning. It is a short method: the ma¬ terial does not require dehydration before its use, therefore hard tissues are not rendered harder than they naturally are. Further, the 1 Corrosive sublimate, saturated solution in 30 per cent, alcohol, 3 parts. Picric acid, saturated solution in 30 per cent, alcohol, 1 part. 2 Absolute alcohol 6 parts, chloroform 3 parts, glacial acetic acid 1 part. s Land, W. J. G., ‘ ‘ Microteehnical Methods, 7 7 Bot. Gaz., Vol.' 59, May, 1915, p. 400. Chamber- lain, C. J., “Methods in Plant Histology, 7 7 3d re¬ vised edition, p. 128. November 24, 1916] SCIENCE 759 natural condition of the structure is main¬ tained, there being but little shrinkage. Cell contents relatively insoluble in water, but sol¬ uble in xylol and oils, are not lost. Sections as thin as 10 microns can be cut with ease. How¬ ever, serial sections can not be cut, nor can some stains be used unless the gelatine is dis¬ solved away after sectioning, which is not easy to do. The method is as follows: Ordinary cooking gelatine is soaked two or three hours, or until it will absorb no more water, then after the excess of water is poured off it is warmed until melted. A temperature of not over 70 degrees Centigrade should be main¬ tained. Part of the liquid gelatine is now thinned with an equal volume of water and the material to be embedded is kept in this dilute gelatine for several hours, during which it must be warm enough to remain liquid. Fol¬ lowing this, concentrated gelatine is used similarly for several hours more. The dishes containing the material being embedded should be corked to prevent drying. The ma¬ terial is now cooled in a paper tray coated with paraffin, after which it is hardened for several days in 4 per cent, formalin. The microtome knife must be sharp, with no bevel on the lower side, and set at as great an angle as possible. Either alcohol or water may be used to flood the knife in cutting. Pieces of the gelatine with embedded material are, as a rule, strong enough to be clamped in place in the machine without wooden blocks as sup¬ ports. Materials which can not be cut otherwise yield easily to the knife after the use of dilute or concentrated hydrofluoric acid4 for one to three weeks, which is followed by thorough washing in water, then the regular paraffin method. Ample time for each stage of the paraffin method to permit dehydration and em¬ bedding of the large pieces must be given. Acknowledgment for many suggestions is made to Dr. L. L. Burlingame, of the botany department of Stanford University. Kearn B. Brown Stanford University 4 Bailey, I. W., ‘ ‘ Microtechnique for Woody Structures/’ Bot. Gas., Vol. 49, January, 1910, p. 58. « THE ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA A meeting of the Ecological Society of Amer¬ ica was held in the High School building at San Diego, California, on August 10 and 11, 1916, and two joint sessions were held with the Western So¬ ciety of Naturalists. About twenty-five members were present, the chair being occupied by the sec¬ retary-treasurer. Members of the society partici¬ pated in the biological dinner at the U. S. Grant Hotel on the evening of August 12. On the after¬ noon of that day the work of the Scripps Institu¬ tion was demonstrated by members of its staff. On August 13 and 14 the members of the Ecological Society were guests of the San Diego Society of Natural History on a 200-mile automobile trip to the Cuyamaca Mountains and the edge of the Colorado Desert. Following are abstracts of papers presented at the sessions of the society: The First Stage in the Recession of the Salton Sea: D. T. MacDougal. The Trees and Shrubs of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado: Alice Eastwood. The zones of plant life in the Grand Canyon may be defined by the trees and shrubs which characterize them. The great diversity of en¬ vironment results in complexities of distribution which offer a promising field for ecological in¬ vestigation. Fifty lantern slides were shown, made from herbarium specimens of the leading trees and shrubs of the Canyon, collected on the Bright Angel, Hermit and Berry trails. Results of the Effect of Chaparral and Forest Cover on Meteorological Conditions : Edward N. Munns. Records have been taken daily at three stations at the Converse Experiment Station, for three successive years. One station is located in an open cienega, one in a chaparral field, the third in a forest of jeffrey pine, all stations being about 6,000 feet elevation. The records show the mean annual temperature under the chaparral cover is 2°. 8 higher than in the open, and that of the forest 1°.2 higher. More important are the extremes, the mean maximum in the chaparral, being 5°. 7 higher and the mean minimum 2°.0 lower than in the open, while the mean maximum under forest conditions is 1°.4 lower and the mean minimum 3°. 8 higher than in the open. The mean daily range in the open is 26°. 5, that of the chaparral 7°. 7 greater, and that in the forest 5°. 2 less. Soil temperatures are greatest in the open, and least in chaparral with a difference of 1°.0 be- 760 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1143 tween chaparral and forest, and 6°.0 between chaparral and open, the differences being greater in summer and least in winter. Eighty per cent, of the precipitation reaches the ground under chaparral and seventy-two per cent, under the forest, much more water reaching the ground from snowfall under chaparral than forest. A difference of 5 per cent, exists between open and areas under cover, though there is but slight dif¬ ference between the types of cover. Evaporation in the forest is 85.2 per cent, that of the open, while the chaparral evaporation is but 47.2 per cent. Plant Succession in Badlands: Frederic E. Clements. An account of the revegetation of the highly eroded clays and shales, known as Badlands. The areas considered are the Oligocene-Miocene depos¬ its of the Hat Creek Basin in Nebraska, and of the White River in South Dakota, the Eocene of the Little Missouri in North Dakota and Mon¬ tana, Miocene volcanic deposits in Wyoming, and the Mancos Shales of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico. In the last, the climax is the Atriplex- Artemisia formation of the Great Basin region. In all the others, the climax is the prairie- plains grassland, except in the Black Hills proper, where it is the Pinus ponderosa forest. The soil water of the Mancos Shales is saline, and the suc¬ cession type is the halosere, consisting of halo¬ phytes and terminating in a sage-brush climax, or rarely in juniper-pinon woodland. In all the Ter¬ tiary Badlands of the Great Plains region, the fine-grained compact soil, the steep slope and the low but torrential rainfall make xerophytie suc¬ cession, as represented by the xerosere, typical. The hydrosere and halosere are relatively rare, while subseres are especially favored by the na¬ ture of the soil. The climax is usually reached in the Stipa-Agropyrum prairie association. In drier regions, the climax is the Bulbilis-Bouteloua short- grass association, and in wetter ones, the Pinus ponderosa consociation. A Summary of Bog Theories: George B. Rigg. A discussion of the character and occurrence of sphagnum bogs, and a presentation of the theories that have been advanced to account for the xerophily of bog plants, the possible sources of toxic substances in bog water, and the manner in which these substances influence the activities of plants. Vital Statistics of the Yellow Pine through an Altitudinal Gradient of Climatic Conditions: Forrest Shreve. Vital statistics have been secured for Pinus arisonica at elevations of 6,000, 7,000, 8,000 and 9,000 feet on south-facing slopes in the Santa Catalina Mountains, Arizona, and on north-facing slopes at 6,000 and 7,000 feet. The number of adult trees (10 cm-, and over) per unit area de¬ creases with decrease of altitude, except on the south-facing slopes at 6,000 feet. The total vol¬ ume per unit area decreases with decrease of alti¬ tude, the exceptional stand at 6,000 feet being com¬ posed of a relatively large number of small trees. The number of seedlings and smaller trees bears no relation to altitude on the areas examined. Curves were exhibited showing the rate of growth at the four altitudes. The Influence of Environmental Conditions in the Origin of a Narrowly Localised Pace of Mice: Francis B. Sumner. The Distribution of Pocket Gophers in California : Joseph Grinnell. On Some Varieties of Thais ( Purpura ) lapillus and their Delation to the Environment : Harold S. Colton. On account of its abundance and great variation, Thais ( Purpura ) lapillus forms a very favorable material for a study of some of the conditions of life on the rocky shores of the New England coast. Over twelve thousand shells were collected and sorted from sixty-seven localities in the neighborhood of Mount Desert Island, Maine. Thais is found in the rock association and the boulder association of the littoral formation wherever its food, Balanus, the barnacle, and Mytillus, the mussel, is found. The environments were classified according to the size of the waves on the beach and on the color and character of the rocky substratum. A study of the varieties showed that (1) in the surf and in the sheltered harbor the snails of a given age were smaller and darker than those found in the bays. More were also apt to be lamellated in the surf or harbor than in the bays; (2) light forms are apt to be found on light-colored rocks, but there is no great correlation between yellow snails and yellow rocks or banded snails on banded rocks; (3) there are other factors which act on a whole region irrespective of the wave action or substratum. An example of this was found in comparing the number of lamellated forms in the Somes Sound region with the Blue Hill Bay re¬ gion adjoining. In the former, whether in harbor, bay, or surf, lamellated forms are rare (6 per cent.). In the latter they are common in the har¬ bors, as much as 96 per cent, in some, absent in the bay but common (17 per cent.) in the surf. November 24, 1916] SCIENCE 761 Thais feeds in this region on barnacles and mus¬ sels. It is destroyed (1) by cannabalism within the egg capsule; (2) by fish when young; (3) by herring gulls when old; (4) by shore ice in the winter. A comparison of collections made on is¬ lands on which the gulls breed, with situations where there are not so many, seems to show that the proportions of color found are determined by selection. An Inquiry into the Relative Importance of the Various Phases of the Environment in Deter¬ mining Plant Distribution: Wm. E. Lawrence. This paper presents the results of an inquiry into the literature to ascertain what researches throw light on the problems of plant distribution. It includes a discussion of the relative importance of phylogeny, historic geology, climatic cycles, topography, climatic and edaphic factors as they affect the distribution of plants. The inherited physiological and morphological characteristics of a plant, on account of its phylogenetic relation, are considered first because they define the limit of the plant’s response in terms of the environ¬ ment. Geological factors have, of course, greatly influenced the preceding, but they are equally im¬ portant in determining the components of the endemic flora. Climatic and edaphic factors are effective at present. Of these no one factor or combination of factors is found to be all domi¬ nant. Under certain less variable conditions or combination of factors, the more variable factor or factors appear to dominate the physiological activity of the plant and hence determine its suc¬ cess in such an environment. There are, therefore, no limiting factors in plant distribution except as the conditions are defined. Under proper condi¬ tions every known factor in nature may limit growth and reproduction, hence distribution. The control of these conditions one by one is exactly the method of experimentation. When we at¬ tempt to analyze the natural conditions, we merely interpret according to the laws of experimenta¬ tion. There seems to be good reason to believe that the distribution of certain plants and plant associations are in some cases limited by one fac¬ tor such as water and in other cases by other fac¬ tors such as temperature. The whole situation is likely to be obscured in nature because of the in¬ numerable possibility of combination and the fac¬ tors of preoccupation and competition. An ecolog¬ ical classification is presented based upon the greatest variable factor for any given area, whether the area is defined on the basis of physi¬ ography, plant association, or other limits. On the Relation between the Rate of Root Growth and Oxygen: W. A. Cannon. A series of experiments is reported on in which the roots of Prosopis velutina and of Opuntia versicolor are exposed to atmospheres of (1) pure carbon dioxide, (2) and atmospheric air so di¬ luted with carbon dioxide that a mixture contain¬ ing 5 to 25 per cent, oxygen results. It was found that the roots of both Prosopis and Opuntia can maintain a feeble growth rate in an atmosphere con¬ taining as little as 5 per cent, oxygen, but that root growth in both species stops in pure C02. The recovery from the asphyxiation occurs sooner in Prosopis than in Opuntia, and in both at higher sooner than at lower soil temperatures. The re¬ sults indicate that the response of the roots of Opuntia to a diminished oxygen supply, such as occurs with increasing depth beneath the surface of the ground, is a contributory factor among those which bring about the superficial placing of its roots. The Relation between Marine Biology and Ecol¬ ogy: Ellis L. Michael. To understand marine organisms is the func¬ tion of marine biology. To what extent, how, and why are marine organisms adapted to the particular environments in which they live? In short, by virtue of what is a marine organism marine? This is the central question in marine biology : all others are strictly tributary to it. Fully grasped, this means that the significance of no phenomenon essential to the life of any marine organism can be fully understood so long as any other phenomenon likewise essential to it is en¬ tirely ignored. Knowledge of the environment is therefore as indispensable to a complete under¬ standing of marine organisms as is that of the organisms themselves. Continuous and intimately coordinated investigations in chemistry, physics and hydrography as well as in morphology, em¬ bryology and physiology are indispensable. There is, therefore, a certain natural order of progress in marine biology. Details can not be stipulated, but this much is certain: after the various organ¬ isms to be investigated have been identified, it is necessary to determine how they are related to the elements of their .environmental complexes before it will be possible to discover how or why these relations are maintained. That is, the initial step must be one in field ecology. Then would follow the more intensive studies of structure, function and behavior— morphology, embryology, physiol¬ ogy and experimental ecology — required to fully 762 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1143 understand the organism as it actually lives in na¬ ture. Not until this has been accomplished may it be truly claimed that an investigation in marine biology has been carried to its logical termination. This same conception, of course, applies to land organisms and fresh-water organisms; to moun¬ tain biology, desert biology, lake biology, river biology, etc. It is that conception which insists that no organism can be fully understood, in its structure and function quite as much as in its distribution and behavior, apart from its natural abode. Variations of Picris echioides: E. E. Gates. Picris ecldoides is a European plant introduced into California. In a small colony of this compos¬ ite at Berkeley several marked variations were observed. The most interesting of these were two individuals in which all the florets of the heads were “quilled” or tubular, instead of all being flat and ray-like, as in the ordinary form. In the normal form the heads open early in the morning, but on bright days they are closed again by noon, while in the quilled variation the heads remain open several hours longer and never completely close. Hence there is a marked difference in the physiological reactions of the two forms. Another variation is in the color of the rays, which are usually dark yellow; but occasional plants occur in which all the rays are pale lemon yellow. Again, the stems are usually green, but occasion¬ ally reddish throughout. There are also great dif¬ ferences in size, which are very probably genetic in nature. The shortest plants are slender and only 18 inches high; while the tallest are very stout, differ in their branching, have much larger leaves and reach nearly 5 feet in height. Other differ¬ ences can also be observed, indicating that a con¬ siderable number of genetic variations exist in this interbreeding population. It is not known whether similar variations occur in this species in its natural European home. Forrest Shreve, Secretary-Treasurer SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY The one hundred and eighty-sixth regular meet¬ ing of the American Mathematical Society was held at Columbia University on Saturday, October 28, extending through the usual morning and afternoon sessions. The attendance included thirty-nine members. President E. W. Brown occupied the chair. The council announced the election of the following persons to membership in the society: Mr. A. C. Bose, Calcutta, India; Pro¬ fessor L. C. Emmons, Michigan Agricultural Col¬ lege; Professor A. M. Harding, University of Ar¬ kansas; Dr. W. L. Hart, Harvard University; Dr. J. E. Musselman, University of Illinois; Mr. S. Z. Eothsekild, Immediate Benefit Life Insurance Company, Baltimore, Md. ; Professor Pauline Sperry, Smith College. Six applications for mem¬ bership were received. Committees were appointed to audit the treas¬ urer ’s accounts and to arrange for the annual meeting in December and the summer meeting of 1917. The following papers were read at the October meeting : Mrs. J. E. Eoe: “Interfunctional expressibility problems of symmetric functions.” E. D. Eoe, Jr.: “A geometric representation.” E. D. Eoe, Jr. : ‘ ‘ Studies of the Kreisteilungs- gleichung and related questions. ’ ’ E. D. Eoe, Jr.: “The irreducible factors of xn xn-l _|_ xv-2 + • • • + 1. ” H. B. Mitchell: “On the imaginary roots of a polynomial and the real roots of its derivative.” J. H. Weaver: “Some properties of parabolas generated by straight lines and circles. ’ ’ F. N. Cole: “Complete census of the triad sys¬ tems in fifteen letters. ’ ’ O. E. Glenn : ‘ ‘ Translation surfaces associated with line congruences. ’ ’ 0. E. Glenn: “Methods in the invariant theory of special groups, based on finite expansions of forms. ’ ’ E. L. Moore : “A theorem concerning continuous curves. ’ ’ J. E. Kline: “The converse of the theorem con¬ cerning the division of a plane by an open curve.” H. S. Vandiver: “Note on the distribution of quadratic and higher power residues.” H. S. Vandiver: “The generalized Lagrange in¬ determinate congruence for a composite ideal modulus. ’ ’ The annual meeting of the society will be held at Columbia University on Wednesday and Thursday, December 27-28. At this meeting President Brown will deliver his retiring address, on “The relation of mathematics to the natural sciences.” A reg¬ ular meeting of the society will also be held in Chicago December 22-23. The San Francisco Sec¬ tion will meet at the University of California on Saturday, November 25. The Southwestern Sec¬ tion will meet at the University of Kansas on Saturday, December 2. F. N. Cole, Secretary SCIENCE Friday, December 1, 1916 CONTENTS The Cost of Coal: Dr. Geo. Otis Smith, C. E. Lesher . 763 Josiah Boyce . 772 The Scientific Exhibit of the National Acad¬ emy of Sciences . < . 774 The New York Meeting of the American Asso¬ ciation for the Advancement of Science . . . 775 Scientific Notes and News . 780 University and Educational News . 784 Discussion and Correspondence : — Synchronism in the Rhythmic Activities of Animals: Dr. Wallace Craig. Is Cucumber Mosaic Carried by Seed: J. A. McClintock. The Culture of Pre-Columbian America: Professor T. Wingate Todd. Mosquitoes and Man Again: Dr. C. S. Ludlow. The Song of Fowler’s Toad: E. R. Dunn .... 784 Scientific Books: — Petrunkevitch on the Morphology of Inver¬ tebrate Types: Winterton C. Curtis - 790 Captain White’s Recent Exploratory Work in Australia: Dr. R. W. Shufeldt . 793 Special Articles: — The Ovulation Period in Rats : Professor J. A. Long and Jessie E. Quisno. Ovulation in Mice: Professor J. A. Long and H. P. Smith. Agar Agar for Bacteriological Use: Professor H. A. Noyes . 795 MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended for review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrisnn- on-Hudson, N. Y. THE COST OF COAL* The price of coal is a matter of vital con¬ cern to the average citizen. No less im¬ portant, however, is the question what our coal actually costs to produce and the in¬ terest in this subject is typical of the pop¬ ular interest in the large productive enter¬ prises of the country. As citizens we recog¬ nize the consumer’s dependence upon the producer and are taking advanced ground as to their relative rights. In few indus¬ tries does this dependence seem more vital or the consumer’s equity appear larger than in that of producing and selling coal. The per capita annual expenditure for the useful metals is roughly equivalent to that for coal, but few citizens purchase pig iron or bar copper, whereas of the urban popu¬ lation only the dwellers in apartments, boarding-houses and hotels are spared the necessity of buying coal. The consumption of coal in the United States for heating and cooking is between 1 and 14 tons per capita. A careful estimate for 1915 is 1.1 tons, which happens to be identical with the figure determined for similar consumption in Great Britain in 1898. This non-indus¬ trial consumption is greatest in cities and in this city of Chicago in 1912 it was nearly 2 tons. Of course every citizen in¬ directly pays for his share of the total con¬ sumption, which last year amounted to 4.6 tons per capita. Again it may be that because to a larger degree the -cost of metals is charged to capital outlay rather than to the operating expense of life, we appreciate less keenly the unit price of these materials that are i Read before the American Mining Congress, Chicago, November 14. 764 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1144 not immediately consumed with the using. At any rate, public opinion is more easily brought to a high temperature by con¬ sidering the price of coal than by consid¬ ering the price of any other product unless we except gasoline, recent discussion of which has been almost explosive. Looking backward as well as forward, one need not be an alarmist to suggest that in the whole field of productive busi¬ ness the coal industry seems the one most likely to he threatened with government operation. The foodstuffs are produced on land owned and operated by the millions, and so far as the production of the raw material for them is concerned, “monop¬ oly” is an unknown word, but when we think of coal, terms like “barons” and “trusts” instinctively come to mind. For these reasons the determination of certain facts connected with coal production and the analysis of the cost elements that enter into the price of coal constitute a timely subject for discussion. In discussing costs, however, we do not overlook the too evident fact that at times price may far outstrip cost. The price of coal depends upon the balance between necessity for fuel, on the one hand, and ability to produce and to deliver, on the other; the ability to produce is in turn controlled by the labor available and the ability to deliver is dependent upon car supply. Increased foreign demand for American coal, large industrial consump¬ tion, unusual weather — all may have great influence on the current price of coal, but none of these is to be considered a factor in the actual cost of production except so far as it causes irregularity in operating expenses and promotes a decrease in effi¬ ciency of mine labor. To-day high prices are being received for coal by those who are able to produce and deliver more than their outstanding contracts require. In other words, a few traders may be able and willing to capitalize the urgent necessity of the consumer and their owTn ability to deliver. The premium for fuel now being paid generally by the consumers of the country and by such traders as have been caught short in their contracts is in reality not properly chargeable to cost of coal, but to cost of car and labor shortage, just as in the times of stress accompanying labor troubles the premium paid by their con¬ sumers is a part of the price the country pays for strikes. Four general items of cost must be con¬ sidered as normally controlling the price of coal to the consumer — resource cost, mining cost, transportation cost and mar¬ keting cost. Under usual conditions each of these items includes a margin of profit which may seem either excessive or inade¬ quate, according to your point of view. Yet an unbiased consideration of these cost items is absolutely essential as a prelim¬ inary to the decision by the public whether we are buying coal at a fair price, and if not why not. As long as it is the popular view that the price of coal is made up of one part each of mining costs and freight costs to two parts each of operator’s profits and railroad dividends, with the cost of a certain amount of needless waste on the side, the demand for investigation will con¬ tinue, and in so far as there is any element of truth in this view, legislative action is justified, even though the prescribed reform may approach the extreme of public owner¬ ship and operation of mines and railroads. As the initial item of cost, the amount charged against the marketed product as the value of the coal in the ground, which for brevity may be termed the resource cost, is perhaps the item most often over¬ looked by the coal consumer, and for this reason that phase of the subject will be fully considered after the other items are December 1, 1916] SCIENCE 765 treated. These other items need less dis¬ cussion in this paper for several reasons: the item of marketing cost is one that can be brought directly under observation by the consumer if he will but study the mat¬ ter intelligently, the transportation cost can be learned by simple inquiry and its control lies within the province of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and the details of mining cost can best be set forth by the mine operators themselves, for they have now adopted the policy of free dis¬ cussion of these matters, which they once regarded as sacred from public view. The purpose of this paper, then, is simply to give a summary statement of all these ele¬ ments in the cost of coal, and some special discussion of the resource cost. In pre¬ senting the subject, the senior author as¬ sumes responsibility for whatever may be regarded as mere expressions of opinion and the junior author stands behind the statements of fact. The item of cost first to be considered represents that part of the value given to the ton of coal by the mine operator and the mine worker. This may be termed mining cost, but it must include the oper¬ ator’s selling costs and other overhead expenses as well as the mining costs proper, which include the larger expenditures for wages, supplies and power. This cost plus the resource cost — the royalty or deple¬ tion charge — and the profit or loss on the sale make up the value at the mine mouth. The mining cost varies not only between mines of different companies in separated fields, but even between adjacent mines of the same company in the same field. Both nature and man contribute to such varia¬ tion. It is not practicable to assign a very ex¬ act figure to the mining cost — the census of 1909 indicated an average of $1 a ton for bituminous coal and $1.86 for anthra¬ cite, but these figures are believed by some operators to be too low. It is possible, however, to show in a general way the dis¬ tribution of this item; the cost of mining is divided between labor, 70 to 75 per cent. ; materials, 16 to 20 per cent. ; general ex¬ pense at mine and office and insurance, 2 to 4 per cent. ; taxes, less than 1 per cent, to 3 per cent, for bituminous coal, and 3 to 7 per cent, for anthracite; selling expenses, nothing to 5 per cent., and recently to these items has been added the direct and indirect cost of workman’s compensation, which may reach 5 per cent, for bitumin¬ ous coal. The charges for labor, material and general office expenses are easily understood, as is also a charge for depreci¬ ation of plant and machinery; but taxes and selling expenses are important items that may be overlooked by the casual ob¬ server. Some figures recently published show that the taxes levied in West Virginia last year on coal lands and coal-mine im¬ provements — that is, on the industry as a whole — were equivalent to nearly 3 cents per net ton of coal produced, which is doubtless fully as much as the profit made by many of the operators in that state. The cost of selling coal is nothing for the companies that use their own product, including the steel corporation and a large number of others, and is little or nothing for the producers who sell nearly all their coal to such large consumers as the rail¬ roads. Companies that produce coal for domestic use and the general run of steam trade must figure on a selling cost as high as 10 cents or more per ton, the cost de¬ pending on the extent of their business. The average selling cost for bituminous coal is probably 5 to 10 cents a ton, and for anthracite the usual charge of sales agencies is reported as 10 cents a ton for steam sizes and 15 cents for the prepared sizes. 766 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1144 The producers of coal and the transpor¬ tation companies are concerned not so much with the actual rates charged for carrying coal as with the adjustment of rates be¬ tween different coal fields and between different markets. In the many years in which our coal industry has been develop¬ ing, rate structures have been built up that give to this and that producing dis¬ trict differentials over other districts — “handicaps,” as it were — that may be based on comparative lengths of haul or on the ability of the coals to compete by reason of difference in quality or in cost of mining or perhaps may be merely the survival of past practise, for which no rea¬ son now exists. The consumer of coal, however, is interested in the actual rather than the relative freight rate. To help toward a realization of the magnitude of this transportation item, it may be pointed out, first, that all but 14 per cent, of the output of the country’s coal mines, aggregating 532 million tons, is moved to market by rail or water, and second, that nearly half of the bituminous coal (47 per cent, in 1915) and more than two thirds of the anthracite (71 per cent, in 1915) is shipped outside of the states in which it is produced. Add to this statement of the extent to which coal enters interstate commerce a glance at the distribution of centers of maximum production and maximum con¬ sumption — the New York-Baltimore in¬ dustrial zone, which has a total per capita consumption of nearly 10 tons and lies 100 to 400 miles from the tributary coal fields ; New England, consuming about 7 tons to the unit of population and lying 400 to 800 miles from its coal supply ; or the populous industrial district of which Chicago is the commercial center, consuming 8 to 9 tons per capita of coal in part hauled more than 400 miles from the fields of West Virginia and eastern Kentucky and in part 200 miles or less from the Illinois mines. With these facts in mind we must realize that the transportation cost is necessarily a large part of the country’s fuel bill. As has already been suggested, the trans¬ portation rate in force from any coal field to any market can readily be learned by the consumer who wishes to figure this item in the cost of the coal he buys. Therefore in the present general consideration of the subject it is sufficient to state the average value of this item. In the interstate traffic, both rail and water, bituminous coal prob¬ ably pays an average freight of nearly $2 per ton. In other words, the transporta¬ tion costs more than the product and, as some parts of the country are just now learning, is sometimes more difficult to ob¬ tain. The value of coal, like the value of so many other commodities, is a place value. The average freight charge on anthracite is higher than that on bituminous coal, first because the rates are higher and sec¬ ond because, according to the reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission, all move¬ ment considered, the coal is carried a greater distance. The cost of handling the coal, exclusive of freight, from the time it leaves the pro¬ ducer until it is in the consumer’s fuel bin, may be termed the marketing cost. It can readily be seen that a large part of the coal produced is not subject to this cost, for most large users of steam coal, such as the railroads and the coke manufacturers, place contracts directly with the producing com¬ panies or their selling agencies and buy in the open market only when their needs ex¬ ceed the deliveries under their contracts. Much of the coal, however, both anthracite and bituminous, passes through the hands of a wholesale dealer or jobber before it is received by the retail dealer who puts it in December 1, 1916] SCIENCE 767 our cellars or in the bins of a power plant. Coal that gets a long way from the mine may pass through many hands before it reaches the consumer, and it not only pays commissions all along the line, but is sub¬ ject to shrinkage and deterioration, both of which enter into the final selling price to the consumer. Brokers are usually satis¬ fied to make a gross profit of perhaps 10 cents a ton, but as several brokers may make a “turn over” on the same car before it is unloaded this element of cost may be several times that amount. About half of the anthracite and around 15 per cent, of the bituminous coal is re¬ tailed in less than carload lots, and the greatest number of individuals are directly concerned in the marketing of this portion, regarding the profits on which there is the widest divergence of opinion. The margin in the retail business between cost on cars and price delivered is between $1.25 and $2.00 a ton and is not more than enough to give on the average a fair profit. The shrinkage and, in part, the deterioration are together seldom less than 1 per cent, of the weight and may exceed 4 per cent., and the retail dealer also must provide in his selling price for uncollectable accounts. Advertising is a large expense — in part carried by the retailer directly, but all borne by the industry. The largest single item in the cost of retailing is of course that representing the labor of handling and the local cartage, which together make up about half the marketing cost. There now remains to be considered the first major item, or the resource cost, which is what the operator has to pay for the coal in the ground — the idle resource, which he starts on its career of usefulness. This cost is expressed as a royalty or a deple¬ tion charge. One of the latest leases by a large coal- land owner provides for the payment of 27 per cent, of the selling price of the coal at the breaker. This percentage is there¬ fore not only a royalty figured on the min¬ eral resource, but also a commission based on the miner’s wage. To bring this right home to you and to me, it may be said that the practical result is that if the anthracite we burn in our range this winter happens to come from that particular property, we will pay fully $1 a ton into the treasury of the city trust that owes its existence to the far-seeing business sense of a hard- headed citizen of Philadelphia. Whether such a royalty is excessive or not, the fact remains that this is the tribute paid to private ownership. The present average rate of royalty on anthracite is probably between 32 and 35 cents a ton on all sizes, which is from 12 to 14 per cent, of the selling value at the mine. The minimum rate (about 10 per cent.) is found in some old leases, and the maximum (20 to 27 per cent.) in leases made in the last five years. R. V. Norris states that in the late sixties, when the annual output of anthracite was around 15,000,000 tons, royalties were 8 to 10 cents a ton on prepared sizes, but that no charge was made on the smaller sizes. In the seventies the rate rose to 25 cents on prepared, one half that on pea, and one fourth on smaller sizes. By the middle eighties, when the output was a third what it is now, the rate was about double that of the seventies — that is, 40 to 50 cents on the larger sizes and 5 to 10 cents on the smaller sizes. The tendency is still up¬ ward by reason of increases in the rates for intermediate sizes and the operation of royalty rates based on a percentage of the selling value, an increasing quantity. Figured oh the output from the Girard lands, which is nearly 3 per cent, of the total production, the gross return to the estate from its coal lands is over 50 cents a ton. 768 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1144 Nor is the increase in value of anthracite lands any less striking. At the beginning of the last century, as stated by Mr. Norris, the great bulk of these lands were patented by the State of Pennsylvania for $2 to $4 an acre; in the middle of the century the price of the best land rose to $50, and in 1875 even to $500. Now $3,000 an acre has been paid for virgin coal land, and little is on the market at that. In considering these increases in land values, the effect of interest and taxes must not be overlooked. The bituminous coal industry is a mod¬ ern institution compared with the mining of anthracite, and much of the bituminous -coal land was acquired by the operating companies during the last twenty years for little if anything more than its surface "value. To-day there are large areas of bituminous coal-bearing lands that, because they are undeveloped and without rail¬ roads, can be purchased at a low price, but little or no anthracite land is on the market, and little has changed hands for years. The present average resource cost of bituminous coal is not much over 5 cents a ton, or about 4 per cent, of the average selling value at the mine. In the Poca¬ hontas region and the Pittsburgh district the royalties are much higher, but these, like others that might be cited, are exceptions — one due to coal of special quality, and the other to location — factors which, inciden¬ tally, are exactly those that have assisted in making the resource cost of anthracite what it is. Should you be interested in summing up all these various costs and striking a bal¬ ance between labor’s share and capital’s return, you would find that the mine worker, the trainman, and the wagon driver together receive fully half of the price of the anthracite delivered at your house, and the same three classes of labor receive not less than half the price paid by the aver¬ age consumer for the cheaper soft coal. In a similar manner the average return on the capital invested in land, mining plant, railroads and coal yard may be roughly calculated, with the result that landlord, bondholder and stockholder of coal com¬ pany and railroad together receive about $1.15 from the ton of anthracite and only 50 to 75 cents from the ton of bituminous coal, and of either of these amounts the mine operator’s share is only a small fraction. It is not the purpose of this analysis of •costs to offer any cure-all for the high price of coal, yet some comment on the facts pre¬ sented may possess value. At least certain lines of approach can be pointed out as not very promising. For example, any one who is at all cognizant of the trend in price of labor and material can see little hope of relief in lower costs for these items. Furthermore, observation of the advances made in mining methods in the last decade or two affords slight warrant for belief in any charge of wasteful operation. As con¬ sumers of coal we might do well to imitate the economy now enforced by the pro¬ ducers in their engineering practise. In the northern anthracite field machine min¬ ing in extracting coal from 22- and 24-inch beds, and throughout the anthracite region the average recovery of coal in mining is 65 per cent., as against 40 per cent, only twenty years ago. Nor are. the bituminous operators any less progressive in their con¬ servation of the coal they mine. Yet it must be remembered that conser¬ vation of a natural resource, though it will undoubtedly be of direct economic benefit in the future, is not essentially a cheapen¬ ing process; in fact, these increased re¬ coveries of coal have in large part become possible only because of a higher market price. And, following further this line of thought, we may say that the increased December 1, 1916] SCIENCE 769 safety in the coal mines that has come through the combined efforts of the coal companies, the state inspectors, and the Federal Bureau of Mines necessarily in¬ volves some increase in cost of operation, but the few cents per ton thus added to the cost is a small price to pay for the satis¬ faction of having the stain of blood re¬ moved from the coal we buy. That form of social insurance which is now enforced through the workman’s compensation laws alone adds from 2 to 5 cents a ton to the cost of coal. In the item of transportation perhaps the most promising relief is that of reduc¬ ing the length of haul. Though many a consumer’s preference for coal from a dis¬ tant field over that from a field nearer home is based on special requirements, the deciding element in the preference of other consumers is simply the price, and this in turn may be largely due to a differential freight scale, which is thus not in the public interest if we admit the premise that it is wasteful to burn coal in hauling coal into coal districts or past such districts, except in so far as quality requirements absolutely demand the long-haul coal. The recent eastward movement of the higher- grade coals, in part caused by the expert demand, may involve some increase in the average length of haul and thus in the transportation cost of coal not exported, but, on the other hand, this enforced adjust¬ ment may lead some consumers to discover nearer home sources of coal equally wTell suited to their purposes. Reduction in marketing costs is a re¬ form so close to the consumer that he should be able to find for himself whatever relief is possible. Professor Mead, of the University of Pennsylvania, is authority for the statement that the delivery of coal is costing the dealers 50 cents a ton more than is necessary. There only remains, therefore, the first item of all — the value of the coal in the ground, or rather the return which the land-owner is asking for this natural re¬ source. The fortunate holder of coal land, whether a very human individual or a soul¬ less corporation or a large trust estate ad¬ ministered for benevolence only, is likely to endeavor to get all that the traffic will bear. Especially in the possession of a limited resource like anthracite, the tend¬ ency has been and will continue to be to increase royalties as the years pass, and the only penalty imposed by the state for high royalties seems to be high taxes, which too often, indeed, serve to justify the high re¬ source cost put upon coal in the ground. Finally, in considering royalty rates or de¬ pletion charge we must not overlook the interest that accumulates throughout the period between the purchase of the coal land and the removal of the last ton of coal. In placing a value upon the Choctaw land some years ago the Geological Survey figured the aggregate royalties at current rates as 160 million dollars, but if that amount of royalty were to be collected through the six or seven centuries re¬ quired for mining the 2,000 million tons under this land, the present value of the land would be only 6^ million dollars if purchased by the federal government or only 4 million if purchased by the state of Oklahoma, and even less if the project were financed by a corporation that would need to issue 6 per cent, bonds. Such is an illus¬ tration from actual experience in coal-land valuation — the 4 or 6 million dollars in¬ vested in these Oklahoma coal lands now would require a final return of 160 million dollars in royalties to balance the account. More recently Mr. Cushing, the editor of Black Diamond, has figured the cost of a monopolistic control of the available coal resources east of the Rocky Mountains on 770 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1144 the basis of the United States Geological Survey estimate of 2,000,000 million tons. At a valuation of coal in the ground of only 1 cent a ton, which he stated is less than has been paid for large holdings, this deal would require a capitalization of 20 billion dollars, and the fixed charges on the bonds of this United States Coal Cor¬ poration would require an interest charge alone of $2 a ton against a production of 600 million tons a year. Mr. Cushing char¬ acterizes such a financial undertaking in mild terms as hopelessly impossible, and yet his figures, which do not include taxes, are most enlightening as affording some measure of the cost of possessing an unde¬ veloped resource. Incidentally, these star¬ tling figures furnish a strong argument for the present policy of the national govern¬ ment in retaining ownership of the public coal lands, at least up to the time when the market conditions justify the opening of a mine and then either leasing or selling a tract only large enough for that operation. The consumer of the next century simply can not afford to have private capitalists invest to-day in coal land for their great¬ grandchildren to lease. The burden that seems inevitable under unregulated private ownership of a nat¬ ural resource like coal is that because the lands containing these national reserves of heat and power are taxed and because the individual or corporation properly charges up interest at current rates on his large holding, the consumer must pay a resource cost which takes into account the long pe¬ riod of undevelopment. Even the high rates of royalty on the lands of the Girard estate may be found less excessive than they seem if a century’s taxes and interest charges are figured. Yet the fact remains that the royalty for anthracite represents a much larger proportion of the cost of the mined coal than any bituminous roy¬ alties. Moreover, we believe the highest royalty prevailing in the anthracite region has far more influence in fixing the selling price than the lower rates of the older leases. Any study of costs in the coal industry finds its point in the question not who, but what, fixes the price of coal. The cost of mining coal, like the cost of living, is in¬ creasing. Exact mining costs, however, can not be determined until the operators have accomplished their reform of stand¬ ardizing accounting. Too often the oper¬ ator includes in his account only the two largest and most obvious items, labor and material. Thus, when the market for bitu¬ minous coal is dull, the company whose land costs little or nothing is able to set a lower limit of price than the company whose coal must stand a charge of 5 to 10 cents per ton or even more, be that charge called royalty, depletion or amortization. At such time the operator with the large resource cost must sell at a real though not always recognized loss, but of course with the hope of recouping himself at times of high prices like the present, if fortunately he has any coal to sell not already con¬ tracted for. Even with the average low resource cost of bituminous coal, the state of competition that is tied up with idle and half-worked mines results in an average total cost that is little below the average selling price. Of course in this business there are those, both large operators and small, who make a profit in lean as well as in fat years, just as there are those for whom the prosperous years are too infrequent to keep them out of the hands of receivers. In the anthracite fields the mining costs, and especially the resource costs, are higher. But here, with an average market demand that normally exceeds or at least equals the available supply (and with the passing December 1, 1916] SCIENCE 771 years this disparity must be expected to increase), there results naturally a lack of competition for the market. Even gentle¬ men’s agreements are unnecessary so long as every operator can reasonably expect to sell his product, and the market price of anthracite at the mine must therefore tend to be fixed by the operator who has the larg¬ est mining and resource cost rather than by his neighbor who may be doubly favored with a mine less expensive to work and a lease less exacting in terms. Confessedly, this analysis of the cost ele¬ ments that enter into the price of coal em¬ phasizes our lack of specific facts, which can be supplied in the future only through * ‘ installation of uniform cost-keeping meth¬ ods and uniform and improved accounting systems,” to quote from the declaration of purposes of the Pittsburgh coal producers. With the results of such bookkeeping in hand, more definite reply can be made to the public’s appeal for relief from high prices. Yet even now it may be possible to suggest how that relief will eventually be obtained. Study of present conditions in the coal-mining districts fails to encourage the idea of governmental operation of the seven thousand coal mines in this coun¬ try. More in line with the trend of public sentiment in the last decade, however, is governmental control in the interest of the consumer by regulation of prices, and to judge from the facts of experience in the regulation of transportation of other pub¬ lic utilities, the public coal commissions will be given sufficient discretionary powers to safeguard the interests of producer and consumer alike, and even mandatory re¬ quirements, either legislative or executive, will be subject to judicial review. Competition seems to have failed of late years to benefit the consumer of coal. In the bituminous fields the competition, when¬ ever present, has been wasteful and in the anthracite fields there has been practical absence of healthy competition, and whether too great or too little competition, the re¬ sult is the same — to increase the actual cost of bituminous coal by saddling the indus¬ try and its product with the fixed charges on idle or semi-idle mines and to raise the price of anthracite coal by favoring the burdens of high resource costs. In estimating the aggregate losses in¬ curred by society by reason of the large number of mines not working at full ca¬ pacity, the facts to be considered are that the capital invested in mine equipment asks a wage based on a year of 365 days of 24 hours, while labor’s year averaged last year only 230 days in the anthracite mines and only 203 days in the bituminous mines, with only five to eight hours to the day. As coal is more an interstate than intra¬ state commodity, any regulation of prices needs to be under federal control, and to benefit both consumer and producer such control can not stop with transportation and mining costs, but must stand ready to exercise full rights as a trustee of the peo¬ ple over the coal in the ground. The pri¬ vate owner of coal land, which derives its real value from society ’s needs, has no more sacred right to decide whether or not that coal shall be mined when it is needed by so¬ ciety or to fix an exorbitant price on this indispensable national resource than the coal operators have to combine for the pur¬ pose of exacting an excessive profit from the consumer, or the railroads to charge all that the traffic may bear. The proposal to bring landowner under the same rule as mine operator and coal carrier may seem radical, but where is the point at which coal becomes the resource upon which in¬ dustrial society depends for its very life ? Public regulation, however, will be fair, and indeed in the long run will prove bene¬ ficial to the landowner as well as to the con¬ sumer, to the mine worker as well as to the operator, because any such agency as the 772 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1144 Federal Trade Commission, in its control of prices, must determine costs; and as we interpret the present attitude of the whole coal-mining industry the operators are will¬ ing to rest their case on a fair determina¬ tion of actual costs on which their profits may then he figured. Geo. Otis Smith, C. E. Lesher United States Geological Survey JOSIAH ROYCE1 Josiah Royce died September 14, 1916, aged nearly sixty-one. He was born at Grass Valley, California, November 20, 1855. At sixteen he entered the University of California. There he came under the teaching of the geol¬ ogist, Joseph LeConte, a pupil of Louis Agassiz; and this teaching Royce himself estimated as one of the greatest philosophical influences of his early life. There also he first became known to Daniel Coit Gilman, who was then the president of the university. Royce received his bachelor’s degree in 1875, and left at once for a year of study in Leipzig and Gottingen. At the same time, Gilman was called to Baltimore to “ launch ” the Johns Hopkins University; and thither he summoned Royce to be one of the first twenty fellows on the opening of the new university in Septem¬ ber, 1876. Two years later, in 1878, he re¬ ceived the doctorate at Baltimore, and then returned to Berkeley, where for four years he taught English and incidentally logic. In 1880 he married Katharine Head, and to her unfailing devotion and helpfulness the public acknowledgments of her husband’s prefaces bear ample witness. In 1882, he was called to Harvard to fill a temporary vacancy occa¬ sioned by the absence of William James, and in 1885 he was appointed assistant professor. Not long after came a nervous breakdown so serious that he made the voyage to Australia in a sailing-vessel, and with happy result. In i Minute on the life and services of Professor Eoyce placed upon the records of the faculty of arts and sciences, Harvard University, at the meet¬ ing of November 7, 1916. 1892 he was made professor, and in 1914, on the retirement of Professor Palmer, he be¬ came Alford professor of natural religion, moral philosophy and civil polity. During his fruitful career as scholar and writer and teacher, he grew steadily in re¬ nown and influence. He was regarded with constantly deepening love by those who knew him, and with increasing admiration by the great company of those who read his books and heard his lectures. He received honorary degrees from Johns Hopkins, Aberdeen, Yale, St. Andrews, Harvard and Oxford. He was Ingersoll Lecturer at Harvard in 1899, and Walter Channing Cabot Fellow from 1911 to 1914. He was Gifford Lecturer at the Uni¬ versity of Aberdeen, 1898 to 1900, and lec¬ turer on the Hibbert Foundation at Man¬ chester College, Oxford, 1913. He died in the fullness of his intellectual powers, and with his fame still in the ascend¬ ant. During the last summer he heard of his election to an honorary fellowship in the British Academy. At the meeting of the American Philosophical Association, held in Philadelphia in December, 1915, he was honored as no American philosopher has been honored during his lifetime. Two sessions were devoted to papers concerning his philos¬ ophy and teaching (since published under the title “ Papers in Honor of Josiah Royce on his Sixtieth Birthday ”) ; and there was no mem¬ ber of the association who did not feel that he had a debt to acknowledge. Royce was able to receive such homage with the sincerest modesty and with a radiant kindliness and broadcast affection that made him loved even by those who never saw him except in public. He was a natural leader in any community of scholars, but his superiority, though it was masterly in quality, was both fatherly and brotherly in its feeling. During the last year of his life he was rarely able to forget the awful tragedy of the war. Many will feel that he reached the climax of his greatness when, at Tremont Temple on January 30, 1916, he became the inspired vehicle of a righteous in¬ dignation. His remarkable address, which at once made Royce a great public figure, is soon December 1, 1916] SCIENCE 773 to appear with other writings of his upon the war, under the title “ The Hope of the Great Community .” It is the last memorial of him¬ self which his own hands fashioned and his own heart quickened. Both the teaching and the writing of Boyce testify to the extraordinary range of his at¬ tainments. Philosophy is wide, but Boyce was wider. His prodigious memory, his powers of observation, and his linguistic versatility gave him a general equipment that few men of his day have possessed. In his earlier years he was a historian and a novelist. He was a wide reader and an acute critic of literature. He made permanent contributions to psychology. He was renowned as a moralist, and as a philosopher of religion. But during the later part of his life, logic and methodology became his favorite field of research. His eminence in this field, both as teacher and as writer, was not a little due to his remarkable grasp of mathematics and the physical sciences. Per¬ haps no man of his time knew so much about so many things and knew it so well. His knowledge of the special sciences was respected even by specialists. His most notable con¬ tribution to the teaching of the university was made through his seminary in logic, which be¬ came a veritable clearing-house of science. Men of widely different training and technique — chemists, physiologists, statisticians, pathol¬ ogists, mathematicians— who could not under¬ stand one another, were here interpreted to one another by Boyce, who understood them all. But he could do even more than that. He could interpret each man to himself, divine ni3 half-thoughts and render them articulate. Here is enough to make a great man. But to most persons, his peculiar metaphysics, known to many Harvard men as “ Philos¬ ophy 9,” and to thinking people everywhere through his volume entitled “ The World and the Individual,” will remain his principal monument. Boyce’s metaphysical thought was audaciously speculative; but to him specula¬ tion was the opposite of guesswork — it was a severe analysis of the certainties that lie at the basis of knowledge. When he asserted the existence of an all-comprehending mind, it was not as a probable hypothesis, but as a ne¬ cessity of thought, implied in every act of judgment, even in our errors. Much of the fascination of his early work is due to his willingness to accept the weakest link in hu¬ man intelligence as the support of the weighti¬ est conclusions. His doctrine of reality as an absolute mind numbers him among the ideal¬ ists in metaphysics. In the works which fol¬ lowed “ The Conception of God,” he was more inclined to express the nature of reality in terms of purpose than in terms of thought, and thus he came so far into agreement with the school of pragmatism. But since he re¬ garded truth as dependent not on changing human interests, but on a single and eternal will, he distinguished his own doctrine as “ absolute pragmatism.” Boyce was not one of those thinkers whose concern for the unity of existence obscures the sense of its pluralism and variety. “ The World and the Individ¬ ual ” undertakes to determine the place of human personality in the life of the whole ; and his solution finally embodied itself in his con¬ ception of the community. It is through loyalty to common causes that men must win both selfhood and freedom; and the goal of human endeavor is membership, through such loyalty, in the Great Community, which is the “ city of God.” An estimate of Boyce as an eminent man of science would be futile indeed unless coupled with some judgment as to the practical influ¬ ence which his deep and subtile thinking had upon his own life and the life of his fellows. To him the great ultimate questions were not simply interesting scientific problems that challenged his intellect ; they were also matters of intensely practical import for the spiritual quickening of his fellow-men. His personal¬ ity, as it developed from that of the shy youth to that of the grave and gentle sexagenarian, was informed by a wideness of moral vision and a loftiness of moral standards that set him apart 'from the common. He could see the true values of things. This inspired and inspiring vision of the eternal realities enabled him not only to bear the severest blows of personal affliction with courage and serenity, 774 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1144 but also to awaken many a slumbering soul to a larger and nobler life. By precept and ex¬ ample he set forth worthy ideals of virile scholarship, of genuine religion, of civic, na¬ tional and international righteousness. His spirit, reverent and fearless and tolerant, lov¬ ing and loyal, still lives in his disciples. Who shall say when its workings will end? His place in the history of speculative philosophy is secure. He, being dead, yet speaketh, and we have no need to grieve. But in the fresh sorrow for our loss, we mourn for Royce asN the man and the moulder of men. THE SCIENTIFIC EXHIBIT OF THE NA¬ TIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES At the recent meeting of the National Acad- em of Sciences at Boston, there were arranged at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an interesting series of scientific exhibits, which were explained by the exhibitors in person. The exhibits were as follows: H. S. White, Vassar College. Graphic representa¬ tions of triad systems. Frank Schlesinger, Allegheny Observatory, Alle¬ gheny, Pa. Photographs of Jupiter. Miss A. J. Cannon, Harvard College Observatory. Stellar spectra. Leon Campbell, Harvard College Observatory. Visual observations of variable stars. Miss H. S. Leavitt, Harvard College Observatory. Photographic magnitudes. Solon I. Bailey, Harvard College Observatory. Variable stars in clusters. A. G. Webster, Clark University. Acoustical measuring apparatus: standard phone, phonom¬ eter and phonotrope. Application of a drop chronograph for use in ballistics. Charles A. Kraus, Clark University. A new vacuum pump and a new thermostat. H. P. Hollnagel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Methods of isolating the infra-red region of the spectrum. Alexander McAdie, Blue Hill Observatory. Cloud studies, wind structure and snow flakes. Ellsworth Huntington, Milton, Mass. The re¬ lation between solar changes and barometric gradients. Optimum temperature for the hu¬ man race. Robert DeC. Ward, Harvard University. Weather types of the United States, illustrated by com¬ posite weather maps and instrumental records. R. A. Daly and H. Clark, Harvard University. Design for a deep-sea thermograph. Frank Hall, Massachusetts Institute of Technol¬ ogy. A thermophone arranged so that direct comparison may be made with a magnetic re¬ ceiver. A. H. Gill, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Tests of lubricating mineral oils. F. G. Keyes and J. B. Dickson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Continuous flow calor¬ imeter for measuring heats of reaction in solu¬ tion. C. L. Burdick, Massachusetts Institute of Tech¬ nology. Determination of crystal structure by X-rays. R. E. Wilson, Massachusetts Institute of Tech¬ nology. Apparatus for maintaining pressures of one tenth micron or less, and the investiga¬ tion of the mechanism of chemical reactions. Henry Fay, Massachusetts Institute of Technol¬ ogy. Erosion of large guns. Albert Sauveur, Massachusetts Institute of Tech¬ nology and Harvard University: (1) Photomi- crographie apparatus (original). (2) Photomi¬ crographs of metals and alloys; charts and dia¬ grams ; specimens. H. O. Hofman, Massachusetts Institute of Tech¬ nology. (1) Jenny flotation machine. (2) A laboratory revolving horizontal roasting furnace heated electrically and rotated in the same way. A. E. Kennelly and Associates, Massachusetts In¬ stitute of Technology. Researches in electrical engineering. Alexander Klemin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Aeroplane models used in wind tunnel. W. Lindgren and W. L. Whitehead, Massachu¬ setts Institute of Technology. Photomicro¬ graphs of silver ores from Chile and Tintic. C. H. Warren, Massachusetts Institute of Tech¬ nology. (1) A graduated sphere for crystallo¬ graphic work. (2) Photographs of spherulites in polarized light. Charles Palache, Harvard University. Models showing gnomonie crystal projection. Wallace W. Atwood, Harvard University. The former glaciers of the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. The physiographic stages in the evo¬ lution of the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. J. B. Woodworth, Harvard University. Glacial map of Cape Cod and adjacent islands. A glypolith from Nantucket. Laurence La Forge, U. S. Geological Survey. Re¬ cent topographic and geologic maps of New December 1, 1916] SCIENCE 775 England and other parts of the United States. John M. Clarke, State Museum, Albany, N. Y. Portfolio of paleontological plates, in press. Plates of “Wild flowers of New York,” in press. Geological map of Ogdensburg, N. Y., and vicinity, in press. H. W. Shimer, Massachusetts Institute of Technol¬ ogy. Evolution of some brachiopods. Richard M. Field, Harvard University. Ordo¬ vician rocks and faunas of central Pennsylvania. W. B. Scott, Princeton University. Proofs of plates for forthcoming report on paleontology of Patagonia. W. J. V. Osterhout, Harvard University. Pig¬ ments produced by the oxidation of a colorless plant chromogen. Charles W. Johnson, Boston Society of Natural History. Distribution and variation of Helix hortensis. Joseph A. Cushman, Boston Society of Natural History. Some fossil and recent foraminifera. Alfred G. Mayer, Marine Laboratory, Carnegie Institution. Yacht and laboratory of the Car¬ negie Institution at Tortugas, Florida. Hubert Lyman Clark, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University. Echinoderms from Torres straits, Australia, with colored drawings and lithographs. G. H. Parker, Harvard University. The suction efficiency of a California sea-anemone. W. T. Bovie, Harvard University. Visible effects of Schumann rays on protoplasm. Effects of radium rays on permeability of protoplasm. C. T. Brues, Bussey Institution, Harvard Univer¬ sity. Specimens and charts illustrating insects as carriers of infantile paralysis. W. E. Castle, Bussey Institution, Harvard Uni¬ versity. Examples of Mendelian inheritance, reversion and variety formation in rats and guinea-pigs. Francis G. Benedict, Nutrition Laboratory, Car¬ negie Institution. Respiration apparatus for animals. T. B. Osborne, Connecticut Agricultural Station, and L. B. Mendel, Sheffield Scientific School, Yale University. Photographs representing the growth of chickens fed with definite mixtures of food stuffs under laboratory conditions which have heretofore not led to success. I. Chandler Walker, Medical Service, Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. Proteid sensitization in re¬ lation to bronchial asthma. H. S. Wells, Medical Service, Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. Electrocardiography, or the applica¬ tion of the string galvanometer to the study of cardiac cases. Albert A. Ghoreyeb, Cancer Commission, Har¬ vard University. Metal casts of heart and kid¬ ney blood vessels. S. B. Wolbach, Harvard Medical School. Studies in Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Harvey Cushing and W. M. Boothby, Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. Apparatus of routine meth¬ ods for clinical metabolism determinations. E. W. Goodpasture, Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. An anatomical study of senescence, with especial reference to tumors. E. E. Tyzzer and C. C. Little, Harvard Medical School. The inheritance of susceptibility to transplanted tumor. W. Duane, Harvard Medical School. The tech¬ nique of the preparation of radium for thera¬ peutic purposes. G. C. Whipple, School for Health Officers, of Har¬ vard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Charts showing organization and membership of the school. W. T. Sedgwick, Massachusetts Institute of Tech¬ nology. (1) Diagrams and tables illustrating the investigations of Professor Weston and Mr. Turner upon ‘ 1 The digestion of sewage effluents in an otherwise unpolluted stream.” (2) An investigation of the behavior of certain species of bacteria in various materials between zero Centigrade and zero Fahrenheit. (3) A field investigation of the sanitary environment of a suburban population. (In room 10-411.) S. C. Prescott, Massachusetts Institute of Tech¬ nology. Diseases of the banana in Central America and their control. (In room 10-411.) Alfred M. Tozzer, Peabody Museum, Harvard University. Race-mixture in Hawaii. Charles Peabody, Peabody Museum, Harvard University. Prehistoric specimens from caves of France and Palestine. E. A. IIooton, Peabody Museum, Harvard Uni¬ versity. Casts and reconstruction of ancient man: skull of apes. S. J. Guernsey, Peabody Museum, Harvard Uni¬ versity. Cave explorations in northeastern Ari¬ zona. Oric Bates, Peabody Museum, Harvard Univer¬ sity. Prehistoric Libyan remains. THE NEW YORK MEETING OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE The American Association for the Advance¬ ment' of Science will hold its sixty- ninth meet¬ ing in New York City, from December 26 to December 30, 1916. This will be the fifteenth 776 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1144 of the convocation-week meetings and the first of the greater convocation-week meetings to be held hereafter once in four years, succes¬ sively in New York, Chicago and Washington. When the association last met in New York, ;now ten years ago, there were about 5,000 members, the attendance was over 2,000, and there were nearly 1,000 papers on the pro¬ grams. The membership of the association at present numbers about 11,000; the coming meeting will surely be the largest and most im¬ portant gathering of scientific men hitherto held in this country or elsewhere. It has been planned that at these greater convocation-week meetings all the affiliated societies will join and this year there will be, including the sec¬ tions of the association, more than fifty sepa¬ rate national bodies meeting together. Recent events have impressed on the general public the importance of science for modern civiliza¬ tion and national welfare and the responsibil¬ ity of leadership has been placed on this coun¬ try. It is consequently extremely desirable that scientific men make all possible efforts to be present at the meeting, which will be his¬ toric in the history of science and may serve in important ways to forward its advancement. The registration headquarters will be at Earl Hall, Columbia University, and will be open on December 26, after 9 a.m. Most of the meetings of the sections of the association gnd of the national affiliated societies will be held at Columbia University. There will, however, be meetings at the American Mu¬ seum of Natural History, at the City College, in the medical schools of the city and else¬ where, as may be arranged in the sections and by the societies. The council will meet at 9 o’clock on the morning of December 26, in the trustees’ room, Columbia University, and will meet at the same time and at the same place daily during the meeting. The meeting of the general committee will be held at the hotel headquarters, the Hotel Belmont, at 9 :30 on the evening of December 29. The Committee of One Hundred will meet at the Hotel Bel¬ mont at 2 o’clock on the afternoon of Decem¬ ber 26. The several sections will hold their sessions for the nomination of officers and the transaction of other business on the call of the chairman, in most cases just before or just after the address of the retiring vice-president. A complete program of the meeting, includ¬ ing the programs of the affiliated societies, will be ready on the morning of December 26 and will be given to members on registration. The reports on research work before the special so¬ cieties will doubtless be more numerous than ever have been presented at a gathering of scientific men, and arrangements have been made for many programs of general interest and for social events, only part of which can be noted here. The opening general session will be held at 8 o’clock on the evening of Tuesday, December 26, at the American Museum of Natural His¬ tory. Dr. Charles R. Yan Hise, president of the University of Wisconsin, will preside, and Dr. W. W. Campbell, director of the Lick Ob¬ servatory, will give the address of the retiring president on “ The Nebulae.” After the ad¬ dress there will be a reception by the president and the trustees of the museum. Section A, Mathematics and Astronomy, will hold a general session, probably on Thurs¬ day. The address of Professor Armin O. Leuschner, of the University of California, will be on the “ Derivation of Orbits.” The American Mathematical Society, the Mathe¬ matical Association of America and the Amer¬ ican Astronomical Society will meet in affilia¬ tion with the section. Section B, Physics, will listen to the address of Professor Percival E. Lewis, of the Univer¬ sity of California, on “ Recent Progress on Spectroscopy,” probably on Thursday evening. Papers in physics will be on the program of the American Physical Society, but there will be a general-interest session held jointly with Section C and the American Chemical So¬ ciety. The Optical Society of America will meet in affiliation with the section. Section C, Chemistry, will have as its vice- presidential address, “ Asymmetric Syntheses and their Bearing upon the Doctrine of Vital¬ ism,” by Professor William McPherson, of the Ohio State Uniyersity. Sections B and C, in conjunction with the American Chemical So- December 1, 1916] SCIENCE 777 cietv and the American Physical Society, will hold a joint session on “ The Structure of Matter ” on the morning and afternoon of Wednesday. These sessions will be held at the City College, which will provide luncheon and opportunity to inspect the buildings. On Thursday evening, at the American Museum of Natural History, Professor A. A. Noyes, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will give one of the lectures complimentary to the citizens of the city on “ The Production of Nitrogen.” This lecture will be followed by a reception and a chemical exhibit. The American Electrochemical Society, as well as the American Chemical Society, will meet in affiliation with the section, and plans a sym¬ posium on “ The Conduction of Electricity through Gases.” Section D, Engineering, will hold a session in the Engineering Societies Building, on the invitation of the United Engineering Society, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the' American Institute of Mining Engineers, the' American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. At this meeting Dr. Bion J. Ar¬ nold will give the address of the retiring chair¬ man and there will be addresses by representa¬ tives of the engineering societies, followed by a reception to engineers and those working in sciences related to engineering. Section D will hold a joint session in the assembly hall of the Automobile Club of America, with the National Highways Association, the Automo¬ bile Club of America and the National Auto¬ mobile Chamber of Commerce. There will also be joint sessions with the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education and a session on sanitary engineering. Section E, Geology and Geography, will meet on Tuesday and Wednesday, at Colum¬ bia University, when a special program by state geologists on the geology of their respec¬ tive states will be presented. Owing to the death of Professor Charles S. Prosser, there will be no vice-presidential address. The As¬ sociation of American Geographers will hold its meetings following those of the geologists. The address of the president. Professor Mark Jefferson, of the Michigan State Normal Col¬ lege, will be on “ The Geographic Provinces of the United States.” The American Alpine Club will meet at the New York Public Li¬ brary on December 30. Section F, Zoology, will hold its meetings with the American Society of Zoologists and the American Society of Naturalists. It is expected that Professor Vernon L. Kellogg, of Stanford University, will return from Europe in time to give the address of the retiring chairman. A dinner in honor of Professor E. B. Wilson, a past-president of the association, will be given at the Hotel Manhattan ort Thursday evening, by his former students and colleagues. The Vertebrate Paleontologists, will meet at the American Museum of Natural History on Thursday and Friday. The Ento¬ mological Society of America will meet on Tuesday and Wednesday, the address of the retiring president, Professor T. D. A. Cock¬ erell, on “Fossil Insects,” being given on the evening of the latter day. The American As¬ sociation of Economic Entomologists will meet on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. There will be an address by the president, Dr. C. Gordon Hewitt, of the Dominion Experimental Farm at Ottawa. The entomologists will meet at Columbia University, with probably one session at the American Museum. Section G, Botany, will hold a general-in¬ terest session on the afternoon of Wednesday,, at which the address of Professor William A. Setchell, of the University of California, on “ The Geographic Distribution of Modern Algae,” will be given. This will be followed by a symposium on the relations of chemistry to botany, opened by W. J. V. Osterhout and J. Arthur Harris. This is a joint session with the American Botanical Society, the American P hy topathological Society and the Ecological Society of America. Each of these societies will hold important programs. On Thursday there will be a joint session for the reading of invitation papers, at which the speakers will be William A. Murrill, Erwin E. Smith and W. A. Orton. In the evening a dinner for botanists will be given at the Hotel McAlpin, at which the address of Professor John M. 778 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1144 Coulter, the retiring president of the Botan¬ ical Society of America, on “ Botany as a Na¬ tional Asset ” will be given. The American Society of Naturalists will meet on Friday. In the afternoon there will be a symposium on “ Biology and National Existence,” with papers by Stewart Paton, W. J. Spillman, Vernon L. Kellogg, Jacques Loeb and Edwin G. Conklin. After the dinner at the Hotel Manhattan in the evening Professor Raymond Pearl, of the Maine Experiment Sta¬ tion, will give the presidential address. The New York Zoological Society will entertain at the New York Aquarium the members of the Society of Naturalists and related societies on the evening of December 27. The American Eugenics Association will meet on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the address of the president, Dr. David Fairchild, of the United States Department of Agriculture, being on “ The Importance of Photographs in Present¬ ing Eugenic Discoveries.” The Eugenics Re¬ search Association will hold a meeting under the presidency of Dr. Adolf Meyer, of the Johns Hopkins University. Section H, Anthropology and Psychology, will refer special papers to the American An¬ thropological Association and the American Psychological Association. The address of the retiring chairman, Professor Lillien J. Martin, of Stanford University, will be on “ Personal¬ ity as revealed by the Content of Images.” The American Anthropological Association, under the presidency of Dr. F. W. Hodge, of the Bureau of American Ethnology, will meet at the American Museum of Natural History, on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. In affiliation with it will meet the American Folk Lore Society, the address of whose presi¬ dent, Dr. Robert H. Lowie, of the American Museum of Natural History, will be on “ Oral Tradition and History.” The American Psy¬ chological Association celebrates the twenty- fifth anniversary of its foundation on the afternoon of Friday. There will be historical papers by G. Stanley Hall, J. McKeen Cattell, Joseph Jastrow and John Dewey. The address of the president, Professor Raymond Dodge, of Wesleyan University, on ‘ ‘ The Laws of Relative Fatigue,” will be given on Wednes¬ day evening at Columbia University, followed by a smoker. The annual dinner will be at the Hotel Marseilles. The association will hold a joint session with the section of education on Friday. The American Philosophical Associa¬ tion will meet at the Union Theological Semi¬ nary, adjacent to Columbia University, on De¬ cember 26, 27 and 28. The address of the president will be given by Professor A. O. Lovejoy, Johns Hopkins University. Section I, Economic Science, will listen to an address on u Scientific Efficiency and In¬ dustrial Museums, our Safeguards in Peace and War,” by Dr. George F. Kunz, of New York. The programs of the section will be devoted to the metric system, to the national thrift movement, and to the effect of peace on our economical conditions. These sessions will be held at Columbia University. There will be a meeting concerning insurance on Friday afternoon in the Metropolitan Auditorium, Madison Square. Section K, Physiology and Experimental Medicine, will meet at the American Museum of Natural History on Friday afternoon. Pro¬ fessor Frederic P. Gay, of the University of California, will make an address on “ Special¬ ists and Research in Medical Science ” and there will be a symposium on “ Cancer and its Control,” taken part in by Gary N. Calkins, Leo Loeb, J. C. Bloodgood, James Ewing and E. C. Lakeman. This will be a joint meeting with the American Society of Bacteriologists. The Federation of American Societies for Ex¬ perimental Biology, consisting of the American Physiological Society, the American Society of Biological Chemists, the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Thera¬ peutics, and the American Society for Experi¬ mental Pathology will meet at the Cornell Medical College on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. There will be dinners on Thursday and Friday evening. The American Associa¬ tion of Anatomists will hold its meetings on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, in the anat¬ omical laboratories of three medical schools of the city, under the presidency of Professor Henry H. Donaldson, of the Wistar Institute. December 1, 1916] SCIENCE 779 Dr. Simon Flexner, director of the laboratories of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Re¬ search, will give one of the public lectures before the association. Section L, Education, will have, as the vice-presidential address, “ Some Obstacles to Educational Progress,” by Professor Ellwood G. Cubberley, of Stanford University. The section will meet on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for discussion on educational tests and measurements, research problems and adminis¬ trative problems. The American Nature Study Society and the School Garden Asso¬ ciation of America are among the societies meeting with the association. The Society of Sigma Xi will hold its annual convention at Columbia University on the afternoon of Wed¬ nesday, with its dinner in the evening, at which there will be an address by the presi¬ dent, Dr. Charles S. Howe, president of the Case School of Applied Science. The Amer¬ ican Association of University Professors will meet at Columbia University on Friday and Saturday, with a dinner at the Hotel Astor on Friday evening. Section M, Agriculture, will meet on Tues¬ day and Wednesday. The address of the re¬ tiring vice-president, Dean Eugene Davenport, of the University of Illinois, will be on “ The Outlook for Agricultural Science.” This ad¬ dress, which will be delivered on the afternoon of December 27, will be followed by a sympo¬ sium on the same subject, which will be taken part in by H. J. Wheeler, J. C. Lipman, G. F. Warren and B. Youngblood. There will be a scientific exhibit and con¬ versazione in University Hall, Columbia Uni¬ versity, on the afternoons of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, from twelve to six and probably on Wednesday evening from eight to ten. The demonstrations and exhibits before the separate societies will be made as usual, but in addition there will be gathered in one place exhibits showing the more important recent advances in the sciences in so far as they are of general interest. Scientific men will be present from four to six in the after¬ noon to explain and demonstrate the exhibits. It is hoped that the conversazione will not only be a convenient way for scientific men to in¬ spect the work being done in different sciences, but will also enable them to meet their col¬ leagues working in other departments. Tea will be served by the Columbia Univer¬ sity Ladies Committee in the Philosophical Building from four to six on the afternoons of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The Faculty Club of Columbia University will be open to men as a social center at these and at other times. The courtesies of the Chemists’ Club (52 East 41st Street) are extended to members (men) for the days of the meeting. The Alumni Clubs of different universities and colleges and the Fraternity Houses, of which there are large numbers in New York City, will doubtless be glad to welcome their alumni. Luncheons may be obtained in the Columbia University Commons, the lunch room of Horace Mann School and the lunch room of Barnard College and in restaurants adjacent to the university. The hotel headquarters will be the Hotel Belmont, which allows a discount to members on all rooms. It is situated opposite the Grand Central Station on 42d Street. This is also an express station of the subway by which Columbia University (Broadway and 116th St.) can be reached in about twelve minutes. The cars are marked Broadway or Dyckman Street; Lenox Avenue and Bronx Park cars are to be avoided. Other hotels have been selected as headquarters for some of the soci¬ eties and sections. Thus the naturalists have selected the Manhattan; the zoologists the Astor ; the botanists the McAlpin ; the entomol¬ ogists the Endicott; the anatomists the Marti¬ nique and the psychologists the Marseilles. Reservation of rooms should be made well in advance, as New York hotels are often com¬ pletely full at this season of the year. The dormitories of Columbia University (for a limited number of men) and the dormitories of Barnard College and of Teachers College (for women) will be open for members at a cost of $1 a night. There are numerous boarding and lodging houses in the neighborhood of Colum¬ bia University which at the time of the meet- 780 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1144 ing will not be occupied by students and can be engaged by members. The announcements here made are only those that have been reported well in advance and represent a small part of the programs. More than one thousand papers and addresses will be presented at the meeting, which will represent fully the advances of the natural, exact and applied sciences during the past year. There will, indeed, be so many simulta¬ neous programs of interest that the difficulty will be to choose among them. A meeting of this size, however, will be held only once in four years, and the conflict is after all not so serious as if the meetings were held in differ¬ ent cities. A joint meeting of scientific men working in all fields gives opportunity for them to meet personally and to consult through com¬ mittees and boards on means of promoting the advance of science by joint action. A meet¬ ing of such magnitude also serves to impress on the general public the strength which sci¬ ence has attained in this country, and the need of supporting scientific research for the wel¬ fare of the nation. SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS The John Fritz medal was awarded in Jan¬ uary, 1916, to Dr. Elihu Thomson, for “ Achievements in Electrical Inventions, in Electrical Engineering, in Industrial Develop¬ ment and in Scientific Research.” We learn from the Electrical World that the medal will be presented to Dr. Thomson at a meeting to be held in Boston on Friday evening, Decem¬ ber 8. The presentation will take place in the Central Lecture Hall of the new buildings of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The program of the evening will include ad¬ dresses by John J. Carty, chairman of the presentation committee of the board of award; E. W. Rice, Jr., president of the General Elec¬ tric Company, and Dr. Richard C. Maclaurin, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The presentation will be made by Dr. Charles Warren Hunt, and the cere¬ monies will conclude with the response of Dr. Thomson. The John Fritz medal is awarded from time to time for notable scientific or in¬ dustrial achievement, and was provided for in a fund subscribed in memory of the great engi¬ neering pioneer, John Fritz. The award of the medal is made by a permanent board com¬ posed of four members from each of four American national engineering societies, namely, the American Society of Civil Engi¬ neers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Institute of Mining Engineers and the American Institute of Elec¬ trical Engineers. The members of the 1916 board are: Representing the civil engineers — Charles Warren Hunt, John A. Ockerson, George F. Swain, Charles D. Marx; represent¬ ing the mechanical engineers — John R. Free¬ man, Ambrose Swasey, John A. Brash ear, Frederick R. Hutton; representing the mining engineers — Albert Sauveur, E. Gybbon Spils- bury, Charles F. Rand, Christopher R. Corn¬ ing ; representing the electrical engineers — Ralph D. Mershon, C. O. Mailloux, Paul M. Lincoln, John J. Carty. The trustees of Cornell University have ac¬ cepted the resignation of George Sylvanus Moler, professor of physics, to take effect in June, 1917. Professor Moler will retire from teaching, having reached the age limit. The board placed upon its minutes the following resolution : Resolved, that the trustees in accepting the res¬ ignation of Professor Moler desire to express their high appreciation of his faithful and devoted serv¬ ice to the university in the department of physics for over forty years. As a teacher he is held in affectionate and grateful remembrance by many generations of university students. For twelve years he shared with Professor Anthony the en¬ tire work of the department and during that period in collaboration with him designed, constructed and installed the first dynamo in America, the first arc-lighting system (that on the campus of Cornell University), and the first apparatus for the elec¬ trolytic production on a considerable scale of oxygen and hydrogen. He has also devised count¬ less original and ingenious pieces of apparatus of incalculable value to the department of physics. And the photographic laboratory in Kockefeller Hall, with its original and unique equipment, is largely of his planning. December 1, 1916] SCIENCE 781 Dr. R. A. Millikan, professor of physics in the University of Chicago, has been appointed Hitchcock lecturer at the University of Cali¬ fornia for 1917, and will give a series of lec¬ tures at Berkeley, beginning about February 1. Among the Hitchcock lecturers of recent years at the University of California have been Thomas Hunt Morgan, professor of zoology in Columbia University; Henry Fairfield Osborn, research professor of zoology in Columbia University; Dr. A. D. Waller, director of the physical laboratory of the University of Lon¬ don; Julius Steiglitz, professor of chemistry in the University of Chicago; Harry Fielding Reid, professor of dynamical geology and geog¬ raphy in the Johns Hopkins University, and Dr. Richard M. Pearce, professor of research medicine in the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Frank D. Adams, Logan professor of geology and dean of the faculty of applied science, McGill University, has just completed a course of six lectures on pre-Cambrian stratigraphy for the department of geology, Columbia University. Dr. Carlos Chagas, of the Institute for Ex¬ perimental Pathology at Rio de Janeiro, has been invited to conduct a course on tropical medicine at Harvard University. The vice-chancellor of Cambridge Univer¬ sity has appointed Mr. R. T. Glazebrook, C.B., fellow of Trinity College, director of the Na¬ tional Physical Laboratory, to the office of reader on Sir Robert Rede’s foundation for the ensuing year. At a recent general meeting of the members of the Royal Institution, Dr. H. E. Armstrong, F.R.S., was elected a manager, in place of the late Professor Sylvanus P. Thompson. A res¬ olution of condolence with the relatives of the late Sir Victor Horsley, a member of the Royal Institution, was passed. A correspondent informs us that Dr. H. B. Fantham, of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, who was appointed to the post of chief protozoologist to the forces of the Allies at Salonika, has been seriously ill with amoebic dysentery and is at present convalescing — but on duty — at Malta. We learn from Nature that Major T. Edge- worth David, professor of geology in the Uni¬ versity of Sydney, has recovered from the ef¬ fects of serious injuries received while con¬ ducting mining operations in northern France, and hopes shortly to rejoin his regi¬ ment. Professor G. Carey Foster, a past president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, has been elected by the council an honorary mem¬ ber of the institution. After forty-five years’ service Dr. C. Ritsema, keeper of the entomological collec¬ tions of the State Museum of Natural History at Leyden, has retired. He is succeeded by R. van Eecke. Dr. Wm. H. Weston has resigned his posi¬ tion as instructor in biology in charge of the botanical work at Western Reserve Univer¬ sity to accept a position as a pathological in¬ spector of the Federal Horticultural Board. He will be stationed at Washington, D. C. Dr. Eric Mjoberg, a Swedish explorer, who arrived in New York on November 22, said, as reported in daily papers, he had come to the United States to study the latest inventions in aviation preparatory to making arrangements for an exploration trip into the interior of New Guinea. At the meeting of the Section of Medical History of the College of Physicians of Phila¬ delphia, on November 21, Dr. Arnold C. Klebs, Washington, D. C., read a paper on “ Some Recent Results of Paleopathologic Research.” Dr. J. Paul Goode, professor of geography at the University of Chicago, recently gave a lecture before the Civic and Commerce Asso¬ ciation of Minneapolis on the “ Geographic and Economic Foundation of the Great War.” At the two hundred and twenty-sixth meet¬ ing of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society, held at the University of North Carolina on November 14, the papers were: Dr. W. C. Coker, “ Some Problems in Classification ” ; Mr. T. F. Hickerson, “ The Quebec Bridge.” The municipal and university authorities of Barcelona recently placed a marble memorial 782 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1144 tablet on the house at Castellersol where had been born Dr. M. Fargas Roca, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Barcelona, and senator of the realm. After this ceremony the procession passed to the city hall, where his portrait was installed. Dr. Francis J. Keany, trustee of the Boston City Hospital, and professor of dermatology at Tufts Medical School, died on November 23, at the age of fifty years. Dr. Henry Gunder, formerly professor of mathematics at Findlay College, Ohio, and later at Little Rock University, Arkansas, died on November 20, at the age of seventy-nine years. James S. Duff* of Toronto, minister of agri¬ culture for Ontario, died on November 17, at the age of sixty years. Dr. Oskar Backlund, the eminent director of the Imperial Observatory at Pulkova, Rus¬ sia, died on August 29. He was in his seventy- first year and had been the director of the Pulkova Observatory since 1893. Emeritus Professor John Ferguson, who last year resigned the regius chair of chemis¬ try in the University of Glasgow, which he had held since 1874, died on November 3, aged seventy-nine years. In addition to his work in chemistry he was a well-known archeologist. Professor H. M. Waynforth, professor of engineering, King’s College, University of London, died on November 5, at the age of forty-nine years. Professor H. H. W. Pearson, professor of botany in the South African College, died at Mount Royal Hospital, Wynberg, on Novem¬ ber 3. The London Times says: “His death is a great loss to botanical science, in which he had a European reputation, particu¬ larly by his discovery of missing links in evo¬ lutionary botany. His death is felt with pe¬ culiar intensity in South Africa, where Mr. Pearson’s professional enthusiasm and keen perception of scientific possibilities were mainly responsible for the establishment a few years ago of the Kirstenboseh Botanic Gar¬ dens, which on the testimony of the director of Kew is likely to become one of the most valuable, economically and scientifically, in the world.” Nature reports the death of Lance-Corporal J. W. Hart, who, having volunteered in the early days of the war, was killed on Septem¬ ber 15. At the beginning of the war he held the post of horticultural assistant at Bedford College, London, and was in charge of the botanical garden, the successful development of which was largely due to his skill and energy. The death is also reported of Lieutenant John Handyside, who fell in one of the recent ad¬ vances on the Somme, at the age of thirty-five ; he was a distinguished graduate of Edinburgh and Oxford, and since 1912 had been lecturer in philosophy in the University of Liverpool. A clipping sent us from a Munich newspaper reads : “ Dr. Oskar Piloty, professor of chem¬ istry at Munich, son of the distinguished painter, lost his eldest son in battle. In order to avenge his death, the father of his own ac¬ cord joined the army in France, and he too has now been killed.” After conference with many of the verte¬ brate and invertebrate paleontologists in differ¬ ent parts of the country it has been deemed wise for the vertebrate paleontologists to meet in the State Museum, Albany, Wednesday, De¬ cember 27 in company with the geologists and invertebrate paleontologists. On Thursday and Friday, December 28 and 29, an adjourned meeting of the Vertebrate Paleontologists will be held in the American Museum of Natural History, New York, at hours to be announced later. Members are invited to send immedi¬ ately titles of papers or discussions directly to Dr. W. D. Matthew, acting secretary of the Vertebrate Paleontological Section. Arrange¬ ments will be made for a reunion dinner on Friday evening, December 29. The Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations met at the new Willard Hotel, Washington, D. C., on November 15, 16 and 17. The fifteenth anniversary of the Ohio So¬ ciety of Mechanical, Electrical and Steam Engineers was celebrated in its thirty-fourth meeting, which was held on the campus of the December 1, 1916] SCIENCE 783 Ohio State University, November 16. Among the speakers were Professor Horace Judd and Professor F. W. Marquis, both of the depart¬ ment of mechanical engineering of this uni¬ versity. The Electrical World states that this year America’s Electrical Week will be inaugurated by the first permanent flood-lighting of the Statue of Liberty on the evening of December 2. President Wilson and a distinguished gathering of diplomats and industrial leaders will officiate at a program of ceremonies start¬ ing in lower New York harbor and concluding at a banquet to the nation’s executive in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Mayor Mitchel, of New York City, has named a committee of some two hundred representative men in the electrical industry and in business and civic life, who will escort President Wilson and his party during the inaugural. A committee on arrangement has charge of an electric vehicle parade starting from the Battery and pass¬ ing up Broadway to Lafayette Street, over Fifth Avenue to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The official ceremony of rededicating the statue will take place at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Ambassador Jusserand, who will present a special message from the President of France, and ex-Senator Chauncey M. Depew, who de¬ livered the main oration of the statue thirty years ago on October 28, will deliver orations, to which it is expected the President will reply briefly. A government investigation of industrial fatigue by physiologic methods has just been made by Dr. Stanley Kent, the physiologist, and is summarized in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The report is divided into three sections. The first deals with fatigue as a result of overtime. It is stated that when the week-end rest is sus¬ pended, fatigue will persist; residual fatigue resulting from inadequate rest leads to lowered efficiency and lessened output. Overtime pe¬ riods worked on consecutive days produce more fatigue than if separated by days of ordinary length. Overtime induces more fatigue late in the week than it does early in the week. Overtime is physiologically and economically extravagant. It frequently fails in achieving its object, as the following case shows: A girl in one of the works frequently did not attend during overtime. She also habitually began work at 8 :30 instead of 6 a.m. Thus she usu¬ ally worked only eight hours a day, instead of twelve. When asked the reason, she replied that the extra rest enabled her to work so much more quickly that she was able easily to make up for the lost time. The second section of the report deals with the influence of fatigue and of overtime on output. The total daily output may be diminished by the introduction of overtime, for the rate of working and total output are limited by fatigue rather than by other conditions. A group of piece workers increased their earnings considerably as a re¬ sult of a diminution in the length of the work¬ ing day. In the third section it is stated that the total output of a factory is a question of adjustment of the factors concerned, the prin¬ cipal of these being the actual time worked and the actual rate of working. Reduction of the latter will soon counterbalance increase of the former, and thus overtime frequently leads to a diminution of total output. The health of the worker, on which his rate of working and his endurance depends, is prejudiced by overtime and to a less extent by work in the early morning hours. The suspension of over¬ time was followed in every case by an improve¬ ment in conditions of the worker, and was found to effect a saving of 4.5 per cent. The experiments on which the foregoing conclu¬ sions are based were carried out with great care and by means of all kinds of ingenious apparatus for testing attention and working power. Both male and female labor was em¬ ployed in the factories concerned. Dr. Kent also points out that the evidence is against Sunday labor, which is liable to prove “ dis¬ astrous.” As a result, the minister of muni¬ tions has stopped all Sunday work in the fac¬ tories producing munitions. In a lecture before the Royal Society of Arts on November 3, Professor William Stir¬ ling, of the University of Manchester, said that the insatiable demand for shells, guns and other munitions of war had made the prob¬ lem of industrial fatigue suddenly acute. The problem to be solved, and it was being solved. 784 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1144 was to ensure the maximum of output with the minimum of fatigue. Overtime was an elastic term, and not only imposed a severe strain on the worker, but it curtailed unduly the periods for rest and repose; it was un¬ economical, physiologically extravagant, and frequently resulted in lost time and diminished output. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS The University of Chicago has received from Mr. Frederick H. Rawson a gift of $300,- 000 for the construction of a laboratory build¬ ing in connection with the plans for the med¬ ical school. A provisional gift of $100,000 to the Uni¬ versity of Vermont has been given by General Rush C. Hawkins, of Hew York. The money is given on condition that the university raise an additional $200,000. Tulane University has received a bequest of $60,000 for the School of Tropical Medicine, available after the decease of the wife of the late Colonel W. G. Vincent. The new gymnasium of the Stevens Insti¬ tute of Technology was dedicated with appro¬ priate ceremonies on November 18. The build¬ ing, which was erected at a cost of over $125,- 000, is the gift of Mr. William Hall Walker, of Hew York. Dr. L. V. Heilbrun has been appointed in¬ structor in microscopic anatomy at the College of Medicine at the University of Illinois. The School of Medicine of the University of Alabama announces that two new all-time professors have been appointed to the faculty. Dr. Joseph M. Thiiringer, of the Harvard Med¬ ical School, becomes head of the department of anatomy, and Dr. Claude W. Mitchell, Ph.D. (Nebraska, ’13), M.D. (Chicago, ’15), head of the department of physiology and pharma¬ cology. Mr. William George Palmer, B.A., for¬ merly scholar, has been elected to a fellowship at St. John’s College, Cambridge. Mr. Palmer, who came up from Guildford Grammar School, took a first in each part of the Natural Science Tripos, 1913-14, with distinction in chemistry, and was awarded the Hutchinson studentship. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE synchronism in the rhythmic activities OF ANIMALS Two men walking together keep step so easily that the keeping step seems automatic. With a similar feeling of its naturalness we keep time in various ways, as in marching or dancing to music. Although these actions seem so automatic, they all or nearly all were learned by conceptual awareness of the rela¬ tions between one’s own actions and the actions of others, and purposive imitation of the latter. Such awareness of relations and pur¬ poseful imitation have not been found in ani¬ mals (with the possible exception of the Pri¬ mates). Certainly in most of the behavior of animals the tendency to keep time with an external rhythm is conspicuously absent. When two horses are driven abreast, each trots in his own rhythm in sublime disregard of his team-mate. Every circus has its so-called dancing animals, but I never saw one that really kept time with the music except as the trainer prompted it. Some birds have wonder¬ ful musical powers, but I never knew of a case of two birds singing in unison, nor of a bird singing synchronously with any external rhythm. Nevertheless, although an animal can not have a concept of the relation between two co¬ inciding rhythms, it is supposable that some animals might have an innate mechanism that would bring them into synchronism with an external rhythm, just as two pendulums or two dynamos, if properly adjusted, maintain a perfect synchronism. Let us review the ob¬ servations that might substantiate such a sup¬ position. Many animals are provided with lock and key reflexes which produce an admirable synchronism. Two cocks fighting jump at each other at almost the same moment. Many birds, notably some of the Limicolse, fly in close flocks and the whole flock turn appar¬ ently at the same moment in their rapid evo¬ lutions. But it is important to notice that these actions are not rhythmical. To main¬ tain such admirable synchronism and at the December 1, 1916] SCIENCE 785 same time maintain a rhythm would be a quite different task. There are some cases in which animals do act in synchronism with an external rhythm, hut so far as I have observed they are always cases in which the time of the animal’s actions is regulated by a powerful force from the envi¬ ronment, and fall under one of the two follow¬ ing heads: (1) Slow rhythms, such as those of the seasons, or of day and night, in which there are changes in temperature, light, etc., which have plenty of time to act on the organ¬ ism; (2) cases in which there is bodily con¬ tact between the organism and that with which it keeps in synchronism, as the case of a canary swinging on a swing-perch, or that of certain spiders swinging on their webs. Are there any cases which do not fall under either of these two heads? Some observers have re¬ ported them, but let us examine their reports. Dr. Edward S. Morse1 cites a case from memory in which he saw “ fireflies flashing in unison,” but he gives no exact details. He quotes a paper by Mr. Blair2 mentioning the same phenomenon; but Mr. Blair states that he never observed the synchronism himself, and he does not cite any authority who has observed it. Dr. Morse in another paper3 quotes R. Shelford as observing a tree full of fireflies pulsating “ so that at one moment the tree would be one blaze of light, whilst at an¬ other the light would he dim and uncertain ,"4 This last clause makes it appear that some fireflies were not in synchronism with the others, and thus brings in the statistical fal¬ lacy to be mentioned presently. Dr. Morse quotes Dr. H. C. Bumpus as another observer of the phenomenon; I wrote to Dr. Bumpus, asking certain questions, and he kindly sent me the following statements as to his observation : he saw the synchronism in perhaps 50 fire¬ flies distributed over two acres ; he noticed the synchronism only as he was passing the 1 Morse, E. S., Science, February 4, 1916, 169- 170. 2 Blair, K. G., Nature, December 9, 1915, 414. 3 Morse, E. S., Science, September 15, 1916, 387-388. 4 Italics mine. area, so can not say how long it lasted; the interval between flashes was perhaps a half second; he thinks the synchronism was not accidental and not an illusion; but he thinks there were also some fireflies that were flashing asynchronously .4 How, where a large number of fireflies are flashing at slightly differing rates there must be a great amount of acci¬ dental synchronism ; to determine whether there is a degree of synchronism not due to mere accident, one would need a statistical examination. Viewing any large assortment of instances without statistical methods, one can see in them whatever one is predisposed to see; and we are always predisposed to per¬ ceive a rhythm — this is a well-known psycho¬ logical fact. I once had an experience which I think was like that with the fireflies: I was looking at a great area of water covered with ripples flashing in the sunlight, and the flashes I saw were all synchronous, at a rate of per¬ haps three per second; but their synchronism must have been an illusion. Dr. Morse5 quotes a different case, from Cox, who says : Certain ants . . . when alarmed, knock their heads against the leaves and dead sticks . . . every member of the community makes the necessary movement at the same time. This case would seem to necessitate that the ants perceive time relations, for each ant must know when the sound is to come and must anticipate it by making the head move¬ ment. It is much more probable that the synchronism was an illusion of the observer. Professor W. B. Barrows6 reports seeing a bittern sway gently from side to side as the grass around it was swayed by the wind. But it is doubtful if the observer, seeing the bird against a moving background, could tell truly whether it swayed or not. The details which are given make the phenomenon seem very like an illusion. In 1897, Dolbear7 stated that all the crickets in a given field chirp simultaneously. But s Morse, E. S., loc. cit., 387. ® Barrows, W. B., The Auk, April, 1913, 187- 190. 7 Dolbear, A. E., American Naturalist, Vol. 31, 970-971. 786 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1144 Professor Shull8 observed more carefully, found that this was not the case, and concluded that the synchronism observed by Dolbear was an illusion. However, Shull observed certain cases in which two individuals were in syn¬ chronism. His observations are not open to the objections raised in case of the fireflies, because: first, there being only two crickets concerned, the statistical fallacy does not enter; secondly, his observations were repeated and checked with great care, the rate of chirp¬ ing being accurately timed. There can be no doubt that Shull observed real synchronism between two crickets at a time. But he says (in a letter to me, dated October 8, 1916) : I am at present inclined to think that these cases of synchronism were usually accidental. . . . However, the insects do, I am sure, influence one another. ... I regard it as still an open question whether something more than chance was involved. In the article quoted, he questions whether the synchronism may have been due merely to temperature; for at a given temperature nearly all the crickets chirp at almost exactly the same rate. In answer to our question whether animals ever do maintain a synchronic rhythm of a sort not included under (1) and (2) of my fourth paragraph, we have found good evidence for an affirmative answer only in the case of crickets chirping. And in that case it is still somewhat in doubt whether their simultaneity is accidental, or due to the influence of envi¬ ronment, or due to a lock and key adaptation by which one cricket stimulates the other. If any naturalist can give complete and accurate observations on such synchronic rhythms, these will be of great interest to the psychologist. Wallace Craig University of Maine IS CUCUMBER MOSAIC CARRIED BY SEED? In 1915 cucumber mosaic caused a rather serious loss on one of the farms where cold frame cucumbers are grown in the tidewater section of Virginia. The same disease again developed on this farm in the spring of 1916 s Shull, A. F., The Stridulation of the Snowy Tree-cricket ( (Ecanthus niveus), Canadian Ento¬ mologist, 1907, Yol. 39, 213-225. on land which was in cucumbers last year and also on land which had not grown this crop for the past three years. This year as usual the seed was sown in pots in the greenhouse and the plants were transplanted to the cold frames on April 5, 1916. On May 25, 1916, before the glass covering had been removed from the cold frames, the writer observed typical mosaic plants scattered throughout the frames. A little later “ white pickle ” fruits were also obtained from the diseased vines. Of a total of 7,785 plants 110 were diseased on the above date. The cold frame growers in this section all use one strain of forcing-cucumber seed which they obtain from the same seed company. On visiting the other cold frame farms during the same week typical cases of mosaic -were found on three of the five farms and plants suspected of the disease were observed on the other two. Plants on one of the latter two farms have since produced typical “ white pickle ” fruits though the leaves are not stri¬ kingly mottled. These observations indicated that the disease was carried by the seed, but as in some cases the diseased plants were growing on land which had produced mosaic plants the previous sea¬ son, there remained the possibility of a soil factor. Data which made the matter of soil trans¬ mission appear less likely was obtained from cucumber plants which the writer was grow¬ ing at the Virginia Truck Experiment Sta¬ tion. These plants were from the same strain of seed as that used by all of the cold frame growers. The seed was planted April 27, 1916, in a cold frame of steam sterilized soil which had not previously grown a crop of cucumbers. Of a total of 155 plants 58 typical mosaic plants were observed on June 5, 1916. Ho in¬ sects were observed on the plants up to that time, probably due to the fact that the bed is surrounded on three sides by a tall hedge and on the fourth side by the station greenhouses. The high percentage of diseased plants and the failure to account for the disease in any other way lead the writer to think that this mosaic came from the seed. December 1, 1916] SCIENCE 787 Further confirmatory data relative to seed transmission has since been obtained from seed which the writer saved from typical “ white pickle ” cucumbers collected during the sea¬ son of 1915. Unfortunately a large per cent, of the seed thus obtained was destroyed by mice. From the small amount which remained eleven typical mosaic plants have been ob¬ tained. These plants first showed mosaic in the second or third true leaves, and have since produced typical “ white pickle ” fruits. The plants were started in pots of steam sterilized soil and transplanted to a field which had not previously grown cucumbers. At the time the disease was first observed on these plants no cucurbits were growing nearby and no insects had been seen on the plants. It seems advisable to present these observations as indicating an¬ other means of primary dissemination of cu¬ cumber mosaic. J. A. McClintock Virginia Truck Experiment Station, Norfolk, Va. THE CULTURE OF PRE-COLUMBIAN AMERICA To the Editor of Science : In common doubtless with many of your readers I noted with interest the short sketch by Professor Grafton Elliot Smith of his views regarding the migration of culture to the American con¬ tinent. I also awaited with some expectation of assurance an unveiled hostility, which has now appeared in your columns of the issue of October 13, under the signature of Dr. Golden- weiser and Mr. Means. From the nature of circumstances it must be some weeks before my former chief can reply to these gentlemen and I would request, there¬ fore, in the meantime the opportunity to make a few suggestions. Apart altogether from the confession of Dr. Goldenweiser, it is of course obvious from their arguments that both writers have arisen in opposition and committed themselves in your columns without having informed them¬ selves of Professor Elliot Smith’s precise statements and method of handling his mass of accumulated evidence. From a somewhat misleading footnote in your issue of August 11 it would seem that “ The Significance of the Geographical Dis¬ tribution of the Practise of Mummification ” had as yet to be published. This monograph appeared in the Memoirs of the Manchester Literary and Philosophic Society on July 7, 1915, and was published in book form under title “ The Migrations of Culture ” a few weeks later. But together with the succession of ensuing papers in that journal and in the John Rylands Bulletin , this important mono¬ graph seems entirely to have escaped the at¬ tention of your contributors. That this should be so in the maze of present-day literature is entirely forgivable, but it is amazing that in “ awaiting with the greatest interest and impatience ” further exposition of Elliot Smith’s brilliant work, ethnologists should hasten with such unseemly speed to warn him against encroaching upon a theory which by the assertion of Dr. Goldenweiser himself must forever rest upon the uncertain basis of mere negative evidence, a theory which to some of us in the light of modern exactitude of method seems scarcely defensible. Dr. Goldenweiser would have us prove every step of the way in the diffusion theory, and rightly so. In the chaos of ethnological ob¬ servations, many of them afforded by amateur or untrained investigators, and by indifferent methods, too much stress can not be laid upon this. But at the same time are we really to accept for any particular custom the asser¬ tion of independent development merely be¬ cause as yet rigorous proof of diffusion is not forthcoming! Professor Elliot Smith simply contends that we should subject both to the most searching investigation. Contrary to Dr. Goldenweiser’s suggestion, it is not loosely claimed that sometime, somehow, diffusion has occurred. Such statements as have been made are accompanied by tangible evidence of their accuracy. The excellent and indisputable re¬ searches of Professor G. A. Reisner and Dr. Elliot Smith in Egyptian archeology afford a striking example of the care and vigor with which every shred of evidence is scrutinized. In the work of the two investigators just men¬ tioned on the discovery of the use of copper and the evolution of the rock cut tomb and in 788 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1144 the distribution of these arts the same search¬ ing technique is perceptible and the complete reconstruction of the historic event which Dr. Golden weiser justly demands is already forth¬ coming. Especially is it to be observed that this is the case in the assertion of independent development in Egypt of both these practises, a proof, the possibility of which Dr. Golden- weiser apparently denies. But indeed if, as on Dr. Goldenweiser’s own statement, all the proof that we have is in favor of diffusion, may we not at least with equal right transpose one of his sentences and say, “ In all cases diffusion must be assumed until independent develop¬ ment is proved or, at least, made overwhelm¬ ingly probable ” ? If such striking similarities, parallelisms, convergences in the working of the human mind really do occur, why, in the words of Mr. Means, should there be no such thing as a wheeled vehicle in all pre-Columbian America? Mr. Means’s difficulties over wheels and ships are precisely those which the supporters of independent development should hasten to ex¬ plain. As a matter of fact, as most recently Dr. Rivers has demonstrated, it is the useful art which frequently is lost in the spread of culture. The human mind is not the logically working instrument, leaping at once to full conception of the connection between cause and effect, between possibility and use, which we are invited to 'assume. In the geographical distribution of culture whatever has been merely useful tends to disappear; whatever is bound to the consciousness of the individual through some link of superstition or religion tends to be retained, though its significance may be misunderstood or indeed even reversed. It is true, as Mr. Means hints, that so far no comprehensive and detailed analysis has been made of the physical anthropology of the American peoples comparable with that under¬ taken by Professor Elliot Smith and his asso¬ ciates upon the ancient Egyptians. It is to be hoped that we may be able to make the lack good in time. But the impress left upon the features and the impetus given to the arts and crafts alike of the ancient Egyptians by the immigration of alien peoples leads me to sus¬ pect that in the bodies of the pre-Columbian Americans themselves we may ultimately find the corroborative evidence of whence Amer¬ ican culture came. It may well be that by this method we shall find the arrows in Dr. Elliot Smith’s figure correctly placed. But even if, as in fact Professor Elliot Smith be¬ lieves, inherent difficulties in the work will prevent physical anthropological studies in America from bearing the conclusive results obtained from similar researches in Egypt, the case for diffusion, contrary to Mr. Means’s conception, is not thereby weakened. In the sturdy nature of its composition the culture- complex is amply strong enough to stand by itself and the possibility that some avenues of approach are closed to us does not neces¬ sarily prevent our arrival at definite conclu¬ sions along those which are plainly open. Critical ethnologists will, I am sure, judge from the facts themselves. In conclusion, like one of your contributors, I await with impatience a further monograph from Professor Elliot Smith’s fascinating and compelling pen; a monograph which I hear from other sources is to be entitled “ The Ancient Mariners.” T. Wingate Todd Anatomical Laboratory, Western Reserve University, Cleveland, O. MOSQUITOES AND MAN AGAIN Without continuing the discussion further than the limits of this paper, it seems advisable to state once more the contention made in my paper “ Mosquitoes and Man ”1 for Mr. Jen¬ nings in his rather elaborate and erudite criti¬ cism2 of it misses the whole point so com¬ pletely as to be definitely surprising and almost amusing. The point was not the “ association ” of mosquitoes with man, but that the malarial mosquito followed man, and while following man is included in the association with man, it is nevertheless a specific point and worthy of some attention. 1 Science, June 2, 1916. 2 Science, August 11, 1916. December 1, 1916] SCIENCE 789 Major Ashburn’s observations were, that in a given place, men and mosquitoes being asso¬ ciated, on the removal of the human element the malarial mosquitoes no longer bred in that locality as before, the larvae from being numer¬ ous became rare, almost, if not quite absent. An instance of this occurred at Miraflores, formerly a hot-bed of malaria, and where Anopheles albimanus bred in abundance. When, in connection with the Canal work, the inhabitants were removed, it was presently discovered that although the breeding condi¬ tions were quite as good, A. albimanus was no longer breeding in that locality as before, the larvae having become very rare. Contrariwise, that when camps were established in new local¬ ities where malarial mosquitoes and their larvae were rare or unknown, both adults and larvae presently appeared in greatly increased numbers, and this was followed by a malarial outbreak among the men. Major Ashburn has records of some ninety instances where these conditions, in connection with the establish¬ ment and abandonment of construction camps, occurred, and it was on this large number of cases that he based his conclusions. The question of an “ animal barrier ” is not a question of whether any given mosquito will attack a horse or a cow or a dog, but whether such animals will prove a protective barrier, against the malarial mosquitoes, for human beings living beyond. Whether dis¬ ease-bearing mosquitoes will breed except near human habitations is another question, and apparently has several factors, so that it is quite possible that it can not be answered by a general statement. However it is quite cer¬ tain that these mosquitoes would not have be¬ come “ disease-bearing ” if they had not bred near habitations and been in close touch with man. The experience of many sanitarians has been that, under usual conditions, to keep the breeding places of malarial carriers at a dis¬ tance of “ four hundred yards ” is sufficient to protect the inhabitants of a locality from malaria, and Watson shows that the outer coolie lines are at least the only ones attacked under these conditions. This can only mean that the malarial mosquitoes do actually breed near, and not, as Mr. Jennings suggests, “at a distance from human habitations.” Also of course this implies the intimate association of malarial mosquitoes and man, and there is nothing in my paper to indicate a lack of recognition of that general condition. It called attention to an entirely new viewpoint, and one that gives a valid reason not only for the usually accepted limit of flight, hut to Dr. Watson’s observations concerning the outer coolie lines, and even for the long flight re¬ corded at Ancon, while it suggests a hitherto little recognized need of the protection of human beings in the formation of new camps in heretofore uninhabited sections where no malaria has been known, or where the larvse of malarial mosquitoes are extremely rare or unknown. It is hardly permissible to assume ignor¬ ance, on the part of a Medical Officer and a worker in preventive medicine, of the litera¬ ture and labors of many investigators whose work was based on the, at least implied, “ association ” of mosquitoes and man. Even the average layman knows the story of Man- son’s suggestion to Ross. Especially is such an assumption out of place in regard to Major Ashburn, whose work on the transmission of disease by insects, carried on in the Philip¬ pines as a member of the “ Board for the Study of Tropical Diseases” is widely known and accepted as one of the authorities on the subject. It is always better to keep “ an open mind ” on every subject, scientific or otherwise, and certainly to avoid unfair comments on other workers. There is work enough for all, and the various phases of the study of disease are so complicated as to give every part of the subject many sides, and many points of con¬ tact with the labors of special investigators in other branches. That the whole may develop in a well-balanced and scientifically correct fashion requires harmonious interrelation be¬ tween these various workers, and a just recog¬ nition of the viewpoints of others. Mr. Jen¬ nings’s connection with the work in the inves¬ tigations in the Canal Zone should have broad- 790 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1144 ened him sufficiently to have made other atti¬ tude and action impossible. C. S. Ludlow Army Medical Museum, Washington, D. C., September 29, 1916 THE SONG OF FOWLER’S TOAD (BUFO FOWLERI PUTNAM) In Science for September 29, Mr. H. A. Allard states that for some years he has heard at Clarendon, Va., two types of toad cries. One was uttered early in the spring, “ a steady, trilling monotone,” lasting “ from 10 to 20 seconds,” and “ resembling the song of Bufo americanus as it is heard in Hew England.” The other was that of Fowler’s toad, “the unmistakable, weird, wailing scream which ad¬ vertises its presence throughout its range.” He further states that on May 2, 1916, he caught toads uttering the former note, and found them to be Bufo fowleri. He presented them to the National Museum, where they are under accession number 59692. Now I have collected for some years in the region in question, as my home is in Alex¬ andria, and I have found both B. fowleri and B. americanus fairly common, although fowleri seems the more abundant. I have studied the breeding habits of these toads at Haverford, Pa., where both occur very com¬ monly and are quite distinct. Americanus is one of the first Anura to ap¬ pear in the spring; fowleri one of the last. Transformed americanus are sometimes met with before fowleri begins to sing. The note of fowleri there is always the short snoring scream. The note .of americanus is always much longer, although its trill and its soft¬ ness are somewhat dependent on whether the toad is on land or in the water. I have col¬ lected fowleri in numbers at Brevard, N. C., at an altitude of 2,200 feet. The note there was the same which I have heard at Alexandria and at Haverford. Finally, during the first part of September, I was working in the reptile and amphibian department of the National Museum, and while looking over the catalogue I chanced to see there an entry of B. fowleri with the re¬ mark that the note was that of B. americanus. My interest aroused by this and also by the fact that they were local specimens, I looked them up and examined them. I soon came to the conclusion that they were not fowleri at all, but americanus. They were much too large for fowleri , and they had large warts arranged singly in spots as in B. americanus , instead of the small warts, three to five in a spot as in B. fowleri. These toads were cata¬ logue number 59692, and were collected by Mr. Allard at Yinson Station, Va., on May 2, 1916. Mr. Allard was probably misled by the fact that they did not have the deeply spotted breast of most americanus, but this is not too reliable a character, as some B. fowleri have speckled breasts and some B. americanus have, as in this instance, immaculate breasts. Thus there is no reason to believe that Fowler’s toad has two distinct notes, and con¬ fidence can still be reposed in the calls of toads and frogs as differentiating characters. E. R. Dunn Smith College, Northampton, Mass. SCIENTIFIC BOOKS Morphology of Invertebrate Types. By Alex¬ ander Petrunkevitch. The Macmillan Company, New York. 1916. Under this title Professor Petrunkevitch offers us a laboratory guide for representa¬ tive invertebrate types and, in addition, mate¬ rial of the sort commonly found in our text¬ books. “ Each chapter consists of two parts : a monograph in which a description is given of the animal selected as representative of its class and instructions for the students to fol¬ low in dissection.” The purpose of the former is to give the student an account of the mor¬ phology of his type form to which he may refer throughout his dissection and to give the teacher more freedom, since the lectures are thus relieved of much detail. The book is frankly morphological, as its name implies, and the author makes no apology for this ; but rather contends in his preface that the student who aspires to the work of experimental zool¬ ogy is often hampered by “ a superficial knowl¬ edge of the structure, life and development of those very animals which in his later studies December 1, 1916] SCIENCE 791 he is going to use for experiments.” The book is written not for the elementary course in invertebrate zoology, which is sometimes offered as a part or the whole of a course in general zoology, but for third and fourth year undergraduates who are presumed to have completed one or more courses in zoology. It is the outcome of a course in which its author attempts to give students, who desire more zoology either from general or professional interest, a foundational knowledge of inverte¬ brate morphology, and very wisely he makes no -attempt to overload a large subject with the many other interesting facts by which we often think to re-clothe the dead bones — or in this case perhaps one should say shells — of morphology. The types included are as fol¬ lows : Paramcecium, Grantia, Pennaria, Sertu- laria, Tima, Gonionemus, Aurelia, Metridium, Dendrocoelum, Dicrocoelium, Tcenia, Ascaris, Lumbricus, Nereis, Hirudo, Daphnia, Ho- marus, Schistocerca, Agelena, Asterias, Ophio- pholis, Pentacrinus, Arbacia, Thy one, Venus, Limax, Loligo and Molgula. This list is com¬ prehensive and probably represents as much work as can be accomplished in the time allotted to a course of this nature. Other forms are promised, if the sales warrant a sub¬ sequent edition. From the morphological standpoint, this list is excellent and the re¬ viewer would only suggest that the addition of another Gastropod, preferably Helix, of notes on the fresh-water mussel and of something further upon the Entomostraca would be of value. The presence of the fluke Dicrocoelium lanceatum in the list is an innovation which will doubtless be welcome to American zool¬ ogists, since it is so highly recommended ; though the reviewer has found a fluke from the frog’s lung, which he identifies as of the genus Hcematoloechus, extremely satisfactory when properly fixed and stained. The very com¬ plete account of the spider Agelena ncevia is a valuable addition, as the arachnids have often received scant attention, and reflects the author’s familiarity with this class of in¬ vertebrates. In a paragraph entitled “ Mate¬ rial,” which appears at the beginning of each chapter, there is given a brief statement of the specimens and preparations needed for the work outlined and of the author’s methods of technique. This information is valuable and in a number of instances, such as the use of a leaf in the killing of Dendrocoelum lacteum mentioned on page 55 and the method of pre¬ paring Tcenia, page 72, the reviewer notes methods with which his experience in inverte¬ brate zoology has not made him familiar. The distinctive feature of the volume is the elimination of explanations and interroga¬ tions from the Instructions and the inclusion of all such matter in the Descriptive Part which is a morphological monograph of the form under discussion. The “ instructions ” are reduced to such a degree that those for the simpler forms and the sections of those for more complex forms covering any one day’s work might almost be written out in full on a blackboard of moderate size. There is no attempt to put the student through his paces or teach the method of induction through the medium of the laboratory instructions. Such brief directions demand rather more of the instructor, but the plan is a good one with students of the class for whom the book has been written, as the reviewer knows from having once or twice tried a similar scheme in his own classes. In looking through these instructions one gains an impression that there are some drawings suggested which are too difficult for any one without pronounced artistic ability, as, for example, the figure of the mouth parts of the lobster mentioned on page 137, and there is perhaps a tendency to¬ ward more isolated figures and fewer larger and more comprehensive ones. This state¬ ment, however, represents an impression which might not be justified after the actual use of the book in the laboratory. As a matter for special commendation, the author of this re¬ view notes the procedure outlined for the dis¬ section of Molgula, which can be recommended since it is essentially like a method which has been developed in my own laboratory after some disappointment at the failure of students to master what seemed an easy matter. The figures are few in number, but in the main good. Those of the Nematode on pages 792 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1144 80 and 82 and tile longitudinal section of the lobster on page 129 are obscure and need to be redrawn with a view to clearness and per¬ spective. The old Parker & Haswell figure of Anodonta which appears on page 209 has been through the mill of text-books in the past twenty years and looks it. By comparison with its appearance in the original edition of the work from which it was taken it presents a sorry spectacle and it is time such a plate went to the scrap-heap. In Figs. 28 and 31, the explanations are written at the ends of label lines and not below with reference letters or abbreviations on the figures. Without criti¬ cism of the present work, we may ask why this practise is not more common. The time re¬ quired for reference is distinctly less and the eye work not so much of an effort in the ex¬ amination of a figure so labeled. The great majority of the figures in this volume might have been labeled by writing the words in full at the ends of the label lines, and when we come to recognize the importance of every little saving in eye strain this is one of the reforms which will be effected. It is stated in the preface that “ the student is expected to read the descriptive part at home, the day before ” and thus to prepare himself for the laboratory exercise. The reviewer ob¬ jects to this on pedagogical grounds because in his experience one of the least profitable things a student can do is to read accounts of things he has not yet seen when it is possible for him to see them first and particularly when he is to see them next day. Although quite familiar with most of the forms included in this volume, the reader will find it something of an effort to picture to himself the morphol¬ ogy of the animal in question, and what must it be to the student who has never seen the inside of a starfish or a squid. Can he really do otherwise than create at some labor a mental picture which he will find incorrect the next day and which might have been simply and correctly formed if such a morphological account had followed rather than preceded his study of a given form. The experience of one of my old teachers, who once remarked that for twenty years he had tried to understand Nautilus from accounts in published papers and always thought of it as a form with struc¬ tures most difficult to understand, comes to mind. At last by chance he obtained a speci¬ men which he was able to dissect for himself, and then he wondered at its simplicity and thought how few difficulties the animal would present to one beginning with the actual speci¬ men. In a work like the present volume, the individual instructor is left free to use the monographic parts in any relation to the labo¬ ratory work he may choose and the writer believes that, as a matter of economy and efficiency in learning, the student should use these accounts at the same time or subsequent to the laboratory study, for it is very difficult to understand such matters in advance where the figures are so few. The only difficulty in the way of such use of the present volume is the brevity of the instructions, which are, of course, written with reference to the mono¬ graphic accounts ; but there should be no diffi¬ culty in the student’s using the two together as he works in the laboratory, since both are in one volume. We should not object to reading in the laboratory save that it can also be done elsewhere, and it would be a fortunate thing if we could make the laboratory more a place of quiet study both of animals and of books than one for an altogether mechanical process of dissection and drawing. My suggestion for the efficient use of such a book would be that the student read the monographic parts as he needs them in the laboratory and again with great thoroughness in reviewing his work and when his completed drawings may serve as illustrations; though for my own purposes I prefer a less complete separation of “ in¬ structions ” and “ explanations.” Other points which had been jotted down in reading for this review appear now of such a minor nature that to mention them might seem like petty criticism. The book is well done, clear, concise and to the point and shows a mastery of invertebrate morphology which may be envied. It is not a work which gives the impression of having been carelessly put together. Whatever criticisms one may have, it should be remembered that it is for the December 1, 1916] SCIENCE 793 use of older students who will have their own ways of working, and the very brevity of the laboratory instructions allows greater latitude for both student and teacher. The older courses in invertebrate zoology are being crowded in these days when zoology has devel¬ oped so much of interest, but some of us have always insisted that it is preposterous for a man to go into zoological work without at least as much knowledge of invertebrate mor¬ phology as is set forth in this volume and a man should get this as an undergraduate. Students who have other scientific interests or whose interest in zoology has no direct rela¬ tion to their subsequent work may well elect, after an introductory study, other courses in preference to this ; but for the young zoologist such a knowledge of morphology is a founda¬ tion stone, and perhaps our author has pro¬ duced a volume that will be more lasting be¬ cause it makes no attempt to modernize the invertebrate course, but offers it on an exclu¬ sively morphological basis, leaving the other things to the newer courses in ecology and parasitology and field zoology which are al¬ ready in our midst. In behalf of the publishers it may be said that the typographical work is up to their usual standard and the surface and quality of the paper ideal for a work of this nature. Winterton C. Curtis CAPTAIN WHITE’S RECENT EXPLORA¬ TORY WORK IN AUSTRALIA For several years past I have corresponded regularly with that most indefatigable ex¬ plorer of certain unknown regions in Australia — Captain S. A. White, of Adelaide. Captain Wliite, who is a member of many scientific societies and institutions, resides upon his ele¬ gant estate at Fulham, South Australia, and almost every year, in one capacity or another, he becomes connected with expeditions that explore the entirely unknown regions of the far northwest parts of the Australian conti¬ nent. On these trips he is accompanied by his wife, who cheerfully shares her husband’s trials and dangers, and she is more than entitled to her quota of the glory and credit of their com¬ mon discoveries. No fewer than fourteen of these hazardous trips have been made — some of them lasting many months — the travelers pressing their way into the most remote and unexplored districts of this great island con¬ tinent. Upon the return of the expedition, Captain White usually publishes their dis¬ coveries in some of the scientific journals, such as the Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia; but in addition to these ac¬ counts he gets out popular ones in booklet form, and he has kindly presented me with several of these, covering some of the more important expeditions. The last one of these is now before me; and, as its recorded results, discoveries and contributions to science are so remarkable, I am sure that no apology is re¬ quired for making a brief notice of them here. This, the fourteenth excursion of the kind, was made during 1914, the start having been made about the middle of June. On this occa¬ sion Captain White officially represented the Royal Society of South Australia and the Royal Geographical Society of Australia as the associated naturalist, and he was fully equipped for the most varied duties pertaining to that part of the work. Mr. G. M. Mathews, F.R.S.E., the distinguished ornithologist of Australia, accompanied them, with other noted individuals, the party as a whole being a large one. Baggage and collecting material of all kinds was packed on camels, sixteen of these valuable animals forming a part of the expe¬ dition, which, for this particular year, was known as the “ Geological Survey Expedi¬ tion.” It started at the terminus of the rail¬ road on June 17, 1914, at a place called Oodnadatta, with all hands well and every¬ thing in fine shape. After reaching the Alberga River, it followed this stream more or less closely for a long distance, and then made direct for the Everard range of mountains, where considerable collecting and survey work was accomplished. Skirting the foothills, it returned to Moor ily anno N. Well, and took a side route to examine Indulkana Spur and neighboring territory. The route then led to the Musgrave ranges far beyond, the expedi¬ tion being subjected to terrible hardships on 794 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1144 account of the heat, the drought that prevailed, lack of water, and similar causes. Captain White’s booklet of 200 pages is a day-to-day record of the entire history of this expedition, with a detailed account of its achievements for science. He took many valu¬ able photographs of natives, animals, botanical specimens and localities, and not a few of these have been reproduced to illustrate the little volume, while a map of the route trav¬ ersed is inserted opposite the preface. Many of the mammals, birds and other forms of life are described in great detail, and in the most lucid and interesting manner. A great part of this must necessarily be omitted from the brief notice I am now writing, and the space allowed me given over only to a reference to the more important discoveries and results achieved by the party. Among the first suc¬ cesses scored was the rediscovery of John Gould’s long-lost bird, Aphelocephala pecto- ralis, formerly Xerophila pectoralis, a single specimen having been taken in 1871 and lost shortly thereafter. Several specimens were obtained by Captain White and his most effi¬ cient collector, Mr. J. P. Rogers. On one page he writes, about six or seven days after the start : A little after noon we reached one of Mr. Bread- en’s wells near Murdaruma, on the Woldridge Creek, where the camels were watered and we had some lunch. One of those tragedies which are so often enacted in the far-back country came under our notice. A bait had been laid for wild dogs, and a fine dingo had been successfully poisoned; but, unfortunately, a party of wedge-tailed eagles had attacked the carcass of -the dog, the result being that some of these fine birds lay dead around, the great wings stretched out (they are the largest eagles in the world) over the ground in their last agonies, others were sitting round, unable to escape, due to the paralyzing effect of the poison (p. 16). All the scientific members of the expedition became much excited as it approached the Mus- grave range, for scarcely anything was known of the flora and fauna there, and footprints of the “ wild men ” had already been discovered by the camel drivers. Almost at once a new plant was collected, and it has since been named by Mr. Black Foxanthes whitei. The weather was cold, and the water-bags froze hard during the night. There is a fine descrip¬ tion given of Glen Ferdinand, and of some of the remarkable birds found in the surrounding region. Among these may be mentioned the rare blue-vented parrot ( Neopsephoatus burhii), the crested pigeons ( Ocyphaps lophotes), the white-fronted honey-eaters {Ramsay ornis albifrons) , and the curious little buff-tliroated grass-wren ( Diaphorillas t. pur- nelli), a most extraordinary species both in coloration and in habits. Some of the species of ants met with are described in detail by Captain White, and the description of their nests and their ways makes a most interesting chapter, not to say a very remarkable one. Some of the boulders and rocks and walls of the great caverns had strange pictographs upon them, drawn there by some unknown natives ; there were other evidences of the latter’s existence. In due time the expedition returned to the Everard ranges ; the main one was entered and the signs of the existence of natives became more abundant. Footprints were fresh, and every one felt that these strange people would soon be met with in their own little-known land. Soon they were heard giving signal calls, which a native with the expedition answered as best he could, for he was not of their tribe. Finally a dozen or so of them put in an ap¬ pearance. Captain White says : They were all armed with two or three spears of the single-barb variety, which they called “ooruta, ’’ a yam stick, “wanar,” and they also carried a long-shaped wooden bowl, ‘ ‘ mera, ’ ’ which is used for carrying food, for scooping out the sandy soil when hunting for food, and for many other uses. They did not wear covering of any kind. A single or double strand of hair string encircled their waists, and their chests were cov¬ ered with red ochre, with a circle of white down from the wedge-tailed eagle, extending from one armpit down to the lower part of the chest and up to the other armpit; the down is stuck to the skin by means of human blood. They were mostly young men, and their hair was bound into a chig¬ non shape, which stood out, in some cases, over a December 1, 1916] SCIENCE 795 foot behind and was decorated with hawk ’s feathers (p. 76). As these natives followed along with the expedition for a number of days. Captain White was afforded the opportunity to study not a few of their habits and customs; indeed, before this exploratory excursion drew to a close, he not only was the discoverer of an en¬ tirely new tribe, but he contributed a mass of ethnological and anthropological knowledge to what we formerly knew of the native tribes. This was not only new, but also of great im¬ portance, especially in view of the fact that these black men are now gradually being elimi¬ nated by the whites, and will soon become utterly extinct. Miscegenation with respect to the two races practically amounts to nil; moreover, the native women, as in the cases of other low races, are usually nonfertile in such crossing. The women of this tribe never wear clothing of any kind, and Captain White’s photographs of them exhibit those he succeeded in obtain¬ ing entirely nude. They have great affection for their children, and are much pleased when strangers pay them any attention. The pecu¬ liar ceremonies of this tribe are described by our intrepid explorer with very considerable detail, and among other things he remarks : The dry watercourse before mentioned still tra¬ versing our line of march, we were at times pass¬ ing over its loose, sandy beds, with a row of red- gums (which lined the watercourse) on either side. A native would give forth a sharp exclamation while looking up into one of the gumtrees. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, half a dozen natives would be up that tree, their lithe, muscular and naked forms moving from branch to branch with the ease of apes. They were in search of the large white grubs, or larvae, of a well-known moth, which passes the first part of its existence boring in the gum wood. These grubs are much sought after by the natives, who call them “margoo. ” It is wonderful how they can tell at a glance if the grub is at home, and how well they can make a hole in the gum wood with a sharp-pointed stick hardened by fire! When the search was over, down they would come again to mother earth with a grunt, and on the march again. Not an item of anything missed these happy children of the des¬ ert. They would try to show me a bird, a reptile or an insect at a distance when the object was stationary; and after several minutes of vain at¬ tempts to show me where it was, the object would move off; if I showed my vexation, they would laugh softly and pass remarks among themselves. Tracks, which these wild men saw at a glance as they walked along, the sight expressed only by a nasal “hem, hem” and the outspreading of the fingers, or the pointing in a certain direction with the index one, were not revealed to me, when, on hands and knees, I was peering into the spot where the track, to my dusky companions, was easily seen; and when I rose with a shake of the head, they only quietly laughed and passed on, wondering, no doubt, at the slow-witted white man. Captain White found but few mammals in the country traversed, and snakes, too, were rare. Upon the other hand, quite a number of new birds were taken, and the specimens brought back with the party. In fact, ninety- four species of birds were collected, five of which were new. Many undescribed insects were found in the stomachs of the small birds brought back, and the main collection of spiders and insects contained a great many more entirely new forms. New moths and ants were also taken, the latter being worked up by Professor W. M. Wheeler, of Harvard University. Professor Wheeler found nineteen species of ants new to science. Five new plants were found in the two hundred species col¬ lected, one of which was a heretofore un¬ described species of tobacco. Another expedition will soon be organized; doubtless many more novelties will be dis¬ covered, and more exhaustive studies made of the rapidly disappearing natives. R. W. Shufeldt Washington, D. C., September 14, 1916 SPECIAL ARTICLES THE OVULATION PERIOD IN RATS There are many observations on the occur¬ rence of ovulation in mammals; but very few investigations on the regular recurrence of that event, perhaps because of the fact that such investigation must involve the systematic study of sections of whole ovaries and oviducts of animals killed at frequent intervals over 796 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1144 a considerable period of time. This has been done by Leo Loeb for the guinea-pig. Lor the rat there are no published observations except those by Kirkham and Burr (1913), from which it is to be inferred that the ovarian cycle has a length of twenty-one days. Although further studies on the rat are being carried on by the senior author, it seems worth while at this time to present in outline the chief conclusions arrived at, reserving for a later paper a more complete presentation and discussion of evidence. The most obvious and certain evidence of the occurrence of ovulation is the presence of eggs in the oviduct. It is chiefly upon this kind of evidence that the conclusions are based. There is also a further source of infor¬ mation concerning the ovarian cycle in the corpora lutea, formed in most cases from the ripe follicles which have discharged their eggs. The corpora lutea grow and undergo such changes before degenerating that there may be as many as 40 in one ovary, of which only the youngest and oldest can sometimes be identified with certainty. However, the newest corpora up to an age of about 2J days can be distin¬ guished from older ones. Such young corpora are always present when eggs are in the ovi¬ duct, and their absence when no eggs exist in the tubes is additional proof that ovulation either has not occurred (especially if the ovary contains large follicles), or took place several days before. All of the 80 females used were isolated from males before their last litters were born, and thereafter were kept alone or with other fe¬ males. Also their young were at once removed, usually before being suckled. The ovaries and oviducts were sectioned, the position of the eggs (when present) in the oviduct was determined, and the condition of the corpora lutea noted. The animals were killed at intervals during 101 days after par¬ turition, 67 of the 80 rats being taken during the first four 10-day periods as follows: 1 to 9 days, 18 rats 10 i ( 19 ( ( 15 i c 20 ( ( 29 ( C 17 ( ( 30 c c 39 ( ( 12 i ( 40 i ( 42 C ( 5 ( ( making an almost complete series at one-day intervals. They are grouped at still closer in¬ tervals about the tenth, twentieth, thirtieth and fortieth days. The rest of the animals were killed only at about ten-day intervals from 50 to 101 days. Unfertilized eggs pass through the oviduct in about three days, usually having degenerated by the end of that time, as determined by a study of 15 animals killed during the first four days post partum. Accordingly the distance traveled by the eggs in the oviduct is of impor¬ tance and was taken into account in estimating the time of ovulation. Of the 80 animals examined 49 revealed eggs in the oviduct. To these may be added 14 more in which it is permissible to estimate the time of ovulation. Summarized they are as follows : Ovulating after Parturition Rats Days Averag* 15 . . £- 1 11 . 1 . . 94- . 15i 13} 11 13 . 1 . . 19 - . 241 234 1 20 5 . . 27£- 344 J 304 5 . . 38 - 414 394 2 . . 494- 50 50 2 . . 571- 584 58 2 . . 67£— 704 69 2 . . 78 - 82 80 2 . . 87 - 894 89 2 . . 97J-101 99 Of the other 17 rats none had eggs in the ovi¬ duct, and the ovaries presented no evidence of recent ovulations. They were killed between the periods enumerated above. The foregoing indicates that female rats when kept isolated from males ovulate on the average every 10 days. J. A. Long, Jessie E. Quisno Zoological Laboratory, University of California OVULATION IN MICE It has been known since the time of Tafani (1889) that mice normally ovulate soon after giving birth to litters. According to Sobotta (1895) a second ovulation takes place in December 1, 1916] SCIENCE 797 nursing mothers on an average 21 days after parturition, a discovery he made use of in his study of maturation. There are no other printed records of spontaneous ovulations in addition to that coming immediately after parturition. The following is a summary of the results, with respect to the occurrence of ovulation, of an investigation, still under way, of the ova¬ rian cycle in mice. The study is being carried on in the same way as for rats outlined in the preceding article. Sixty-two female mice of various coat colors were bred, allowed to have their litters when isolated from males, kept alone or with other females, and killed at intervals during a pe¬ riod of 91 days. Most (52) were killed during the first 56 days at intervals of about 2 days, except between 18 and 21 days, 34 and 38, and 50 and 56 days when the interval was a day or less. The rest of the animals were taken be¬ tween 70 and 74 and 87£ and 91 days. The sections of the ovaries and oviducts were examined for eggs in the oviduct and for the youngest corpora lutea. In determining the time of ovulation the position of the eggs in the oviduct was considered; and the pres¬ ence or absence of the youngest corpora lutea was used as a check. The examination of these mice indicated that the second ovulation occurred at from 15 to 19 days following parturition, the third at about 35, the fifth at 69 to 72, and the sixth at 87 to 90. Mo ovulation was found at the ex¬ pected fourth, perhaps because too few ani¬ mals were killed at that time. But it is sig¬ nificant that of those animals killed at 70 to 74, and 87 to 91 days which fall within the ex¬ pected later ovulation periods, 3 and 2 animals were found to have ovulated at the sixth and seventh periods respectively; also that none of the mice killed between the ovulation periods was found to have ovulated. It thus appears that the normal ovulation period in mice recurs at about 174 to 18 days. J. A. Long, H. P. Smith Zoological Laboratory, University of California AGAR AGAR FOR BACTERIOLOGICAL USE Agar agar is used by so many, as a basis of nutrient media, that any suggestion as to how to select the most suitable grade is worthy of consideration. Fellers1 has recently published some bac¬ teriological studies on agar agar. The same author2 has also prepared a paper on the com¬ position of agar agar and given methods for purifying commercial agar. Mo matter how easy the method proposed for the purification of a substance is, we have to select that which we intend to purify. One of the best ways of determining the stability of an organic sub¬ stance is to find out how much it will be hydrolyzed under the conditions it is to be used. Hydrolysis is, generally, increased with temperature, and thus increased acidity at high temperatures is often due to greater hydrolysis at the high temperatures. If substances show an increased acidity at high temperatures, but when cooled back to normal temperatures re¬ turn to the acidity they had before the heating, the high temperatures have not materially changed their composition. Some samples of agar agar have been known to develop a large increased permanent acidity due to autoclav¬ ing. It is evident that such samples should not be used for accurate work. The increased acidity due to autoclaving and due to titra¬ tion made in hot solutions can be made use of in selecting agar agar for laboratory use. The following described test has been found to designate the superiority of some samples of agar agar over others. Samples chosen by means of this test are always those which go completely in solution when heated with car¬ bon dioxide free distilled water. Further media made with them have a lower acidity than media made with agars not so good by the test. THE TEST The test depends on the increase in acidity of water' solutions of the agar due to auto¬ claving and to titrations made near 100° C. 1 Fellers, Soil Science, Yol. II., No. 3, p. 255. 2 Fellers, Jour. Ind. and Eng. Chem. (Article to appear soon.) 798 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1144 Several samples of agar each claimed to be the best that some commercial house has in stock are secured. Powdered and shredded agar are used alike. The shreds are cut up into half-inch lengths, so that aliquots may be more representative. (An ordinary print trimmer makes a very satisfactory agar cutter.) As many 500 c.c. Erlenmeyer flasks (Jena, pyrex or non-sol glass) as there are samples to be tested are cleaned, dried and weighed to within 0.1 gm. 4.5 gm. of agar agar are put in each flask and enough carbon diox¬ ide free distilled water added to make the con¬ tents of the flask up to 300 gm. The flasks are shaken and put in a bath containing boil¬ ing water. They are shaken at intervals to aid solution of the agar. When the agar has dissolved the flasks are removed and contents brought up to original weight with hot carbon dioxide free distilled water. 25 gm. aliquots of the agar solutions thus prepared are weighed out in triplicate intd 350 c.c. Erlenmeyer flasks (Jena, pyrex or non-sol glass) which have just been rinsed with hot carbon dioxide free distilled water. The triplicates for each sample are designated for convenience A, B, C — thus those from sample No. 1 would be 1 A, IB and 1C. To each A flask is added approximately 250 c.c. of hot carbon dioxide free distilled water. The flasks are shaken until the con¬ tents appear homogeneous. They are stoppered and set to one side until they v attain room temperature. The B and C flasks are tightly stoppered by cotton plugs and autoclaved for 15 minutes under 15 pounds pressure. After autoclaving about 250 c.c. hot carbon dioxide free distilled water is added to the B and C flasks. The B flasks are restoppered and left to cool to room temperature. The C flasks are set on a steam bath. When the contents of the C flasks are up to 95° C. or above, they are re¬ moved individually and titrated at once with iV/10 or N/ 20 carbon dioxide free alkali. One drop of a 1 per cent, phenolpthalein solution is used as the indicator. The titration is finished when the faintest discernible, yet permanent, pink color appears. The A and B flasks are titrated in the same manner after they have cooled to room temperature. CURRENT year’s TEST OF AGAR AGARS Seven samples of agar agar were secured in answer to letters to five concerns. Five sam¬ ples were shredded agar, one a powdered agar and one, “ Bacto Agar.” Sample No. 1 in the table is the powdered agar and No. 4 is “ Bacto Agar.” All samples were uniform, clean and bright, except No. 5, which was darker, dirty and ununiform. TABLE i Acidity of Agar Agar Solutions and Nitrogen Con¬ tent of Agars Used No. Titrated R. T.,3 NA. Titrated R. T., A. Increase due to A. Titrated H., A. Nitrogen in Agar 1 .060% (a) .040% -.020% .100% •27% 2 .040 .080 -f. 040 .120 “(1) 3 .040 .060 +.020 .140 .31 4 .040 .060 +.020 .088 .31 5 .052 .080 +.028 .142 .16 6 .036 .032 -.004 .076 .27 7 .044 .052 + .008 .100 .27 THE TABLE SHOWS 1. That the maximum variation in aicidity between samples of agar agar when titrated at room temperatures is only .024 per cent, be¬ fore autoclaving, but is doubled by auto¬ claving. 2. Titrating the autoclaved aliquots when hot accentuates the differences between sam¬ ples, the maximum variation being greater than the greatest acidity of the unautoclaved aliquots. 3. Sample No. 6 has the lowest acidity in all cases. Sample No. 6 is the most stable because autoclaving and heating change its reaction least. II. A. Noyes Purdue Agricultural Experiment Station, LaFayette, Indiana 3 R. T. = Room temperature. A. = Autoclaved. NA. = Not autoclaved. H. = 95° C. or above. (1) = No sample left for determination. (a) 1.0# = requirement of 1. c.c. normal acid per 100 c.c. SCIENCE Friday, December 8, 1916 CONTENTS Medicine as a Career: Dr. Victor C. Vaughan. 799 Keith Lucas: Dr. Alexander Forbes . 808 \ Industrial Eesearch in Canada . 810 Scientific Notes and News . 811 University and Educational News . 814 Discussion and Correspondence : — Observations of the Aurora of August 26 from British Columbia and Alaska: Kay Alexander, Fred K. Vreeland, Erastus Brainerd, William S. Cooper, Alfred H. Brooks, M. O. Malte. The Auroras of 1859: Geo. M. Searle. Inferences concern¬ ing Auroras : Dr. Elihu Thomson. A Busi¬ ness Man’s Appraisement of Biology: Pro¬ fessor Wm. E. Bitter. Psychology as con¬ traband: Professor Howard C. Warren . . 815 Quotations : — Food Control . 822 Scientific Boohs: — Rivers on the History of Melanesian So¬ ciety : Dr. A. A. Goldenweiser . 824 Special Articles: — Lobster Mating — a Means of Conserving the Lobster Industry: A. P. Knight . 828 The Royal Society of Canada: Dr. H. M. Ami. 832 MSS. intended for publication and boobs, etc., intended for reriew should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison- On-Hudson, N. Y. MEDICINE AS A CAREER1 Students of Medicine: Yon have chosen your life work. You have elected to de¬ vote your time ant} energy to the science and art of medicine. It is hoped that you fully realize the importance of this decision and that you have not come here without adequate deliberation and comprehension of the heavy tasks you have assumed in taking this step. In view of the possibility that some of you have made a mistake, I have decided to spend this hour in pre¬ senting to you a few of the duties and obli¬ gations which you are assuming and if there be among you those who feel that the burdens to be borne are too heavy and the personal gain too light, let such not hesi¬ tate to stop and turn back on the threshold. Medicine needs recruits, but it desires and will accept only those who, after severe tests, it deems worthy. I am aware of the fact that the words of the experienced fall lightly upon the ears of the inexperienced, but one who has served in the ranks for nearly forty years offers you advice. I wish to say that the fatality among med¬ ical students is great. In the past ten years, less than sixty per cent, of those who have entered this school have suc¬ ceeded in winning its diploma, and of those who have gained this distinction not all have fulfilled the confidence imposed in them by the faculty. It is not my expec¬ tation that you will do better than preced¬ ing classes. Medicine embraces all facts which may be utilized in the prevention or alleviation of diseases. Its chief contributory sci- i Address at the opening of the University of Michigan Medical School, October 3, 1916. 800 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1145 ences are physics, chemistry and biology. It is for this reason that a knowledge of the fundamental principles and facts of these basic sciences is required for admission to the better medical schools. Some of you will fail because your training in these sciences has been inadequate. Teachers in the medical school can not take the time nor can they hold back better trained stu¬ dents to instruct those* who are deficient. By the end of the first year most of these unfortunates are asked to withdraw. With the best possible preparation the medical student finds his daily task quite as much as the strong can carry and alto¬ gether too heavy for the weakling. There has been some discussion among medical educators concerning the curriculum, some contending that it is too heavy for the average student. This depends upon what is meant by the ‘ ‘ average student. ’ ’ If the standard set in college work is applied, I am of the opinion that medicine does not want such “average students.” I am con¬ vinced that a strong student, of a high aver¬ age, can carry the medical work as now im¬ posed and that the imposition of a heavy task succeeds in weeding out the unfit and is therefore desirable. We do not develop muscles by lifting feather weights, nor do we strengthen brain activity without earnest effort. The aim of medical educa¬ tion is to develop strong men, and in order to do so difficult tasks must be imposed in the training. A strong intellect is not enough to insure success to the medical student. Intellect must be backed by industry, otherwise it is of but little value. For lack of industry many medical students fall by the wayside. After forty years as a teacher in this school, I am of the opinion that lack of proper application to the work is the most potent cause of failure among the students. In his collegiate course the work has been light, easily done. He has had a good record, but has failed to establish habits of study. Some allurement causes him to neg¬ lect his tasks for a day and then for a week. Soon, he finds himself quite in the rear. His bluff at recitation does not go. His teachers question his intellectual strength and honesty. He becomes a dere¬ lict and must be removed for his own and others’ good. A third essential to success in medicine is integrity. When endowed with a high degree of intelligence, supported by the greatest industry but without integrity, the medical man is likely to prove a disgrace to his profession and a menace to the com¬ munity in which he lives. That integrity has been regarded as an essential qualifica¬ tion of the practitioner of medicine from the earliest times is shown by the exaction of the Hippocratic oath supposed to have been formulated by the father of the pro¬ fession. The medical man must be honest with himself, his patients and the public. For personal gain he must not pretend to greater knowledge or skill than he pos¬ sesses. Professional ethics insist that in the announcement of his purpose to serve the community he must restrict himself to the simplest statement. The public has long ridiculed the restrictions which the med¬ ical profession has attempted, with more or less success, to impose upon its own members, but that the public is now reach¬ ing a point where it appreciates the right¬ eousness of medical ethics is shown by re¬ cent legislation forbidding false and ex¬ aggerated advertisements. The first thing for the honest man in becoming a physician to do is to secure the best possible prepara¬ tion. To enter upon the practise of medi¬ cine or to continue in it without adequate preparation is a crime — a moral, if not a statutory one. The public has come to this view and there is no other profession, ad¬ mission to which is so strictly guarded as that of medicine. State laws set the stand- December 8, 1916] SCIENCE 801 ards of admission to medical schools and state licensing boards test medical gradu¬ ates. The best intentions do not supply the deficiencies due to lack of knowledge and skill. It certainly can be said that in the practise of medicine knowledge is a vir¬ tue and ignorance a crime. Recognizing the fact that no man, however great his in¬ telligence and untiring his industry, can be skilled in all branches of the healing art, individuals select specialties in which they strive to make themselves experts and these so group themselves that each patient may have the advice of an expert. The wisdom of this procedure and its advantages to both practitioner and patient must be evident to all. Each individual in such a group must know his specialty and must keep in touch with its progress. Medicine is a progres¬ sive science. Each year adds to its effec¬ tiveness. Discoveries in physics, chemis¬ try and biology find practical application in the prevention or cure of disease. It fol¬ lows that the efficient medical man must continue to be a student so long as he re¬ mains an active member of the profession. In medicine there are no “papal bulls” no “ipse dixits” and even “precedent” is shown but scant respect. It is best com¬ pared to a living plant constantly drawing sustenance from soil and air, dropping its withered leaves and branches, ever putting forth buds and blossoms and bearing each season better fruit. One who is not capable of sustained effort should seek some other calling in life. Occasionally I meet with men who are still living professionally in their undergraduate days, reading the same old hooks, and writing the same old pre¬ scriptions, both blind and deaf to the changed environment. Fortunately the more intelligent of the public easily recog¬ nize these fossils and appraise them at their true worth. They are interesting as relics of the past, but worthless in the present. From the time of Hippocrates to the present, wise men in the profession have always advocated amity among its mem¬ bers and I must say after many years of personal experience that there is no other high professional ideal so difficult in reali¬ zation, but I am proud to add that there never has been a time when the promise of the realization of this ideal has been so great as at present. In this matter medical men have learned much from the commer¬ cial world in which the value of coopera¬ tion has been so abundantly demonstrated. The efficiency of the individual has been in¬ creased and the value of the product has been improved. Much regret has been ex¬ pressed concerning what is called the pass¬ ing or the elimination of the old-time fam¬ ily physician or general practitioner. In the slow development of scientific medicine he served his fellow men, often with the greatest devotion and self-sacrifice. The history of epidemics shows him to have been often worthy of the highest honor. He has faithfully served his fellow men in times of dire distress. Occasionally he has made contributions of the greatest value to science. In the record of the slow progress of man from the marshes of ignorance and superstition to the uplands of knowledge and science he bears a conspicuous and honorable place, but in the practise of mod¬ ern medicine his part is a subordinate one. In any community in which several physicians are singly doing a general prac¬ tise, cooperation, with the development into skilled specialists, results in individual effi¬ ciency among the medical men and better service to their clientele. With a properly equipped hospital at their service, a group of village physicians may give their pa¬ tients the same scientific and effective treat¬ ment that they can secure in larger med¬ ical centers. I have no sympathy with the contention that our rural population de- 802 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1145 mands cheaply educated physicians. With trolley cars and automobiles there are but few in need of medical aid who are so lo¬ cated that a good physician may not soon reach them, or what is better, that they can not soon be transported to a hospital. A friend who has long practised in a small Montana city recently told me that twenty and more years ago his ride sometimes car¬ ried him one hundred and twenty-five miles from home. One such visit to a case of pneumonia is unsatisfactory to the doctor and of but little benefit to the sick man. Now, the automobile brings the patient to a well-equipped hospital where several physi¬ cians may daily consult concerning the case and trained nurses be constantly in attend¬ ance. When I was in medical practise, like the milk man, I made my daily rounds, seeing cases of scarlet fever, diphtheria, some¬ times smallpox, pneumonia, various ner¬ vous diseases, attending cases of labor and in short I was a general practitioner. Like others of the kind, I did the best I could for all and I am able to say with some pride that in no case did I carry infection from house to house. However, in order to avoid this I often had to change my clothing and disinfect my person many times in one day. This kind of practise is still largely in vogue, but it is gradually being displaced by hospital treatment in which specialists direct and trained nurses administer. The greatest need of practical medicine to-day is more and better equipped hospitals. With these the specialist and the skilled nurse will multiply and improve. Such hospitals should be supplied with thor¬ oughly equipped and competently manned diagnostic laboratories which should serve not only curative but preventive medi¬ cine. Water and milk supplies should be examined daily and visiting nurses under the direction of a competent health officer should constantly patrol the community. Adjunct dispensaries which should serve as schools of instruction in baby feeding and care, child welfare, home sanitation and in everything pertaining to healthy living should supplement the community hos¬ pitals. When in addition to these agencies the people generally can be educated to see the benefits that would follow the periodic thorough examination of all in order to de¬ tect the first departure from the normal, then medicine will be able to render its highest service to mankind. It must be evident that if these hopes are to materialize the practise of medicine must become more and more a state function. That the tendency is in this direction and that this should be encouraged for the pub¬ lic good are not matters of doubt in my mind. Only a few years ago some of the most eminent men in the profession com¬ bated earnestly state support of medical education. They claimed that the state had no right to establish and maintain medical schools and that such aid was not fair in competition with the proprietary schools, which at that time educated more than ninety per cent, of the annual recruits to the profession. Now, no one questions either the right or the duty of the state to . establish and support medical schools, while the proprietary schools, having proved wholly inadequate and inefficient, have practically ceased to exist. Even the man in the street sees the advantages that have resulted from these changes. To state that a medical school is a proprietary one, in the sense generally understood by that term, immediately condemns it with intelli¬ gent men. Courts from the lowest to the highest in the land have uniformly held that the state has the right to maintain its own medical school, also to pass upon the merits of other schools both within and without its borders, to set up standards December 8, 1916] SCIENCE 803 of medical education, to define the require¬ ments of admission to medical schools, to submit those who wish to practise within its borders to certain intellectual and moral tests in order to pass upon their profes¬ sional fitness and to revoke the licenses of the unwTorthy. The federal government has its public health service which passes upon immigrants, controls national quar¬ antine, maintains a research laboratory, supervises the manufacture and sale of vac¬ cines and antitoxins, and stands ready to aid any state in combating epidemics. Each state has its board of health, the pow¬ ers, functions and efficiency of which vary widely. Our great municipalities have their boards of health and commissioners of health which for the most part are efficient, but in some instances are parts of a polit¬ ical machine. Our smaller cities and rural communities have their boards and health officers, which with some notable exceptions, fortunately in increasing numbers, are cheap, ignorant and inefficient. By means of these organizations, imper¬ fect as many of them are, the death rate in the registered area of the United States has been reduced in the past thirty years from twenty to fourteen per thousand, the average life has been increased more than ten years, and the mortality from tubercu¬ losis and other infectious diseases has been reduced about fifty per cent. On account of the greater efficiency of the health serv¬ ice in our larger cities, the reduction in the death rate has been more marked in these than in smaller cities and rural communi¬ ties. The greatest reduction in mortality has been secured in our cities of one hun¬ dred thousand or more. Our metropolis, New York, has a municipal health service which is second to none in the world. It supports a research laboratory in which the highest grade of scientific investigation is done, diagnostic laboratories in which diphtheria cultures, suspected sputum, blood examination and other tests essential to scientific medicine are made and labora¬ tories in which water and food supplies are carefully guarded. It has a corps of ex¬ pert diagnosticians ready to aid the prac¬ titioner in all suspected cases, free of charge to either the medical man or the pa¬ tient. It provides medical-school inspectors who detect infection in its earliest stages, excellent hospitals in which the sick have the best care and treatment and nurses who patrol the tenements and other homes of the poor and give instruction in sanita¬ tion. It examines cooks and waiters to see that none of these may distribute typhoid fever, tuberculosis, syphilis or other infec¬ tions. It inspects meat markets, bakeries, milk stations and other places of food supply and has the authority to close these when unsanitary conditions are found. The last legislature of Michigan made an appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars and directed the state board of. health to expend it in attempts to re- strict tuberculosis. Several thousand citi¬ zens have already been examined freer? of charge in order that this disease may be detected in its early stages when it is amenable to hygienic treatment. These people are not only examined but those found infected are instructed how to live in order to avert the progress of the dis¬ ease. I have chosen to bring these matters be¬ fore you in order to impress upon you the relation which the profession, which you have selected, bears to the public. Even the physician who devotes himself wholly to what is known as private practise does not espape his duties to the public. He is morally bound not only to do his full duty to the individual who employs him, but to protect the community. You have chosen to come to a school supported by the state. 804 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1145 Michigan practically gives you your edu¬ cation. Why does it do this and what does it demand of you in return for this great gift? It expects that you possess intelli¬ gence, for without this the gift is valueless ; that you manifest industry both during and after your student life, for without this you bury your talent; that in all your ac¬ tions, both professional and nonprofes¬ sional, you show the most sincere integrity, for without this you become a menace to your benefactor. The state has selected this faculty to ascertain to what extent each of you possesses these essential qualifica¬ tions and I can assure you that those found wanting will not find their way into the profession through these doors. To those who prove worthy, every reasonable en¬ couragement and proper assistance will be given. I am sometimes asked what financial re¬ ward can the medical man reasonably ex¬ pect? This is a proper question and I am ready to give it my answer. In the first place, a medical education, even with the relatively small tuition one pays in a state university, is the most expensive profes¬ sional education, both in time and money, both to the state and to the student. The laboratory expenses of the medical student are higher than those in any other school. Where other students buy books, he buys not only more expensive books, but lie must also purchase a microscope, blood counter, and other expensive instruments. After graduation most medical students spend from one to three years in hospital work and at least one of these promises soon to become obligatory on all. When he be¬ gins practise the medical man must have a respectable office and a well-equipped lab¬ oratory. He must continue to buy expen¬ sive books, for the average medical book is out of date almost as soon as it leaves the press, so rapid has been the advance in sci¬ entific medicine in the past thirty years. He can not do without the best professional journals, and, being a member of a learned profession, he is ashamed to be ignorant of the best general literature. In his consult¬ ing room, his visits to the homes of his pa¬ tient and in his association with his fellows he must be neatly, though he need not be expensively, dressed. He must supply him¬ self with means for quick and comfortable travel. Without going into further partic¬ ulars I may say that by the time he is ready to begin his professional work the most economical medical man has already made an investment of from ten to twenty thousand dollars, counting his actual ex¬ penses, allowing a fair amount for his time and calculating the interest on these amounts, and when he begins he must have the wherewithal to make his work suc¬ cessful. No medical man can neglect the financial side of his life’s work. Without an adequate income he can not reach a high degree of efficiency in his work. However, the medical man who is imbued with the right spirit will use his financial gains largely in increasing his professional effi¬ ciency. After setting aside enough for the fair support of himself and those depend¬ ent upon him, he will devote the surplus — and there must be a surplus if he is to be successful — to better equipment, both phys¬ ically and mentally. It has been my ob¬ servation that the more intelligent laity respects the physician who endeavors to keep himself well posted and well equipped in his professional work. Medical men who attend their local, state and national so¬ cieties are, as a rule, successful financially, while those who think that they can not leave their work even for self-improvement have a hard time in making ends meet. One who wishes to accumulate a fortune, or to become wealthy as that term is now understood, should choose some other call- December 8, 1916] SCIENCE 805 ing. I know of no one who has placed him¬ self in this class by the reputable practise of medicine. Some medical men have made riches by fortunate investments, but this is an exception. Some marry wealth, but this is usually fatal to professional efficiency. I know of but one man who has demonstrated his ability by winning the highest distinc¬ tions in the profession notwithstanding the fact that he married a wealthy woman. While on this point, I may say that prac¬ tise coming from the ultra rich is not to be coveted. They are exacting in their de¬ mands for service. They object to ordi¬ nary bills and cry out that they are being sandbagged. As I write this, I have before me such a letter from a millionaire. He ad¬ mits that he selected the medical man on ac¬ count of his recognized skill, that he knew what the charges would be before the serv¬ ices were closed and that he did not object at that time, because he was afraid that the medical man would desert him, but when payment was demanded, he claimed that he was being sandbagged because he was known to be rich. The ultra rich are fa¬ miliar with the use of the sandbag in ex¬ torting money from others and they see its phantom in even the most moderate bills presented them. The medical practitioner endowed with intelligence, fortified with industry and with his every action controlled by strict integrity is sure to make a decent living, care for himself and family in comfort and he need not sleep in a pauper’s grave. He is not compelled to sacrifice his self-respect to expediency. His calling is quite as in¬ dependent as any other. He can choose his own friends, church and political affilia¬ tion. The man who is sick with pneumonia or has an inflamed appendix does not con¬ sult the society columns, the church direc¬ tory nor the polling lists when he selects his medical attendant. He prefers the man who is likely to render him the best service, and the intelligent public in the long run and on the whole judges wisely. There never has been a time when individual worth among medical practitioners was more correctly evaluated and, I may add, more highly estimated, than the present. Medicine has cast off the veil of mystery which once covered her face and walks among men uncovered and unashamed. The days of ‘ ‘ divine healers, ’ ’ Indian medi¬ cine fakirs, and of Mrs. Winslow and Lydia Pinkham, are passing away. Some may say that these statements are contradicted by the wide prevalence of Christian science, osteopathy and other cults. These are only the vagaries which have taken form in the delirium-racked brain of a fast-dying superstition. Did our government select any of these agencies in its successful com¬ bat with yellow fever in Cuba or on the Canal Zone? Has it relied upon them to keep Asiatic cholera or the plague out of this country? Did it send Christian scien¬ tists or osteopaths to stay the epidemic threatened by the Dayton floods? Are these cults now busy healing the wounds and adjusting the dislocated bones so abundant on European battlefields? Our Lady of Lourdes and Ste. Anne Beauprie are apparently not on duty at a time when shell-torn and flame-tortured humanity is in greatest need of their much extolled, miraculous powers of healing. The genu¬ ine worth of scientific medicine has never been so thoroughly tested as in the present war. Amid unprecedented difficulties, in the camps where millions are congregated, in the quick transportation of corps after corps, in the trenches and even among the prisoners of war, always cared for grudg¬ ingly and reluctantly, everywhere, preven¬ tive medicine has successfully met her old foes, typhoid fever, dysentery, cholera, tetanus and other epidemics, which in 806 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1145 former wars have usually been the most destructive factors in the midst of contend¬ ing armies, and have often decided battles and determined the fate of nations. De¬ cisive victories have not yet followed the flags of the central or the allied armies, but in all the red cross signalizes the most triumphant achievement of man. Inter¬ national laws have been torn into shreds and become mere scraps of paper, moral and religious precepts and codes have been supplanted by brutalities never practised by primitive man and the foundations of civilization have seemed to be on the point of disruption and final collapse, but the spirit and ideals of scientific medicine re¬ main unsullied and a new world in which these shall dominate will be created. Medicine offers a number and variety of special activities to those who choose it as a career. First, there is the grand division into preventive and curative. The former is a product of the nineteenth century, the latter as old as the records of man. The oldest and still a widely dominant theory, as to the cause of disease is that it is an in¬ fliction laid upon man by some supernat¬ ural being. Primitive man, which term once embraced all, and in this particular, still includes many, probably a majority, even among the most highly cultured na¬ tions, believed in the existence of powerful spirits, who measured out good and ill to individuals as their own will might indi¬ cate. The religion of such believers con¬ sisted and still consists in attempts to pro¬ pitiate these powerful, or one omnipotent, spirit. They built and still build altars of sacrifice and temples of devotion in which they proclaim their own weakness and im¬ plore divine protection and guidance. They still beseech a supreme ruler to shower blessings upon themselves and curses upon their enemies. In the hands of the Jehovah of the Jews disease was a scourge for the punishment of those who merited his displeasure. In the adoption and modi¬ fication of the Hebrew religion by the Christian world, the idea of a God of wrath was adopted, and still prevails. Even to-day in battle-scarred Europe, the same God is invoked and his aid asked in each contending army. With this inborn superstition transmitted through countless generations, scientific medicine has had to contend. The combat has extended through centuries, as is shown by the earliest rec¬ ords of human achievement. The first signal victory was won when Jenner robbed smallpox of its horrors by the discovery of vaccination and success was assured by the labors of Louis Pasteur who marked the way by which each infection may be identi¬ fied, controlled and abated. An enlightened public is beginning to recognize that many diseases, especially the infections, are preventable and the medical profession is being called upon to plan and direct this work. Many of the smaller cities and some rural communities are pro¬ viding for full-time health commissioners and the demand is greater than the supply. This and other universities are conducting courses specially suitable for public health officials. I am sure that some of you will select this field for the development of your life work. In it there is abundant oppor¬ tunity to do credit to yourself while you serve the highest interests of your fellow man. The labors of Reed and his col¬ leagues demonstrated the agencies by which yellow fever is spread, and Gorgas and his helpers freed Cuba from this disease and won a greater triumph in the Canal Zone. Laveran and Ross did even a greater serv¬ ice in showing how the world may free itself from malaria, which in all times has held some of the fairest and most fruitful lands under its curse. Preventive medicine is now capable of opening up the tropics as December 8, 1916] SCIENCE 807 suitable habitations for civilized man, of removing the stigma of being the “home and nursery of disease” from the fertile valleys of the Nile and of returning to cul¬ tivation the banks of the Euphrates and the Tigris on which the cradle of civilization was rocked. I can not believe that coming generations will be so insane as not to use this most potent agent in reclaiming the marsh, the wilderness and the barrens, and converting them into fields, rich in agricul¬ tural products and abundant in happy homes. Man’s destiny is in his own hands and he may make of this earth a heaven of peace, plenty and prosperity, or he may mar it into a hell of strife, rapine and murder. In knowledge he has advanced to a position in which he becomes a co-worker with the Creator and he must bear the re¬ sponsibilities which such power imposes. In the struggle between good and evil, knowledge and ignorance, science and superstition, medicine has, and must con¬ tinue, to lead the way, and you as its stand¬ ard bearers must serve your day and gen¬ eration with intelligence, industry and integrity. I do not mean that you are to do your work, always conscious of the burden of duty. With all its imperfections this life is worth living and its highest joys lie in its contests. The man who does not get real pleasure out of his work remains a poor workman and his products do not find ready sale in the market. Even the bit¬ terest disappointment, when you have done your best, often becomes a beacon light warning you of the rocks and leading you into a safe harbor. It must not be inferred from the great stress that I have placed upon preventive medicine that the curative art is not equally worthy. Moreover, cure is not going to be replaced wholly by prevention. Disease and accident will continue so long as man reproduces his kind. The history of this, the older, branch of medicine is that of man’s efforts to relieve the distress and to minister to the needs of his fellow man. Born in ignorance, nourished on supersti¬ tion, clothed with mysterious rites and cere¬ monies, medicine has had a hard task to free itself from hereditary and environ¬ mental influences. Attempts to break away from these adverse and retarding condi¬ tions has marked the highest efforts of the race. During nearly every century since recorded history began, there have been some superior men, intelligent and far-see¬ ing above the masses, who have contributed something to science. Such were Hippo¬ crates, Galen, Pare, Servetus, Plarvey and others whom we now delight to honor as contributors to knowledge and benefactors to the race. The discoveries, by empirical methods, of the specific effects of Peruvian bark in malaria and of mercury in syphilis did much to improve the condition of life and to enlarge the field of human endeavor. Since the scientific era began, the marvel¬ ous virtue of antitoxin in diphtheria; its great value in tetanus ; the relief of cretin¬ ism by thyroid feeding ; the action of thymol in hookworm disease ; the benefit of salvarsan in the treatment of syphilis; the Pasteur treatment of hydrophobia ; the pre¬ vention and cure of beri-beri by nutri¬ tional regulation — mark some of the most evident achievements in curative medicine. For diagnostic and prognostic purposes the medicine man of primitive peoples con¬ sulted oracles, watched the peristaltic move¬ ments of the intestines of animals offered in sacrifice, or read the fate of his patient in the positions of the stars. The physi¬ cian of to-day employs the discoveries in physics, chemistry and biology for these purposes. The physician of fifty years ago was compelled to rely largely upon the study and interpretation of symptoms in which the best became highly proficient, 808 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1145 to-day he supplements these studies with the microscope, Roentgen ray, test tube, and other instruments of scientific preci¬ sion. Then, his conclusions were drawn largely from guesses, now they are founded upon exact and positive knowledge. A large part of your undergraduate educa¬ tion will consist in familiarizing yourselves with the use and application of instruments of precision for diagnostic purposes. Each year brings forth advances in the funda¬ mental sciences and medicine is ever ready to utilize such discoveries as may be of serv¬ ice in the prevention or cure of disease. It has been demonstrated that the physiolog¬ ical action and therapeutical effects of a chemical compound can be modified by changes in its molecular structure. The genius of Ehrlich produced salvarsan and its later substitutes in accordance with this principle, and the possibility of finding curative agents in other diseases by similar investigations is now occupying the time and energy of many laboratory students. While the achievements of preventive medicine have greatly reduced the numbers of those infected, medicine is not neglecting its curative agents and we can confidently expect great results in this direction. The advance of modern surgery has been marvelous. No greater gifts has science brought to suffering man than surgical an¬ esthesia, the discovery of which American medicine can justly boast, and aseptic sur¬ gery, made possible by the fundamental work of Pasteur and given practical appli¬ cation through the genius of Lister. These discoveries enable the surgeon to penetrate every part of the body and remove diseased tissue, repair injuries, extract foreign bod¬ ies and restore the individual to health and efficiency while he sleeps wholly uncon¬ scious of the operation. Plastic surgery has become a fine art and the successful transplantation of tissue is being practised in the base hospitals of Europe, where the brutalities of man are being ameliorated by skilful operation. The possibility of not only preserving but of growing animal tissue in vitro has been demonstrated and has developed a reasonable hope that the surgeon of the future may do still greater miracles. The development of medicine must be preceded by scientific discovery, because medicine consists in the application of these discoveries. It follows that the highest duty of the medical man is to make contri¬ butions to scientific advances. In the past medical men have made an honorable record in this direction and there is no branch of science to which they have not brought val¬ uable contributions. Even at the present, the open field of knowledge is of small di¬ mensions, while on every side extends the boundless wilderness of ignorance. It has been a great privilege and a joy to have lived at a time when my chosen profession has been so rapidly moving forward and to have met face to face so many of its lead¬ ers. It has been my fortunate lot to work in the laboratory of that great German, Koch, to have listened to the words of that great Englishman, Lister, to have enjoyed the friendship of that great Russian, Metchnikoff and to have looked into the kindly face of the greatest man of the gen¬ eration, if greatness be measured by good done one’s race, that Frenchman, Pasteur. May some spark of the genius which led these men to great accomplishments descend upon and abide in you. V. C. Vaughan KEITH LUCAS In the death of Keith Lucas on October 5, 1916, physiology suffered the loss of a really great investigator. At thirty-seven years of age he and his junior co-workers had already, as I see it, thrown more light on the funda¬ mental functional properties of the excitable December 8, 1916] SCIENCE 809 tissues, nerve and muscle, than has been thrown by the combined efforts of all other investigators; and the possibilities of future achievement, had he lived, are altogether in¬ calculable. The great majority of his published writings have appeared in the Journal of Physiology and most of them reveal a common trend of thought. Although to appreciate the full meaning of this work and the brilliance of the experimentation one must read his papers, still it is possible to get some idea of his contribu¬ tion from the Croonian Lecture in which in 1912 lie summarized the results of his re¬ searches up to that date. In that lecture entitled “ The Process of Excitation in Nerve and Muscle ” 1 a comprehensive survey of crucial experiments brings out the broader meaning of his investigations, and shows the essential unity of the apparently diverse as¬ pects of the subject with which he dealt. We owe to him the first clear picture of the sequence of events involved in the phenomena hitherto loosely grouped under the term “ excitation.” He showed the great importance of the “ local excitatory process ” which is the immediate consequence of the external stimulus and which must be clearly distin¬ guished from the “propagated disturbance” to which, if sufficiently intense, it gives rise. By a careful quantitative study of the “ sum¬ mation of inadequate stimuli ” and of the time factor in the exciting electric current he laid the foundation for the completion of Nernst’s hypothesis of excitation by Hill and for his own quantitative verification of the hypothesis in its modified form. With his characteristic modesty and sense of the limitations of our knowledge he claims for this verification only a “guide to the strengthening of our experi¬ mental data ” ; but to one less conversant than he was with the difficulties in the way of draw¬ ing final conclusions, it would seem that he had presented an excellent case for the con¬ clusion that the local excitatory process is a concentration of ions at some point within the tissue. In his more recent researches his attention i Proc. Boy. Soc., Yol. 85, B, p. 495. has been given less to the nature of the local excitatory process and more to the properties of the “ propagated disturbance ” which re¬ sults only when the former process reaches adequate intensity, and which is manifested by the electrical response and the refractory phase. Among these later papers is one which seems to me his most characteristic and bril¬ liant work, the elucidation of the “ apparent inhibition ” of Wedensky.2 The way in which this baffling phenomenon is dissected and ex¬ plained step by step by means of exquisite and crucial experiments makes it the most per¬ fect piece of scientific work I know of. Every experiment is so designed as to be crucial, to give unequivocally the answer to the question at hand; and the clarity with which difficult and complex ideas are expressed reveals an extraordinary gift of exposition. In experimentation it was his most salient trait to devote his energies wholly to what really counted in yielding the result. He made most of his apparatus with his own hands, and he never wasted a minute trying to make it look neat; perfect working was the sole aim. To furnish uniform motion of his photographic plate a discarded motor -bicycle cylinder was filled with oil and a hole drilled in the piston- head through which the escaping of the oil regulated the speed with an accuracy which sufficed for the most refined quantitative deter¬ minations. A sense of proportion character¬ ized all his work. He never wasted effort in securing refinement and accuracy in one part of an experiment which would be nullified by unavoidable errors in another. The fruits of his work are not measured merely by his own published writings, for Adrian, trained by him in thought and in ex¬ perimental technique, has followed, out some of the ideas suggested by his researches with consummate success. Thus he has established the “ all-or-none ” law for the nerve impulse ; and the far-reaching consequences in physiol¬ ogy Of this achievement are expressed in a letter by Professor Sherrington: All or nothing as a principle of nerve-fiber re¬ sponse seems to me as to you established. It must 2 Jour. Physiol., Yol. 43, p. 46. 810 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1145 appear as a new datum for whatever schemata we offer of central mechanisms. The data for such schemata have been so few that the diagrams were easy to make but not of much significance. The new ones if less easy to sketch will have more meaning. Lucas had little patience with unfounded speculation or with the elaboration of hypoth¬ eses without any attempt to test them. But that his thoughts were not limited to the direct results of his experiments is shown by his cautious but suggestive remarks on the pos¬ sible application of his analysis of the Weden- sky effect to inhibition in the central nervous system, and again on the possible basis for an explanation of reflex summation. His atti¬ tude is expressed in these words: There is a tendency to attribute to the central neurone and its connections properties which have no basis in the direct observation of the simple conducting tissues. It is our belief that the time for such a procedure can only come when it has been proved after repeated trial that there is no explanation of central phenomena possible in terms of properties revealed by the study of the simple tissues. His sense of the immensity of the problems which drew him on is shown in the conclusion of his Croonian Lecture, in which he remarks “we may now claim to have passed through the first phase of ignorance, in which we merely admitted that we did not know, and to have reached the second phase of ignorance, in which we are recognizing what precisely are the points on which our want of knowledge is most profound.” The breadth of his outlook on physiology is shown in two stimulating articles on “ The Evolution of Animal Func¬ tion ” published in 1909 in Science Progress. Thus he was a scientist combining rare mechanical ingenuity and experimental skill of the highest order with a wonderful grasp of the crucial tests through which advance should come and a broad philosophical view of the truths he brought to light. But besides all this he was a man of great personal charm and nobility of character. His keen and delight¬ ful sense of humor and his modest, friendly personality made him a companion and friend beloved by those about him. The spirit in which he left his absorbing career to play his part in the great fight for liberty is reflected in a letter written in the spring of 1915, an extract of which appears in the Atlantic Monthly for October, 1916 (page 546). He was to have joined an artillery com¬ pany, but on the very day he was to have been sworn in he was sent for to carry on research at the Royal Aircraft Factory on devices for the control of aeroplanes. He had already perfected an aeroplane compass and was en¬ gaged in similar experimental work when he met his death in a flying accident. Alexander Forbes Harvard Medical School INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH IN CANADA The Canadian government has appointed an honorary advisory council on scientific and industrial research to advise a committee of the cabinet consisting of the ministers of trade and commerce, interior, mines, inland revenue, labor and agriculture, on all matters relating to the extension and coordination of scientific and industrial research, with a view to secur¬ ing united effort and mutual cooperation be¬ tween scientific workers and industrial con¬ cerns, and to selecting the most practical and pressing problems indicated by the industrial necessities for submittal to research and other institutions and individuals for solution. The members of this advisory council are: Dr. A. Stanley Mackenzie, president of Dal- housie University, Halifax, FT. S.; Dr. Frank D. Adams, dean of the faculty of applied sci¬ ence, McGill University; Dr. R. F. Ruttan, professor of chemistry, McGill University, Montreal; Dr. J. C. McLennan, director of the Physical Laboratories, University of Toronto; Dr. A. B. Macallum, president of the Royal Society of Canada, University of Toronto; Dr. Walker Murray, president of the Univer¬ sity of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon; Mr. Robert Hobson, president of the Steel Company of Canada, Hamilton, Ont.; Mr. R. G. Ross, consulting electrical engineer, Montreal; and Tancrede Bienvenu, manager of La Banque Provinciale, Montreal. The question of the cooperation of the scien¬ tific men and laboratories of the country with the industrial concerns with a view to solving December 8, 1916] SCIENCE 811 the problems raised by the war and to placing the industrial resources of the country in a position to meet the conditions that will arise after the war has been under consideration by the government and by representatives of sci¬ ence and industry for some time, as it was felt that it was more desirable to follow the ex¬ ample of the British government in this matter. The question was fully discussed at the meetings of the Royal Society of Canada in May, 1916, and a deputation of this society waited upon the Honorable Sir George E. Foster, minister of trade and commerce, and the Honorable Sir Thomas White, minister of finance, to place the services of the society at the disposal of the government and to recom¬ mend the appointment of an advisory com¬ mittee for the furtherance of industrial re¬ search. The matter had already been con¬ sidered by the minister of trade and commerce and action was promised. Sir George Foster held a number of confer¬ ences with representative men of science and industry, and as a result of his report to the government definite action was decided upon in June by order-in-council. In his memo¬ randum he pointed out “ the urgent need of organizing, mobilizing and economizing the existing resources of scientific and industrial research in Canada with the purpose of utiliz¬ ing waste products, discovering new processes — mechanical, chemical and metallurgical — and developing into useful adjuncts to indus¬ try and commerce the unused natural re¬ sources of Canada.” SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS The president and council of the Royal So¬ ciety have made the following awards : A Royal Medal to Dr. J ohn Scott Haldane, F.R.S., for his services to chemical physiology, more especially in reference to the chemical changes of respiration. A Royal Medal to Professor Hector Munro Macdonald, F.R.S., for his contributions to mathematical physics. The Copley Medal to Sir James Dewar, F.R.S., for his investigations in physical chem¬ istry, and more especially his researches on the liquefaction of gases. The Rumford Medal to Professor William Henry Bragg, F.R.S., for his researches in X-ray radiation. The Davy Medal to M. le Prof. Henri Louis le Chatelier, For.Mem.R.S., for his researches in chemistry. The Darwin Medal to Professor Yves Delage, for his researches in zoology and botany. The Sylvester Medal to M. Jean Gaston Darboux, For.Mem.R.S., for his con¬ tributions to mathematical science. The Hughes Medal to Professor Elihu Thomson for his researches in experimental electricity. The Stockholm correspondent of the Morn¬ ing Post, as quoted in Nature, states that the Nobel prize for physiology for 1916 will prob¬ ably be awarded to Professor H. J. Ham¬ burger, of Groningen University. It is stated that the Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided not to award this year the Nobel prizes for physics and chemistry. Present and former students of Professor E. B. Wilson will give a dinner in his honor in New York on the evening of December 28. Former students of Professor Wilson, whether at Columbia or elsewhere, who have failed to receive an announcement of the dinner, can obtain full particulars by addressing Pro¬ fessor Gary N. Calkins, Columbia University. Professor S. A. Mitchell, director of the Leander McCormick Observatory of the Uni¬ versity of Virginia, has been appointed by Columbia University special Ernest Kempton Adams research fellow for a period of five years. This award comes as an extension of the regular Adams fellowship held by Pro¬ fessor Mitchell for the years 1914-16. The re¬ search undertaken was the determination of the parallaxes of the fixed stars by photography with the 26-inch McCormick refractor. Al¬ ready the distances of one hundred stars have been determined. Owing to ill health, Mr. H. W. Henshaw has resigned his position as chief of the Bu¬ reau of Biological Survey, Department of Agriculture, dating from December 1. Mr. Henshaw has been connected with the Depart¬ ment of Agriculture since 1905, serving as assistant chief of the bureau until 1910, and 812 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1145 then as #hief. During this period the survey has grown rapidly. In order that the bureau may continue to have the benefit of Hr. Hen- shaw’s knowledge and experience he will retain official connection with it as consulting biol¬ ogist. Mr. E. W. Nelson, who has been on the scientific staff of the bureau since 1890 and assistant chief since 1914, has been appointed to succeed Mr. Henshaw as chief of the bureau. As has been already noted in Science, meet¬ ings of the Geological Society of America and the American Paleontological Society will be held in the Education Building, Albany, on December 27, 28 and 29. The address of the president of the Geological Society, Dr. John M. Clarke, is on “ The Philosophy of Geology and the Order of Research.” That of the president of the Paleontological Society, Dr. Rudolf Ruedemann, is on “ Persistent Paleon¬ tological Types.” There will be public ad¬ dresses by Dr. George Otis Smith, director of the U. S. Geological Survey, on “ Geology and Public Service,” and by Professor Richard S. Lull, of Yale University, on “ The Pulse of Life.” There will be symposia on “ The Geol¬ ogy of Petroleum ” and on “ The Interpreta¬ tion of Sedimentary Rocks.” The Section of Agriculture of the American Association for the Advancement of Science will hold its session on the afternoon of December 27, at 2 o’clock, in the Brincker- hoff Theater, Barnard College, Columbia University. At this session the address of the retiring vice-president of the sec¬ tion, Dean Eugene Davenport, of the Uni¬ versity of Illinois, will be delivered on the subject of “ The Outlook for Agriculture.” The subject will be further considered in a symposium on the general topic of “ The Adjustment of Science to Practise in Agricul¬ ture.” This will be presented under the fol¬ lowing four heads: (1) Some Eactors lying between Scientific Results and the Farm, by Dr. H. J. Wheeler, of Boston; (2) Limitations of Science to Progress in Agriculture, by Dr. J. G. Lipman, director of the New Jersey Ex¬ periment Stations; (3) Economic Factors as affecting the Applications of Science, by Dr. G. F. Warren, of the College of Agriculture at Cornell University; and (4) Regional con¬ ditions as determining the Type of Agricul¬ tural Inquiry, by Director B. Youngblood, of the Texas Experiment Station. The divisions of the subject will be treated in a semi- popular manner, rather than in their strictly technical aspects, and the discussion will not be restricted to any particular department of agricultural science. The purpose is to make the program one of general interest. There will be opportunity for free discussion. Through the courtesy of the American Mu¬ seum of Natural History and in connection with the convocation week meetings (Decem¬ ber 26-30) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the New York sections of the American Chemical Society, chairman, Dr. J. Merritt Matthews; The American Electrochemical Society, chairman, Dr. G. Colin Eink; The Society of Chemical Industry, chairman, Dr. Jerome Alexander; and The Museums of the Peaceful Arts, acting president, Dr. George F. Kunz, are planning an exhibition on preparedness, to be shown on the fourth floor of the museum building. The exhibit will consist of a set of the native ele¬ ments belonging to the American Museum of Natural History; a collection of all the known elements ; electrochemical products, nitrogen products from the air; coal-tar derivatives; and explosives— the new chemistry of pre¬ paredness developed during the past two years. The exhibit will be shown during the convoca¬ tion week and for one month thereafter to the public. Dr. George F. Kunz is chairman of the exhibition committee. Scientific research will be shown in a special exhibit dealing with the life and work of Pasteur. Letters, manu¬ scripts, pictures or other memorabilia which might be of interest in this connection are greatly desired for this purpose. Any one having material that would add to the Pasteur exhibit is requested to communicate with Pro¬ fessor C.-E. A. Winslow, curator of public health, American Museum of Natural History, 77th Street and Central Park West, New York City, who is chairman of this special branch of the committee. December 8, 1916] SCIENCE 813 An expedition in the interests of the Smith¬ sonian Institution will leave shortly for the French Congo and certain of the neighboring parts of West Africa. It will be known as the “ Collins-Garner Congo Expedition, in the In¬ terests of the Smithsonian Institution,” and will be headed by Mr. Alfred M. Collins, of Philadelphia, a well-known explorer and sports¬ man, who has made several trips to Africa and other regions in search of big game. Richard L. Garner, of New York, who has already made extensive investigations concerning the apes and monkeys of Central Africa, is manager of the expedition. The other members of the party are: Professor Charles W. Furlong, of Boston, scientist, artist and explorer, and Mr. Charles R. W. Aschemeier, of Washington, who represents the Smithsonian Institution as collector of natural history specimens for the United States National Museum. It is expected that Mr. Garner and Mr. Aschemeier will start for Bordeaux as soon as the outfit is ready, probably on December 9, and that Mr. Collins and Professor Furlong will follow about March 1, 1917. The London Times states that a survey party, led by the geologists Messrs. Talbot and Clarke, has been attacked by blacks between Laverton and Warburton ranges, western Australia. Mr. Johnstone, a member of the party, received a severe spear wound in the thigh, and Mr. Talbot was speared through the arm. Dr. R. Ruggles Gates, who had planned to spend the winter in research work at the New York Botanical Garden, has decided to return shortly to England to enlist in the British army. Mr. F. A. McLaughlin, instructor in botany at the Massachusetts Agricultural College, has been granted a year’s leave of absence for grad¬ uate study at the University of Chicago. The Botanical Society of Washington has elected the following officers for the ensuing year: President , Mr. T. H. Kearney; Vice- president, Mr. Edgar L. Brown; Recording Secretary, Mr. Charles E. Chambliss; Corre¬ sponding Secretary, Dr. II. L. Shantz; Treas¬ urer, Mr. F. R. Farrell. Mr. A. S. Hitchcock was nominated by the society for the position of vice-president of the Washington Academy of Sciences. The Anthropological Society of Philadel¬ phia has resumed its regular meetings for its fourth year, with Dr. W. Max Muller as presi¬ dent and Mr. E. P. Wilkins as secretary. The society now has twenty members, as follows: R. T. Aitken, G. Annear, B. S. Brumbaugh, D. W. Berkey, E. Chiera, Wm. Churchill, M. M. Dorizas, F. Edgerton, R. H. Ferris, E. W. Hawkes, W. W. Hyde, H. D. Jones, J. E. Mason, W. Max Muller, L. E. Sabary, W. H. Schoff, F. G. Speck, R. J. Weitlaner, E. P. Wilkins, S. Williams. The first meeting of the year was held on November 18, Dr. Muller presenting a paper on “ The Humorous Ex¬ periences of an Africanist.” Professor John M. Coulter, of the Univer¬ sity of Chicago, lectured in the Sigma Xi cir¬ cuit, including the universities of Kansas and Missouri, from November 13-16. Two lectures were given at each university, the titles being “ The Ideals of Science,” and “ Inheritance and Response.” Dr. Richard C. Cabot, of Boston, is giving a series of lectures under the auspices of the Social Service Corporation of Baltimore, on “ The Social Aspects of Public Health Work in the United States,” including industrial, educational, moral and religious and govern¬ mental aspects. Professor Heinrich Ries, of the department of geology, Cornell University, is giving a course of ten lectures on non-metallic products in the course on economic geology at Colum¬ bia University. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences of the University of Illinois has announced a series of assemblies for 1916-17 that will con¬ sider recent developments in science. On last Thursday evening the first of these was held, at which Professor Joel Stebbins spoke on “ Measuring the Light of Stars.” The second will be held on December 14, the speaker of the occasion being Professor J acob Kunz, who will speak on “ Recent Light on the Ultimate Con¬ stitution of Matter.” The third, January 11,. 814 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1145 will be addressed by Professor R. C. Tolman on “ The Theory of Relativity.” The fourth, February 15, will be addressed by Professor C. S. Hottes on “ Some Recent Advances in the Physiology of the Cell ” and the fifth on March 15, will be addressed by Professor G. M. Whipple on “ Recent Development in Mental Testing.” The speakers are all from the Uni¬ versity of Illinois. The following lectures were recently given at Oberlin College, under the auspices of the department of zoology : “ The Maturation and Fertilization of the Eggs of Nereis," by Dr. Omer Van der Stricht, of the University of Ghent (now at Western Reserve University, Cleveland) ; and “ The Significance of the Egyptian Mummy,” by Professor T. Wingate Todd, head of the department of anatomy at Western Reserve University Medical School. At the Lowell Institute (Boston), on Tues¬ day and Friday evenings beginning Tuesday, December 5, a course of six lectures is being given by George Sarto n, D.Sc., editor of Isis and lecturer on the history and philosophy of science at Harvard University. The course is on science and civilization in the time of Leonardo da Yinci, the titles of the lectures being : 1. “The Age of Leonardo.’’ 2. “The Place of the Earth in the Universe.” 3. “Geographical Discoveries.” 4. “Progress in Physics and Chemistry.” 5. ‘ ‘ Progress in Biology and Medicine. ’ ’ 6. “The New Humanism.” Five lectures will be given at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in December by Dr. E. Mellanby, acting superintendent of the Brown Animal Sanatory Institution, on the part played in disease by water, salts and other simple substances. The Swiney Lectures on Geology on “ The Mineral Resources of Europe ” have been de¬ livered by Dr. J. S. Flett, at the Royal Society of Arts, London. The Kelvin lecture was delivered before the Institution of Electrical Engineers, London, on November 9 by Dr. Alexander Russell, who ex¬ plained how, in many fields of fundamental importance to the electrical engineer, Lord Kelvin’s work had provided the basis on which his successors had built. Frederick J. Hamilton Merrill, director of the New York State Museum from 1894 to 1904 and New York state geologist from 1899 to 1904, later a consulting geologist and mining expert in New York City, Arizona and Cali¬ fornia, died in Los Angeles on November 29, in his fifty-fifth year. Newton B. Pierce, formerly plant patholo¬ gist for the U. S. government for the Pacific coast region, and more recently private col¬ lector and breeder of rare plants, died at his home in Santa Ana, Calif., the thirteenth of last October, aged sixty years. Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, the distinguished inventor, died in England on November 24. Mr. Charles Smith, master of Sidney Sus¬ sex College, Cambridge and the author of works on mathematics, died on November 13, at the age of seventy-two years. Professor H. M. Waynforth, until recently professor of engineering in King’s College, London, died on November 5, aged forty-nine years. Henrik Mohn, the distinguished Norwegian meteorologist, died on September 12 at Chris¬ tiania, aged eighty-one years. Members of Section E, Geology and Geog¬ raphy, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, are requested to forward titles and abstracts of papers to be read at the New York meeting, to Dr. George F. Kay, Iowa City, la., not later than De¬ cember 12. The Sullivant Moss Society will hold its twelfth meeting on Friday, December 29, at Barnard College, Columbia University, in con¬ nection with the convocation-week meetings of the American Association for the Advance¬ ment of Science. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS Governor Edward F. Dunne and Dr. S. W. Stratton, director of the Bureau of Standards, are among the speakers that will give ad¬ dresses on the occasion of the dedication of the new ceramics building at the University of December 8, 1916] SCIENCE 815 Illinois on December 6 and 7. Partly in con¬ nection with the exercises of the dedication of the' new ceramics building, there will be held the annual session of the Illinois Municipal League, the 7th and 8th of December. Uni¬ versity men giving addresses at this meeting will be Professor F. H. Newell, who speaks on “ City Pavements ” ; Professor Edward Bar¬ ton, on “ The Latest Methods of Sewage Treat¬ ment ”; Professor J. E. Smith on “Delays in the Execution of Public Works’’; H. E. Bab¬ bitt on “ Organization of Water Depart¬ ments,” and Professor J. M. Mathews on “ Law Enforcement and Home Rule.” Mrs. W. L. Mardsen, of Seneca, Oregon, has given to the University of California ex¬ tensive texts, grammatical notes and a vocab¬ ulary of the northern Piute language, recorded by her husband, the late Dr. W. L. Marsden. It is intended that these materials shall be edited by Professor A. L. Kroeber, for publi¬ cation in the University of California publica¬ tions in American archeology and ethnology. We learn from the Journal of the American Medical Association that Nielsine Nelson, the first woman physician in Denmark, bequeathed to the medical faculty of the University of Copenhagen three funds of 20,000 crowns each for scholarships for needy women medical stu¬ dents, and a further 50,000 crowns for the same purpose in the name of Ludvig Trier, a friend who had aided her and other students. Dr. George E. Vincent, president of the University of Minnesota, has been appointed president of the Rockefeller Foundation, and will take up this work on May 15, 1917. He succeeds Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who will become chairman of the board of trustees, a newly created office. It will be remembered that Mr. Jerome D. Greene recently resigned the secretaryship of the board. Professor Ernest Linwood Walker, of the University of the Philippines, has been ap¬ pointed a lecturer on tropical medicine at the Harvard Medical School. Mr. W. L. Doran, for the last two years graduate assistant in botany at the Massachu¬ setts Agricultural College, has been appointed instructor in botany and assistant botanist at the New Hampshire Agricultural College and Experiment Station. Dr. Roy G. Hoskins has been appointed associate professor of physiology in the North¬ western University Medical School. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE OBSERVATIONS of the aurora of august 26 FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA AND ALASKA Since the auroral display of August 26 has been reported from so many places I will take occasion to slightly extend the area over which it was observed by advising that it was a very conspicuous feature of the northern sky at Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia. It was therefore observed from Atlantic to Pacific. Kay Alexander November 15, 1916 I had an unusual opportunity for observing the auroral display of August 26, being at that time camped on the recently discovered Mount Alexander Mackenzie, on the crest of the Rockies of British Columbia in latitude 53° 57', longitude 120° 27'. Auroral displays are not unusual in this region even in summer, but the phenomenon of August 26 was by far the most brilliant and remarkable I have observed. It occurred at a very opportune time for me, as I was then returning after an exploration of the great west glacier. I got off the ice at 7 :45 p.m., as the last rays of twilight faded; as I had still three miles to travel to camp, including the crossing of a steep 2,000 foot canyon, I was facing a chilly night under the stars, when quite suddenly the whole heavens became brilliantly illuminated and I was thus en¬ abled to make the difficult climb back to camp. The display began about 8 :30 p.m. Pacific (120th meridian) time, with the formation of a bow of light in the north, surmounting a dark area which suggested the Crookes dark space in a vacuum tube. This increased in brilliancy and was supplemented by other irreg¬ ular bows or bands of light, crossing the sky from east to west. These were the principal 816 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1145 sources of brilliant illumination, but in addi¬ tion the whole sky, almost to the southern horizon, was swept with darting and shimmer¬ ing beams and shafts and curtains of light. I shall not attempt to rival the vivid descrip¬ tion of Professor Nutting, for words fail to express the wonderful beauty and complexity of the display. One of the most striking fea¬ tures was the weaving of curtains of light, ap¬ pearing as if composed of parallel shafts or filaments, which brightened and paled in waves passing sometimes in one direction and some¬ times in the other. These waving curtains interweaved in the most marvellous fashion, sometimes two or even three distinct and over¬ lapping motions being visible in the same area, the shafts of light appearing to glide to and fro like the figures in a complicated but tre¬ mendously silent dance. A little later the display took on the most varied colors, though this phase of the phe¬ nomenon was comparatively brief. The display ceased suddenly at about 9 :45 p.m., just as I reached camp. Some of the bands were so brilliant and stable that I deter¬ mined to try to photograph them. I went into the tent to get my camera and tripod and when I emerged not five minutes later the sky was nearly dark. Fred Iv. Vreeland New York City, November 15, 1916 It has seemed odd to me, a layman, that no scientist has yet reported to you the far west¬ ern occurrence of the remarkable auroral dis¬ play of August 26 last. One year spent at Eampart on the Yukon about thirty-five miles south of the Arctic Circle had made me familiar with the varied manifestations of the aurora, its marvelously brilliant colors and the crepitation which occa¬ sionally accompanied them. On August 26 I was hunting brown bear near Spass Kaia Bay on Chichagoff Island W. of 136° Long, and N. of 58° Lat. About 7 :30 p.m. as nearly as I could guess, my attention was attracted by auroral streamers near the horizon. Looking up to the zenith the whole sky in every quarter was flooded and suffused with one of the most vivid and brilliant dis¬ plays I have ever seen. The play of the glow and of the streamers was as rapid as that of heat lightning. The colors seemed to be of every shade of the spectrum. The play of the colors was the most remarkable manifestation to my mind, for they would alternately appear and disappear, the same streamer being full colored at one instant, gray and colorless the next, and colored full again. It is unusual to have so general and so vivid a display so far south even in Alaska, and the natives com¬ mented on the fact, saying it was a very rare occurrence and a sure sign of early sharp frost and winter. Erastus Brainerd Seattle, Wash., November 21, 1916 I wish to add one more report to the long list already published, relating to the aurora of August 26. I was in Glacier Bay, Alaska, at the time, and saw a marvelous display on that evening. It began shortly after sunset, between eight and nine, Alaska time, when there was still considerable daylight in the sky. In its first appearance it was a sinuous band composed of pale green lances of light, seen first in the east, and winding over toward the west, fading into the still bright sunset light. This was shortly duplicated farther to the north; then four such bands were seen at once. Later, various colors appeared in rapidly changing sheets, working toward the zenith. The climax came with a great burst of color directly above us, almost like an explosion, but remaining in full brilliancy for at least some minutes, constantly changing with mar¬ velous rapidity. The colors included purples, heliotrope, pink, light and dark green. This burst faded away, then repeated itself, and faded again. During the remainder of the evening the lights were pale and diffuse. I have tried to deduce some general con¬ clusions from the numerous reports that have appeared, with the following results. The aurora was visible over the whole of the north¬ ern two thirds of North America, the farthest stations reporting being Nova Scotia, Wash¬ ington, D. C., Nebraska, Portland, Oregon and Glacier Bay. Plotting these stations on the December 8, 1916] SCIENCE 817 map, with whatever data concerning brilliancy and colors are available, the conclusion seems plain that the northern stations across the continent show the most variety in color. Re¬ ports from northern Michigan, Hector, B. C., and Glacier Bay indicate brilliant and varied colors, and these are the farthest north of stations reporting in their respective longi¬ tudes. Four others report less striking color effects: Ephraim, Wis., Lake Minnetonka, Minn., Beartooth Mts., Mont., and possibly Teton Co., Mont.; and all of these speak of pink or rose. All of those reporting from farther south mention or imply lack of color except the usual pale green. It appears there¬ fore that variety of coloring increased north¬ ward. Another interesting point is that the display began everywhere at approximately the same hour, local time: that is, in the neigh¬ borhood of eight or nine p.m., or soon after sunset. Apparently then it moved westward across the continent, though it is barely pos¬ sible that it merely became visible in each case with oncoming darkness. One or two of those reporting mention a streaming move¬ ment from east to west, which may or may not be of importance. It is perhaps worth mentioning that during the week following August 26 two other auroras were visible, on August 30 and Sep¬ tember 2. The latter was a very fine one — a bright greenish glow covering the whole northern sky almost to the zenith. William S. Cooper Minneapolis, Minn., November 16, 1916 It seems worth while to place on record the fact that the auroral display of August 26, 1916, recorded in so many parts of the conti¬ nent, was especially brilliant at J uneau, Alaska. I noted it from about eight until after ten p.m. and was told by others that it continued until nearly midnight. It was the first one that I noted last summer, but I can not recall any of its details except that it was one of unusual brilliancy. Alfred H. Brooks Washington, D. C., November 13, 1916 I have read with great interest, in the is¬ sues of October 20 and November 10, the let¬ ters recording the auroral display of August 26. I notice that the most western record, as given in Science, is from Collins, Washington, and the most northern one, in western North America, from the Selkirk Range in British Columbia. It may interest you to know that the auroral display on August 26 was a most magnificent one on the coast of Alaska. I was at the time a few miles south of Skagway, Alaska, and had an opportunity to witness the phenomenon in all its splendor. The display of all the colors of the spectrum rushing to¬ gether from all directions into a gigantic whirlpool in zenith and then dispersing, lasted for at least half an hour. I may add that for a few days before the auroral display the elec¬ tric conditions in the air were such as to render it almost impossible to use wireless telegraphy between points in Yukon and Alaska. My colleague, Mr. H. T. Gussow, Dominion botanist, informs me that he witnessed a most brilliant auroral display on the 26th of August in the Straits of Georgia, between Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia. M. O. Malte Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa, Canada, November 13, 1916 THE AURORAS OF 1859 So much has been said about the aurora of August 26 of this year that I have been think¬ ing it might be well to make a note on the similar displays of August 28 and September 1, 1859, which few of the present readers of Science probably saw, but which seem to have been more splendid and remarkable. In both of these the streamers covered the whole sky, north and south, east and west, as seen from the Atlantic coast, in about latitude 43, where the present writer was then located, and con¬ verged to a point south and a little east of the zenith, indicating that they were in fact par¬ allel to the dipping compass needle, the varia¬ tion of which was a little west, for the north end. 818 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1145 In the display of August 28, they were of various colors; in that of September 1 they were of a uniform red. The brightness seemed to be about the same in both cases, and suffi¬ cient for one to read a printed page with ease. There was no moon. The southern streamers, especially, were very changeable; having con¬ tinually many of what were then called “ merry dancers,” or rapidly changing clouds of light, among them. These displays, as it was noticed in the papers at the time, were visible as far south as Cuba ; though of course they were not there so brilliant. They were accompanied by magnetic storms, and interference with tele¬ graphic work. The present writer was then engaged in as¬ tronomical observations, which had to be sus¬ pended during these illuminations. Geo. M. Searle Apostolic Mission House, Bkookland P. 0., Washington, D. C. INFERENCES CONCERNING AURORAS To the Editor of Science: I was much interested in the vivid description of the aurora of August 26 given by Dr. C. C. Nutting, followed as it was in the next issue of Science by a number of letters from differ¬ ent localities concerning the same, and I find in the last issue of Science, that of November 17, a most interesting account of this aurora, with general considerations respecting this phenomenon, given by Professor C. C. Trow¬ bridge, of Columbia University. Inasmuch as I had some time ago prepared a paper entitled “ Inferences Concerning Auroras ” for presentation at the meeting of the National Academy of Sciences in Boston, where the paper was read on November 14, it may be of interest to make a few brief state¬ ments concerning the inferences presented. In an address at the opening of the Palmer Laboratory of Physics at Princeton, entitled “ Atmospheric Electricity ” which appears in Science, N. S., Vol. 30, No. 781, pp. 857-869, December 17, 1909, I took occasion to state some opinions based upon the observation of auroras for many years, particularly as to the general relation of the auroral streamers to the earth. I quote the following statement: I have come to the opinion, that the auroral streamers often extend in a general direction out¬ wardly from the earth, sometimes for very great distances relatively to the known extent of our atmosphere. The effects observed appear unac¬ countable on any other supposition, while they are consistent with the idea of outwardly directed streams of great extent. The evidence furnished by the recent aurora of August 26 confirmed the inferences which I had made many years ago, and added con¬ siderably to the possibility of applying certain ideas in explanation of auroral phenomena generally. In the paper before the National Academy I have, I think, established with a fair degree of certainty that the auroral streamers are in reality vertical or approxi¬ mately vertical to the earth’s surface. These vertical streamers appear in bands, more or less wide, in the general direction of parallels of latitude forming belts or zones in which the streamers extend upward, somewhat like trees in a forest. I find an explanation, also, of those auroras which appear to be limited to a narrow belt, and appear as a single narrow streak of light across the sky from east to west. There may be, of course, in any aurora, a num¬ ber of such belts occupying different latitudes. I have endeavored to show, and I think suc¬ cessfully, that the curvature of the so-called auroral arch is a purely optical effect of per¬ spective, increased somewhat by the curvature of the earth, and that the appearance of folded curtains of streamers merely means that the lower ends or feet of the streamers which are, with relation to the observer, of varying alti¬ tude, or are of varying latitude as in a belt which is of a winding nature. It is pointed out, also, that the convergence of long streamers towards the zenith seen in the great auroras is purely an optical effect of perspective, and that the so-called zenith crown is, in reality, due to bundles of stream¬ ers nearly vertical like the others, but seen on end overhead. There are a number of other inferences which are supported by the observations of Carl Stormer and others, among which is the probable existence of a conducting layer at a December 8, 1916] SCIENCE 819 height approximately fifty miles above the earth’s surface. It is expected that my paper will soon be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In it the arguments are presented in full. Elihu Thomson A BUSINESS MAN’S APPRAISEMENT OF BIOLOGY The erection and dedication during recent months of important additions to the physical being of the Scripps Institution for Biological Besearch of the University of California has brought the name of the chief donor of money. Miss E. B. Scripps, quite conspicuously to public notice. Indeed so exclusively has the growth of the institution seemed in the eyes of the community to be the work of Miss Scripps that a brief statement of what has actually been and is going on here appears almost imperative not only to her but to all who have the welfare of the enterprise at heart. In what follows I speak primarily in the interest of a department of the University of the State of California, the purpose of which is to investigate nature for the general good, and only secondarily in the interest of the particular persons who will figure in my remarks. One of the most important secondary serv¬ ices a scientific research institution can render the public is in demonstrating that specialized and disciplined talent for studying nature, business experience and skill, and material wealth must be and can be brought together for the great task of making nature yield its best to the development of man’s latent physical and spiritual capacities. A point needing emphasis just now is that no one who has grasped the full meaning of the task, and has had actual experience in it, can possibly raise the question as to which of these three factors is all-important — which is the “ real thing ” in the undertaking. All are absolutely indispensable, and debate on which is most important is scholastic folly. The reason for these remarks is the circumstance that the temper of the day makes the wealth factor appear to most eyes as the main one, the determining one, the one to which all the others are secondary. The prevalent theory that, after all, he who “ holds the purse strings ” is the real “ power behind the throne” even in educational and scientific institutions, and so is the one to whom homage is chiefly due, is an embryonic trait, as biol¬ ogists say, in the development of civilization — a trait to be left behind with advance toward adulthood. No one understands this better than do some of those who give large sums of money to public institutions. It does not disparage by one whit the importance of hav¬ ing large wealth and being willing to devote portions of it to the general good to point ©ut that, as everybody knows who is acquainted with Miss Scripps, nothing could be more alien to her nature than to glory in the mere giving of a large sum of money toward the creation of an impressive physical structure dedicated to public use. Evidence that an “ investment,” be it large or small, contributes substantially to the general welfare, would give her supreme satisfaction, as this would be evidence not of mere ability to give, but to give wisely. In how far satisfaction of this sort is coming to Miss Scripps for what she has invested in this enterprise I do not know. I suspect there is still uncertainty in her mind; for the insti¬ tution is too young to enable her to judge what service it may render. But the personage primarily in view in this communication is not Miss E. B. Scripps, but Mr. E. W. Scripps. The truth is I am taking it for granted that Miss Scripps recognizes now the desirability of a kind of publicity con¬ cerning the origin and aims of the Scripps Institution not hitherto furnished, and that she would be willing to have me use her con¬ ception of an “ investor ” in behalf of the public as a starting point for what I am going to say about her brother. My words are ad¬ dressed first and foremost to men of science, especially those who reflect on the larger human significance of material knowledge and the discovery of it. The narration of a bit of personal-profes¬ sional experience will be permissible, since it 820 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1145 will help to the end aimed at. Whether the Scripps Institution shall or shall not turn out to be useful to mankind, the foundational motive upon which it rests is a faith in the value of science, especially biological science, far more concrete and deep and broad than that which seems to be held by most men of science; and this is in large measure due to E. W. Scripps. I must explain. By native inclination the study of nature understood in much the sense of “ the contemplation of nature” favored by naturalists a few genera¬ tions ago, is to me one of the most exalting occupations the human mind can have. Dur¬ ing the early part of my apprenticeship in sci¬ ence this feeling found great encouragement through the teachings and life of Joseph Le Conte, with whom at the University of Cali¬ fornia I came, as student and later as teacher, into close contact. Then there was a period of that intense specialization indispensable to progress in modern science, and with it the narrowing of interest and outlook and sym¬ pathy so likely to accompany such speciali¬ zation. It was in this period of intensified specialization and concomitantly narrowed horizon that the early stages of development of the marine biological work which led to the present institution fell; and it was also in this period that my acquaintance with Mr. Scripps began. I saw him first in the summer of 1903, and the circumstances of the meeting were typical of my whole association with him. Our “ marine laboratory ” that year was a por¬ tion of the boat house on Glorietta Bite, Coronado, this space having been generously given us by the Coronado Beach Company. Mr. Scripps came on purpose to see what was going on, and the thing that especially struck me was his lively, pushing, obviously sincere interest in the details of our work. His visit was no mere hasty, listless walk through the room with a few more or less relevant remarks designed primarily to tell us in the least offensive way possible how really insignificant the whole thing was in his eyes. But with a sort of child-like eagerness he insisted upon being shown something about what each of the half dozen workers was doing. Here in¬ deed was “ something new under the sun ” — at least to me. A man who, though the central figure in a great business, could yet drive twenty miles to visit a puny little scientific establishment and, though an entire stranger to such a place, could show an interest in not merely the enterprise but the actual work that was obviously genuine and, as to broad fea¬ tures, remarkably intelligent! A part of my regular duty for a number of years had been to solicit private funds for our struggling enterprise and I had succeeded to some extent in interesting several men of large means in certain aspects of it, chiefly, perhaps, that of how to “ let me down ” with a minimum of disappointment to me and cost to them. But a few of these men had gone well beyond this and had shown real interest in the general idea of a marine laboratory and had done considerable work and promised to give substantial sums toward accomplishing the end. But never before had I found an interest that was not merely in the general idea or in me personally or professionally, but in science — in biology — as such. Through the intervening years of associa¬ tion with Mr. Scripps, much of the time in the most intimate way, even as to the scientific work of the undertaking, not only have I never heard him so much as hint that any fragment of scientific knowledge or piece of research might be valueless, but his whole atti¬ tude and not infrequently his expression have been that of recognition of the inherent worth and dignity of natural knowledge, and most of all, of faith in science, especially, again, in biology, as the very foundation of rational hu¬ man life in modern society. Ho scientific man, LeConte possibly excepted, with whom I hav« ever come in contact, has had so broad, so deep, so unfaltering and withal so intelligent a belief in the greatness and human worth of science, as Mr. Scripps. Such a conception of nature, and of science as the rational interpretation of nature, held by a man endowed by birth with very unusual powers of mind, but, academically speaking, quite undisciplined in science, and eminently successful in business, has influenced my December 8, 1916] SCIENCE 821 thinking and estimates of value during the last decade beyond anything I can here tell. Enough to say that the scientific inquiry which has long been in the forefront of my interest, that namely of what the real constitution of nature must be in order that it may include man in the full scope of his being, has be¬ come wonderfully specific and real by having this remarkable subject under almost con¬ stant observation for so long a period. This perhaps more than any one factor has led me to conclude that the system of nature is, as by instinct almost Mr. Scripps appears to take it, much more intimately and vitally related to man than our modern philosophy or even our science usually recognizes. Science has made great headway latterly in proving that man is a part of nature; but it has not done much toward understanding what nature is because man is a part of it. The exceedingly unfortunate doctrine into which so much of western civilization has fallen, that everything about man which is esteemed supremely good is no part of his real nature but is supernatural (teaching of Chris¬ tian theology) or is a by-product, an “ epiphe- nomenon ” (teaching of neo-Darwinian biol¬ ogy) nowhere finds more positive refutation than in such individuals as Mr. Scripps, whether we observe them as types of organic beings or consider their views about nature and science. Such reflections have led me to endorse heartily his views that the human species taken exactly as it is and in the entire scope of its life, must be a subject for biological study; and to share his ambitions and inten¬ tions that the Scripps Institution shall after a while make some aspect of human biology thus conceived one of its departments of re¬ search. Those transcendent concerns of civilized man, the relation between the sexes, war, economics, patriotism, government, esthet¬ ics, ethics and religion, can never be treated wuth that freedom from prejudice and personal interest by which alone general truths can be rightly understood and appraised, excepting through the attainment of that attitude toward the tasks which characterizes the biologist in his dealing with problems of organisms inferior to man. This at least is the convic¬ tion we have reached after wide observation of instances and much theoretical discussion. And why in the nature of things should it not be possible to reach such an attitude toward the purely rational aspects of human problems ? If man really is a part of nature, as biology confidently affirms that he is, how escape recog¬ nizing that if a bird’s nest is a proper object for biological inquiry, an Eskimo’s snow hut and a millionaire’s palace are also? Or that if the mating antics of two spiders are biolog¬ ical phenomena, the Virginia reel and the tango are likewise? Or that if a bird chorus on a spring morning falls within the province of ornithological biology, a symphony concert falls within the province of anthropological biology? And it should be specially noticed that the fact that each of these sets of phe¬ nomena falls within the province of general biology does not by any means remove them from more restricted and specialized inquiry. The general biologist whose studies lead him to birds’ nests or the courtship of spiders or the song of birds, not only is not disposed to supplant specialists in these subjects, but is led to recognize more than ever the importance and indispensability of their labors. Just as the general biologist who should come upon the subjects of social wasps or singing birds, could not do much without the help of spe¬ cialists in these subjects, so the biologist who upon occasion should turn to social or musical humans, would be almost helpless without the aid of experts in human society and human music. Much as we believe in the utility of biology to industry, hygiene, eugenics and the rest of man’s material welfare, a thousand times more do we believe in its utility to his higher inter¬ ests, especially just now when “ Christian civilization ” seems bent upon putting into practise the monstrously perverted biological theory of survival of the fittest, and destroying itself through military and economic war. Concerning what Mr. Scripps’s business ex¬ perience and acumen have meant for the phys¬ ical development of the institution, I will be 822 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1145 specific only with reference to two matters. First, that of the location of the institution. The idea of getting the present 177-acre site and of using it as it is being used origi¬ nated with him and with him alone; and securing the land would have been impos¬ sible without him. But for his leadership in this we should now be in the little three- acre park in La Jolla. The enormous ad¬ vantage of the present location as com¬ pared with the former one is becoming appar¬ ent to everybody connected with the institu¬ tion. Second, the plan of having a business manager who alone should have charge of all monetary affairs of the institution. The wis¬ dom and practicability of separating the busi¬ ness and scientific work of such an enterprise would seem so obvious that it is surprising that any other plan should be thought of except as a temporary makeshift. Yet the time and strength of many scientific men are consumed with business matters which their incompetence makes much more costly in time and money than the employment of a business manager would be. The money, about $40,000 all told, “ in¬ vested ” in the enterprise by Mr. Scripps, though of very substantial aid in developing the “ plant ” and in maintenance, for which uses it has been given at different times and in varying sums, is of minor importance com¬ pared with the business experience and the ideas which he has contributed. Wm. E. Bitter Scripps Institution for Biological Research of the University of California, La Jolla, Calif. PSYCHOLOGY AS CONTRABAND To the Editor of Science : Some weeks ago the State Department reported the seizure by the British government of a package of books sent from Germany through Holland to the Psychological Beview Company. The presi¬ dent of the company, who is also editor of the Psychological Review, wrote to the American Consul General at London, stating that these books were scientific in character and essen¬ tially neutral. He suggested that the British authorities mention the titles and authors to any British psychologist and expressed con¬ fidence that any such expert would substan¬ tiate our statement. The Consul General in due time replied that the British Procurator General had finally ruled that “ such publications were not entitled to free transit.” The Psychological Review will not contest this decision in the British courts, but we wish to submit our case to the scientific world at home and abroad. Is there any good reason for hampering scientific progress by a policy of this sort? Would not the British psychol¬ ogists do well to petition for a commission to determine the mental status of their Pro¬ curator General? Howard C. Warren Psychological Review Company, Princeton, N. J., November 15, 1916 QUOTATIONS FOOD CONTROL The decision of the board of trade, an¬ nounced by Mr. Bunciman on November 15, to appoint a food controller, has naturally excited a great deal of public interest, , and more has been read into the announcement than it actu¬ ally contained. The orders so far made by the board of trade under the Defence of the Bealm Begulations apply to milk, flour and potatoes. The price of milk must not be raised above that paid at November 15, 1916, and the price may not exceed by more than a specified amount — in the case of retail milk 2d. a quart — the price in the corresponding month before the war. The order as to potatoes requires a return of potato stocks. The order which will have most effect in its influence on our daily diet is that which deals with flour. It affords an instance of how an agitation, unsuccessful in peace time, may succeed in its object under the stress of war conditions. The severe re¬ striction of the hours during which alcoholic liquors may be sold, and the introduction of “ summer time,” or daylight saving, as it has been called, are other examples. The regula¬ tion prohibits for' the future the production of any flour except such as would have been December 8, 1916] SCIENCE 823 called a few years ago, when there was a con¬ siderable agitation for its adoption, “ stand¬ ard flour.” The relative advantages and disadvantages of the grinding of wheat so as to produce a flour containing a larger proportion of germ and bran than the ordinary white flour have been somewhat fully discussed in our columns. The prevalent method, in consequence of the preference of the public for a very white flour and very white bread, has been to grind the wheat and separate the product into a succes¬ sion of fractions, the principal fraction, white flour, forming about 70 per cent, of the grain. By arranging the milling in such a way that SO per cent, instead of 70 is collected in one fraction, the amount of protein in the flour is substantially increased, and it has been claimed that the product is increased in nutritive value not only by the enhanced amount of protein, but by the retention in it of a larger proportion of the vitamines of the embryo. Mr. Runciman appears to have been impressed by this view of the matter as well as. by the advantage of get¬ ting an additional yield. He stated in the House of Commons that the government had decided that 70 per cent, flour can not now be permitted in this country. “ Pure white flour,” he said, “ from which has been abstracted, as some people think, some of its most valuable qualities, will not be milled in future. We shall retain in the flour a good deal of what I believe in some quarters is called offal and in others precious food.” He went on to state that the percentage of wheat which should be converted into flour varied with different kinds of wheat, and that a scale of percentages would be laid down which would, on an average, raise the yield of flour about 8J per cent. The mill¬ ing order which has since been published gives the percentage of flour that must be extracted from wheat as varying from 73 to 78 per cent, according to the variety, the highest figure being that for Australian wheat; the average figure is 75 per cent., which is still well below the 80 per cent, which was the percentage adopted for giving “ standard flour.” Even the additional 5 per cent., however, represents a large increase in the amount of flour obtained from every sack of wheat. The palatability of the resulting bread will continue to depend chiefly on a judicious blending of flours and on good baking. While there may still be some difference of opinion as to the extent of the advantage se¬ cured, there will probably be no difference of opinion in the medical profession on the point that it will, in the existing circumstances of the food market, be considerable, even apart from the fact that a given amount of wheat will yield a much larger proportion of bread than before. In this case, as in the case of “ summer time ” and other innovations, it will he interesting to see whether the general ex¬ perience obtained will lead to the retention after the end of the war of what has been adopted as a temporary measure. — British Med¬ ical Journal. The decision of the government, which ap¬ pears likely to result in the general consump¬ tion of “ standard bread,” will no doubt be re¬ ceived with varied feelings by various sections of the community. In view of the certainty that such differences of opinion are likely to arise, the following brief sketch of the facts of the case so far as they are known may be of general interest. Under normal conditions at the present time the average practise of roller milling results in the recovery from cleaned wheat of rather more than 70 per cent, of its weight of flour, the re¬ maining 28 or 29 per cent, of the wheat, con¬ sisting of various grades of “ offals,” being sold for feeding stock. The changes announced last week would make it compulsory to recover 80 per cent, of flour from wheat, which would increase the amount of flour by about 8J per cent, and de¬ crease the amount of offals for stock -feeding by a like proportion, the percentage in both cases being calculated on the amount of cleaned wheat available for milling. On the basis of the amount of flour produced ,in the United Kingdom for home consumption in the years immediately before the war, the change announced would increase the amount of flour available for bread-making by very nearly 600,000 tons, which would provide an extra 2-lb. loaf for every inhabitant of the 824 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1145 United Kingdom every three weeks, or seven¬ teen extra 2-lb. loaves per head of the popula¬ tion per year. This is by no means a negligible increase in the bread supply, and it is doubtless considerations of this kind that have induced the government to take action. If, however, we examine the result rather more closely, we find that the increase in the nation’s food supply may not be so great as the above figures indicate. In spite of repeated statements to the contrary, bread made from 80 per cent, flour is not so nutritious, weight for weight, as bread made from 70 per cent, flour — at any rate, for the supply of protein and energy for the general population. Al¬ though 80 per cent, bread contains on the aver¬ age rather more protein than 70 per cent, bread, the digestibility of the protein in the former is rather lower, so that the actual weight of protein digested by the average in¬ dividual from 1 lb. of 80 per cent, bread is rather less than the amount digested from 1 lb. of 70 per cent, bread. Again, the energy value of 80 per cent, bread is rather lower than that of 70 per cent, bread. Still one more cor¬ rection must be made in order to arrive at the actual increase in the national food supply which will result from the general adoption of a milling standard of 80 per cent. It is pointed out above that the recovery of 80 per cent, of flour from cleaned wheat entails a de¬ crease in the supply of the finer wheat offals for stock -feeding to the extent of about 600,000 tons. These finer offals are largely used for feeding pigs. Their transference to human consumption would therefore decrease the production of pork and bacon, and this must be allowed for in estimating the total effect of the proposed alterations in milling. After ap¬ plying all these corrections it appears that the general adoption of an 80 per cent, standard would undoubtedly give a substantial increase in the amount of digestible food for the supply of protein and energy for the population of the United Kingdom. The possibility that the food value of bread would be substantially increased by the adop¬ tion of the 80 per cent, standard, because the content of the mysterious constituents known as vitamines would be increased by the in¬ clusion of a greater proportion of the germ and of the outer layers of the grain, is perhaps scarcely worth discussing in this connection. Such constituents are supplied by other items comprised in an ordinary mixed diet, so that the vitamine content of bread can have little practical significance except in the very few cases where bread forms the whole, or very nearly the whole, of the diet. The price of wheat offals for feeding stock is now so high that the adoption of the 80 per cent, standard can not be expected to make any considerable reduction in the price of bread. Even the compulsory admixture of a considerable proportion of other cereals, such as maize, oats or barley, with wheat for bread¬ making would not greatly cheapen the loaf, because these cereals are not very much cheaper than wheat. The important point in raising the milling standard and in including other cereals among the breadstuffs is that it would widen the sources from which the na¬ tional food supply is derived — a most desirable end under existing conditions. To summarize, the result of a compulsory 80 per cent, stand¬ ard would be neither better bread nor cheaper bread, but more bread. — Nature. SCIENTIFIC BOOKS The History of Melanesian Society. By W. H. R. Rivers. Cambridge: The University Press, 1914. 2 vols. Pp. xii -J- 400 + 610- Ethnologists have learned to rejoice at the sight of Dr. Rivers’s name on the title page of an ethnological monograph. His work among the islanders of the Torres Straits stands as a model of painstaking research and critical method, originated in part by Dr. Rivers himself, while his elaborate study of the Todas of Southern India ranks with the best descriptive monographs of modern ethnol¬ ogy. In view of the author’s methodological labors, moreover, one’s anticipations are kindled as he glances through the pages of this newest attempt to reconstruct and in¬ terpret the history of an ethnographic district of which the cultural complexities have already taxed the ingenuity of Thilenius and December 8, 1916] SCIENCE 825 von Luschan, of Leo Frobenius, Graebner and Churchill. The first volume of the book is wholly de¬ scriptive. It brings new data on the material culture and art, religion, ceremonial and social organization of several of the island groups of Melanesia. The data on social organization are particularly welcome, for they fill a long felt gap; unfortunately the author’s own material also falls far short of being exhaustive; many details of the social systems described are lacking, nor are even the fundamentals always as definite as might be desired. Dr. Rivers, moreover, himself characterizes the descriptive part of his book not as an exhaustive treatise but rather as a preliminary survey. Further contributions covering the field are already announced: a volume on the Western Solomon Islands by Mr. A. M. Hocart and the author and a mono¬ graph by Mr. G. C. Wheeler on the islands of Bougainville Straits. Only one phase of his subject has Dr. Rivers covered almost ex¬ haustively, the systems and terms of relation¬ ship together with the behavior of relatives. A valuable comparative list of terms used in the different island groups is appended to the first volume. Of far greater significance and general in¬ terest is volume II. In it the author attempts a systematic albeit speculative reconstruction of Melanesian history. Whatever one may think of the author’s conclusions, or even of his method, he deserves the highest credit for having conceived and carried out a logically coherent theoretical argument, at the hand of a multiplicity of concrete data, an argument which fills more than five hundred pages and, as an intellectual effort, stands unique in the whole range of ethnological literature. In the first part of the volume the author uses the time-honored evolutionary method of historic reconstruction based on the theory of survivals. The fundamental assumption made by the author, which he uses as the corner¬ stone of the entire argument, is the basic and permanent character of social organization. This assumption is supplemented by the theory that the terms of relationship directly and faithfully reflect the social structure, par¬ ticularly the forms of marriage. Operating with these hypothetical tools the author ex¬ amines the morphology of the relationship systems of Melanesia and arguing from these to forms of social organization, particularly of marriage, he arrives at the earliest form (for the purposes of his argument, at least) of Melanesian society, characterized by a dual organization, maternal institutions, and a communism associated with a gerontocracy, the rule of old men, who tended to monopolize the women of the group and wielded undis¬ puted authority in tribal affairs. During that remote period individual marriage gradually came into being and the relations of father and child became for the first time clearly defined. By argumentative steps which space forbids us to follow the author proceeds to carry Melanesian society through later stages, among these a totemic one, which, however, in some parts at least of Melanesia later again disappears, leaving no traces of its former existence. The next move is a linguistic reexamina¬ tion of the relationship terms of Melanesia, the result of which is a complete reinterpreta¬ tion of the evolutionary process outlined above. For the author’s comparative survey reveals two sets of terms : one set is very much the same linguistically in the whole of Melanesia, the other varies as one passes from island group to island group. The conclusion is that the uniform terms must belong to an ancient indigenous population, the diversified ones to a later people of immigrant origin. Thus is reached the conception of the cultural complexity of Melanesia. Follows an elab¬ orate analysis of the secret societies of the island of Mota (Banks group). For reasons to be stated later the author ascribes these societies to an immigrant people, and detailed examination of the rituals of the societies provides a test for immigrant strata in Me¬ lanesian cultures. Supplementing this by a comparative study of methods of burial, the author finally resolves Melanesian culture into a series of strata : the most ancient culture of the dual people, followed by that of the kava people, followed by that of the betel 826 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1145 people. Last come certain recent influences from Micronesia and Polynesia. Polynesia, moreover, is made to participate in some of the other culture strata, so that a later Poly¬ nesian culture corresponds to an earlier Mela¬ nesian one, while the earlier Polynesian cul¬ ture is given a share in the moulding of the culture of the dual people, which, therefore, also proves to be complex in character. The remaining sections of the volume are devoted to an interpretation of the different aspects of Melanesian culture in the light of the cultural strata just outlined. Thus, linked totemism is regarded as due to two successive migrations of totemic peoples; con¬ ventionalized art is ascribed to the influence exerted by the geometrical art of one people on the realistic art of another; the origin of money is seen in the conditions which arise when two largely independent people live side by side; religion is a trait of the kava people, while the dual people were addicted to magic; sun and moon worship also come from the kava people, while stone work is due to ideas introduced by them ; the bow and arrow belong to the kava as well as to the dual people, although they were subsequently lost among both; the plank-canoe was shared by the kava and betel peoples, while the dug-out originated with the dual people; the use of an inclusive and exclusive plural, finally, in some of the Melanesian languages points to the necessity of differentiating between two social strata. In fairness to Dr. Rivers it must be said that the bare outline presented above does but poor justice to the author’s amazingly complex argumentation. It will suffice, however, for the purpose of the present examination, which is not to refute the author — a task that would require a volume — but to characterize and expose his method. This restriction is the more justifiable as the author himself regards the “ history” as a model of ethnological method. In order to allow for a more deliberate analysis of the second part of Vol. II., the first part will be discussed very briefly. In it the author applies the method of survivals with little regard for probabilities. When a reconstruction based on a diagnostic utiliza¬ tion of relationship terms leads to the as¬ sumption of an ancient state of gerontocracy of a type hitherto unknown in concrete ethnographic experience, and of forms of marriage, such as that between individuals separated by two generations (a condition which, while it seems to occur, must certainly be regarded as highly exceptional), one pauses to think before accepting the author’s conclu¬ sion. Again, although Dr. Rivers has cer¬ tainly made good his contention that terms of relationship will reflect states of society, par¬ ticularly of marriage — a position once held as a dogma by Lewis H. Morgan — and not¬ withstanding the new in part very striking evidence which the author’s book brings in support of that contention, he clearly is guilty of deliberately overlooking the fact that social structure and function represent but two out of a set of factors which may and do influence relationship terms and systems. A set of terms must always remain a feature of lan¬ guage and as such it is subject to those in¬ fluences which control linguistic changes as well as to the peculiar spirit of a particular language or linguistic stock. Again, a system of relationship, a set of terms, are phases of culture and, like other cultural features, they may spread from people to people, may be in¬ fluenced by factors extraneous to the group to which they belong. While the theoretical validity of these propositions seems assured, one welcomes the fact that renewed interest in the numerous and intricate problems presented by the study of systems of relationship is manifested in a series of concrete and sys¬ tematic investigations undertaken particularly by American anthropologists, investigations which have already brought valuable evidence in favor of a less one-sided attitude toward the problems of relationship systems and from which further results along similar lines may ere long be expected.1 But Dr. Rivers’s principal error consists in i Cf., for instance, E. H. Lowie, ‘ 1 Exogamy and the Classificatory Systems of Eelationship, ’ ’ Amer¬ ican Anthropologist, Yol. 17, 1915. December 8, 1916] SCIENCE 827 the peculiar — one is tempted to say reckless — ■ manner in which he applies the principle of the diffusion of culture in the second part of his theoretical argument. It is true, the author is not guilty of that mechanical hand¬ ling of cultural features, like units of a phys¬ ical mixture, which is so characteristic of Graebner’s procedure. Dr. Rivers gives due weight to the psychological aspects of culture contact; he emphasizes, for instance, the ob¬ servation that the very circumstances of the contact of two cultures may give rise to features foreign to both cultures before con¬ tact. He also devotes an entire chapter, perhaps the most valuable part of the volume, to an ordered consideration of the mechan¬ isms and conditions, physical as well as psy¬ chical, of the diffusion of culture. But for all that the glaring unreality of the author’s method remains the most striking feature of his book. Deliberately evading any attempt to furnish proof of diffusion in specific in¬ stances, the author erects a purely hypothet¬ ical structure, based on a bewildering maze of assumptions invariably favoring interpre¬ tations through diffusion while disregarding alternative interpretations. In the discussion of the secret societies of Mota, for instance, the author ascribes the secrecy of the socie¬ ties, their multiplicity, as well as their grad¬ ing in rank, to the fact that the societies were introduced by an immigrant people; they were secret because an open ritual in the presence of a hostile indigenous population (at an¬ other stage in the argument the population is assumed to be friendly to the newcomers) was dangerous ; they were numerous because a constant stream of applicants for membership from the natives led to the formation of new societies; they were graded as to rank because a line had to be drawn between a society wholly of immigrant origin and one into which natives had already been admitted, and so on. How, it is a well-known fact that re¬ ligious societies such as those of Mota^ whether they belong to other parts of Mela¬ nesia, to West Africa or to Horth America, are very commonly secret, multiple and ranked. Ho ground is found, in other places, to ascribe them to an immigrant people. Why, then, in Mota? The author is, indeed, aware of this circumstance. He admits the possibility of an alternative interpretation, but he rejects it in favor of his own, and proceeds with his argument (II., 213). Simi¬ larly, when discussing decorative art the author chooses to neglect the psychologic¬ ally plausible and experientially verified tend¬ ency of designs to pass progressively from realistic forms to geometrical ones or of geometrical designs to become elaborated and often transformed through the addition of realistic appendages. For Dr. Rivers con¬ ventionalization is a factor “ depending on the blending of peoples and of their cultures.” By conventionalization he means “ essentially a process by which a form of artistic ex¬ pression introduced into a new home becomes modified through the influence of the conven¬ tions and long-established technique of the people among whom the new notions are in¬ troduced ” (II., 383). The most striking in¬ stance of such procedure is perhaps the case of language, where the author ascribes the presence of the inclusive and exclusive plural to the necessity of differentiating between two classes of society. An inclusive and exclusive plural as well as dual occur, for instance, in quite a number of American Indian languages. In these instances Dr. Rivers himself would probably not find a sociological interpretation necessary. Why then so radical an assump¬ tion in the case of Melanesia, unless indeed it can be made something more than a mere assumption? An examination of several of the features used by the author as tests of his theory shows with great clearness how easy as well as futile it is to advance an in¬ terpretation of the facts through diffusion, unless proof can be furnished. We note a set of dual features: the sacred and the profane; higher and lower grades ; chiefs and com¬ moners; geometric and realistic designs; two communities with products to exchange; in¬ clusive and exclusive plural; maternal and paternal descent; religion and magic. How, it occurs at once that numerous instances could be cited where one or more of the 828 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1145 coupled traits coexist in the same community under conditions which preclude all possibility of ascribing one of the traits to an indigenous, the other to an immigrant culture. This being so, what justification is there for ad¬ vancing such an interpretation in any case, unless the assumption can be supported by specific evidence? Obviously, the easier it is to explain a phenomenon in one of two ways, the more vigorous must be the proof if one of the two alternative explanations is selected. After all, then, there is a close similarity between Rivers of the Melanesian Society and Graebner of Die Melanesische Bogenkultur. The former author takes special pains (II., 3, seq .) to assert his complete independence of Graebnerian method. That the author’s posi¬ tion is in part justified, has been shown before. But in one respect the relationship of the two systems is unmistakable. Both authors utilize diffusion not as a process to be demonstrated but as one to be assumed for the purpose of hypothetical culture building. To be sure, what Rivers builds is altogether different from that which is built by Graebner, but the prin¬ ciples according to which the different parts of the structures are welded together are the same in either case. Before closing it will be well to refer to Dr. Rivers’s own definition of his method. We read: This method has been the formulation of a work- ing hypothetical scheme to form a framework into which the facts are fitted, and the scheme is re¬ garded as satisfactory only if the facts can thus be fitted so as to form a coherent whole, all parts of which are consistent with one another (II., 586). The method, thus formulated, is, as a method of historical research, self-condemnatory. It may well be applied in the shaping of those hypothetical conceptual systems which are in¬ troduced by the theoreticians of the exact sci¬ ences for the purpose of providing a simplified description of the data of experience in a par¬ ticular field. It does not matter how the vortex looks (or whether it looks at all), if only the functions of the ether can be readily de¬ rived from it. It may not be of importance whether the atom exists or not (with apologies to Lord Kelvin), but if it furthers a successful formulation of the facts of chemistry (a task in which of late it has conspicuously failed), its conceptual existence is vindicated. Not so in history. It has been said, with some truth, that for an understanding of society it is less important to know what has occurred than what may have occurred. But surely this does not apply to the study of history as such, nor to ethnology, in so far as its task is historical. Here the search is altogether for what has oc¬ curred, although the knowledge of what may have occurred can serve as a useful guide in the search. In the domain of ethnology, more¬ over, our knowledge of what has occurred will have to be increased many times before we can safely trust our intuitions as to what may have occurred. To repeat, then, Dr. Rivers has labored fiercely against heavy odds, he has reopened an old and much trodden field; his work empha¬ sizes once more the amazing cultural com¬ plexity of those southern seas; it is rich in subtle psychological analysis and happy formu¬ lation of theoretical principles ; it also abounds in ingenious hypotheses of great prima facie plausibility. But we can not endorse this “ his¬ tory” as a model of ethnological method, for a history surely it is not. A. A. Goldenweiser Columbia University SPECIAL ARTICLES LOBSTER MATING: A MEANS OF CONSERVING THE LOBSTER INDUSTRY During the summer of 1914 the writer, working under the auspices of the Biological Board of Canada, attempted to rear lobster fry to the crawling stage, using the now famil¬ iar apparatus of the Rhode Island Commis¬ sion. The site chosen for the repetition of the celebrated Wickford experiments was St. Mary’s Bay, Digby Co., Nova Scotia. The attempt proved a complete failure due chiefly to the extreme cold water (50° F. to 60° F.) and to the extensive development of diatoms which soon closed up the mouth parts of the fry and caused an exceedingly high death rate. December 8, 1916] SCIENCE 829 However, an experiment that was at first supposed to be a very minor one compared with lobster rearing turned out to be the major one. It was this. About the middle of June, 47 females and 15 males (all known as “ commer¬ cial lobsters,” because the females when caught in fishermen’s traps have no “ berries ” on them) were placed in a wooden pound en¬ closing an area of 10 feet by 20 feet. The slats of which the pound was built were about 4J feet long, 3 inches wide and 1 inch thick. It was intended to retain the animals over winter for the purpose of elucidating the old question of whether or not adult females moult one year and extrude eggs the next, or whether they extrude eggs every year (when mating conditions are favorable) and only moult occa¬ sionally as they grow older. On the 12th of August the whole of the 62 lobsters were dipped up to see what condition they were in. They all appeared healthy, and 36 per cent, of the females carried eggs. Dr. Herrick in his well-known book on the American lobster quotes from Yinal Edwards to the effect that the percentage of berried lobsters caught by fishermen off the Massa¬ chusetts coast was 12 per cent, for the autumn of 1893 to June 30, of 1894. Careful inquiries among both canners and fishermen of the St. Mary’s area elicited the information that only about 1 per cent, of the females caught in fishermen’s traps carried eggs. And then the question arose: How is it that in fishermen’s traps only one female in every hundred carries eggs, whereas in our mating pen thirty-six out of every hundred carry eggs? The prob¬ lem did not grow any simpler when it was found that by the end of September the per¬ centage in our pen had risen to 64 per cent. The 17 females which did not extrude eggs were removed from the latticed pen and the 30 which bore eggs, representing the 64 per cent., were kept over winter in a compart¬ ment by themselves. On April 7, 1915, the 30 were all found to have the full complement of eggs upon them. Subsequently, in June and early July, they all hatched out their eggs, and being kept in compartments by themselves 9 of them were found to have extruded eggs in late July and August. These 9 were removed from the pen, the remaining 21 being retained, but unfortunately one corner of the enclosure gave way, allowing most of the 21 to escape and mingle with others, so that it was impos¬ sible to know how many more of them did ex¬ trude eggs. Mating experiments were resumed during the summer of 1915, but were not so success¬ ful as those of 1914. Only 40 per cent, of the females extruded eggs, and the eggs were most of them unfertilized. Probably the sole reason for this was lack of males. During the early part of the summer we had only one male to mate with 51 females. Later on, we were for¬ tunate enough to secure 25 more males, but half of these died from accidental poisoning by paint on the inside of our mating pens. Moreover, many of the remaining males were decidedly undersized — 9^ to 10 inches in length. But perhaps the most fundamental reason for the poor showing of 1915 lay in the fact that the large majority of the females had been retained in the pound over winter, and as a consequence had suffered considerably in general health. Few of them had moulted and their “ shells ” were covered with dark brown algal growths that I have always seen upon lobsters when in lengthened confinement, but never upon those which were taken directly from the open sea. In 1916 the Biological Board authorized an extension of the mating experiments to two other places on the maritime coast, namely, St. Andrew’s, Hew Brunswick, and Pictou, on Morthumberland Straits. The results to date are 25 “ berried ” out of 105 in St. Mary’s Bay, 8 out of 22 at St. Andrews and 14 out of 21 at Pictou, or, expressed in percentages, 25 per cent., 36 per cent, and 66 per cent., respec¬ tively. How do these percentages compare with the percentages of females caught in lobster traps in these same areas? Fortunately, through the courtesy of the Department of Haval Serv¬ ice, Ottawa, we were able to make a close ap¬ proximation to an answer to this question. At the request of the Biological Board, the nat¬ uralist of the Fisheries Branch, Mr. Andrew 830' SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1145 Halkett, was detailed to spend the summer in going out with lobster fishermen all around the coast, and in collecting statistics as to the total males, total females and percentages of berried females caught in lobster traps. The following is a copy of his summary of results : the percentages for 1894—95 are too low, be¬ cause we have Vinal Edwards’s catch off Woods Hole already referred to for these same years, showing 12 per cent, of the females as carry¬ ing eggs. Does this mean that 88 per cent, of the female lobsters off the Massachusetts coast Date Name of Place No. Males No. Fe¬ males No. Females which Carried Eggs Remarks by Dr. Knight April 24, 1916 Tommy’s Beach, N.S. 56 58 0 April 25, 1916 Tommy’s Beach, N.S. 26 27 0 April 28, 1916 Little River, N.S. 23 17 0 May 2, 1916 Whale Cove, N.S. 25 28 0 May 3, 1916 White Cove, N.S. 26 19 1 Egg of 1915 May 5, 1916 Tiverton, N.S. 9 20 0 May 15, 1916 Lunenburg, N.S. 36 35 1 Egg of 1915 May 17, 1916 Port Mouton, N.S. 50 39 3 Eggs of 1915 May 20, 1916 Shag Harbor, N.S. 46 54 0 May 22, 1916 Shag Harbor, N.S. 88 112 0 May 23, 1916 Shag Harbor, N.S. 39 70 2 Eggs of 1915 May 24, 1916 Shag Harbor, N.S. 171 158 0 May 26, 1916 Cape Sable Island, N.S. 68 98 0 May 30, 1916 Lobster Bay, West Pubnico 82 73 0 June 2, 1916 Cape St. Mary’s, West Pubnico 66 86 0 June 6, 1916 Mink Cove, N.S. 34 25 1 Egg of 1915 June 10, 1916 Little River, N.S. 24 28 0 June 12, 1916 Little River, N.S. 14 10 0 June 15, 1916 Ostrea Lake, N.S. 16 14 0 June 16, 1916 Jeddore, N.S. 169 191 6 Saw first eggs hatching 1915 June 20, 1916 Pope’s Harbour, N.S. 6 6 0 June 24, 1916 Pugwash, N.S. 366 352 50 9/10 old, 1/10 new eggs June 28, 1916 Skinner’s Reef, N.S. 56 36 1 Egg of 1915 June 29, 1916 Pictou Island, N.S. 24 39 1 New eggs (1916) July 10, 1916 Northport, N.S. 111 110 10 9 old eggs, 1 new July 13, 1916 Shemogue, N.B. 108 95 3 1 egg 1915, 2 new July 17, 1916 Dupin’s Corner, N.B. 50 27 1 Egg 1916 July 19, 1916 Cormierville, N.B. 133 105 0 July 20, 1916 Chockfish River, N.B. 139 119 1 Eggs new Aug. 1, 1916 Cape Traverse, P.E.I. 157 158 1 Eggs new Aug. 2, 1916 Cape Traverse, P.E.I. 134 112 2 Last eggs seen hatching Aug. 4, 1916 Brae Harbour, P.E.I. 164 108 1 New eggs (1916) Aug. 5, 1916 Rocky Point, P.E.I. 135 77 1 New eggs (1916) Aug. 7, 1916 Brae Harbour, P.E.I. 207 118 3 New eggs (1916) Aug. 9, 1916 West Point, P.E.I. 325 274 5 New eggs (1916) Aug. 10, 1916 Brae Harbour, P.E.I. 150 100 3 New eggs (1916) Totals . 3,333 3,004 97 or 3.2% Samples of all eggs were sent to me for the determination of the age of the eggs. Let us compare these results with statistics furnished me by Dr. Hugh M. Smith, the fish commissioner at Washington, as to the number of lobsters taken off the Massachusetts coast. Dr. Smith is careful to state that the num¬ ber of berried females is probably under¬ stated, because of the carelessness of fishermen in making returns. We are quite certain that are sterile? If female lobsters moult every second year and extrude eggs in the alternate years, why do not 50 per cent, of them carry eggs? But they do not, as every fisherman knows. The fact is that the biennial theory of moult¬ ing and spawning can not be held any longer. In the sixties and seventies when about half the females carried eggs (see Vinal Edwards quoted by Herrick in regard to 63.1 per cent, of the females off Ho Man’s Land being her- December 8, 1916] SCIENCE 831 ried) the theory seemed to fit the facts. To¬ day it does not. Year No. Lobsters Above 10H Inches Egg¬ bearing Lob¬ sters Estimated Females — about Halt the Total Percentages of Ber¬ ried Females 1888 1,740,850 1889 1,359,645 61,832 679.8231 9 per cent, berried 1890 1,612,129 70,909 806,065 1891 1,292,791 49,973 646,395 1892 1,107,764 37,230 553,887 1893 1,149,732 32,741 579,866 1894 1,096,834 34,897 548,467 6 per cent, nearly 1895 956,365 34,343 478,187 7 per cent, nearly 1896 995,396 30,470 497,698 6 per cent, nearly 1897 896,273 23,719 498,186 1898 720,413 19,931 360,206 1899 644,633 16,470 322,316 1900 646,499 15,638 323,299 1901 578,383 16,353 289,190 5 per cent. 1902 670,245 • • • • 335,127 1903 665,466 .... 332,733 1904 552,290 13,950 276,145 1905 426,471 9,865 213,235 4.6 per cent. 19072 1,039,886 10,348 519,943 2 per cent. 19082 1,035,123 9,081 517,561 19092 1,326,219 11,656 663,109 19102 935,356 7,857 467,678 1.6 per cent. The question to be answered is this : How is it that off the Massachusetts coast in 1910, only about 2 per cent, of the females carried eggs? Even if the figures are not absolutely correct, the general falling off in percentage since 1888 is most marked. In Canada, we have collected no statistics until this year (1916), and Mr. Halkett’s returns show that an average of about 97 per cent, carry no eggs. Are these females all sterile? Impossible be¬ lief! For the Canadian coast, therefore, it is clear, that the percentage of females which carry eggs in traps varies from less than 1 per cent, in the Bay of Eundy area (which may be said to include St. Mary’s and St. Andrew’s) to about 4.2 per cent, in Northumberland Straits ; whereas, by mating experiments in these same areas the percentages are increased by an average of 3,000 per cent, in the former and 1,600 per cent, in the latter area. 1 The estimate of females, as half of the totals is mine. — A. P. K. 2 Number of lobsters above 9 inches. Early in our experiments this summer the possibility occurred to me that females in the open sea might in autumn carry more eggs than they do in spring and early summer. In other words, many females might for one rea¬ son or another lose their eggs during the winter, and thus reduce the percentage to that elucidated by Mr. Halkett. This possibility was tested to some extent during August and September (1916). Through the courtesy of the Minister of Fisheries, the Hon. J. D. Hazen, I was permitted to fish for lobsters from August 19 to August 31, and found the per¬ centage to 2£ per cent, for the Pictou area. Fishing was again resumed during the last four days of September, when the percentage was found to have increased to 5.6 per cent. Moreover, during September we had 25 males and 25 females confined in the mating pen, and although the enclosure gave way at one corner and allowed some of the lobsters to escape, nevertheless 13£ per cent, of the fe¬ males were found to have extruded eggs. Here the increase by mating is quite clear. While I dislike theorizing at this stage in the experiments, I may be permitted to suggest that probably the majority of female lobsters extrude their eggs every year; but that as the total males and females are now greatly re¬ duced through overfishing, and relatively widely separated from each other in the open sea, there is less copulation than formerly, with consequent lack of fertilization of eggs. Being unfertilized the eggs soon “ go bad,” and drop off. On the other hand, mating brings the sexes together with a resulting increase in the numbers of females carrying fertilized eggs. We may safely conclude, therefore, that the efficacy of mating as a means of increasing the number of berried females is fairly well established, on the supposition, of course, that the catch of berried females fairly represents the number of berried females in the bottom of the sea. At any rate, the results amply justify further experiments on a large scale, and if further results prove as successful as those of the past three years, they far surpass the results of either lobster hatching or lobster 832 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1145 rearing as a means of conserving the lobster industry. A. P. Knight Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA The thirty-fifth meeting of the Royal Society of Canada was held, this year, in the Chateau Laurier at Ottawa, Province of Ontario, under the presidency of Professor Alfred Baker, M.A., LL.D., of Toronto University. There was a large attendance of fellows from all the provinces of the Dominion. As is well known to readers of Science, this society is essentially national in character; and in the four sections into which the society is divided, the archeological, literary, historical as well as scientific leaders in thought, of English as well as of French Canada, are represented. The society meets but once a year in conclave, but sec¬ tions can be called at the bidding of its officers to carry out programs of lectures, reading of papers or similar functions with a view of furthering the aims of the society. Seventeen affiliated societies of Canada re¬ ported through their official representatives or delegates. The war now raging in Europe has affected the society to a marked degree, not only in the attendance at the annual meeting owing to the number of fellows serving at the front, but also in the distribution of the publications. There was no distribution to enemy countries. Death has removed several fellows, including Sir Sandford Fleming; Dr. W. F. King, astronomer; Dr. Samuel E. Dawson, litterateur, historian and geographer, and Monsieur Ernest Gagnon, his¬ torian. The third and fourth sections of the Royal So¬ ciety of Canada are those specially devoted to the sciences, and papers were presented and read which cover the wide field of research common to all nationalities and special interest to readers of Science. List of Papers presented in Section III, Chemical and Physical Sciences Presidential address. By Dr. F. T. Shutt, M.A., E.I.C. — ‘ ‘ Agricultural Research in Canada.” ‘ ‘ The Turn of Tidal Streams in relation to the Time of the Tide,” by W. Bell Dawson, M.A., D.Se., M.Inst., C.E., E.R.S.C. “The Smelting of Titaniferous Iron Ores,” by Alfred Stansfield, P.R.S.C., D.Sc., A.R.S.M., pro¬ fessor of metallurgy, McGill University, and Wil¬ liam Arthur Wissler, M.Sc., of McGill University. “Factors connecting the Concentration and the Optical Rotatory Power of Aqueous Solutions of Nicotine,” by Alfred Tingle and Allan A. Fergu¬ son. Presented by Professor W. R. Lang, F.R.S.C. “A New Method for the Determination of Nico¬ tine in Tobacco,” by Alfred Tingle and Allan A. Ferguson. Presented by Professor W. R. Lang, F.R.S.C. “The Influence of Fertilizers on the Flow of Water through Soils,” by C. J. Lynde, Ph.D., pro¬ fessor of physics, and R. Dougall, B.S.A., re¬ search assistant under the Dominion Grant for Agriculture, Macdonald College, P. Q. Presented by Dr. H. T. Barnes, F.R.S. “On the Initial Charged Condition of the Ac¬ tive Deposits of Radium, Thorium and Actinium,” by G. H. Henderson, B.A., B.Sc., instructor in physics, Dalhousie University. Presented by H. L. Bronson, F.R.S.C. ‘ ‘ The Structure of Hailstones of Exceptional Form and Size,” by Francis E. Lloyd. Presented by Professor C. H. McLeod, F.R.S.C. “Human Adipocere,” by R. F. Ruttan, M.D., F.R.S.C. “Formation of Ring Ice or Hoar Frost in Pipes,” by Professor H. T. Barnes, F.R.S.C. “Contact Resistance in Oil,” by H. E. Rielley, M.Sc., and Violet Henry, M.Sc. Presented by Pro¬ fessor H. T. Barnes, F.R.S.C. ‘ ‘ The Contact Resistance between Conductors in Relative Motion,” by Violet Henry, M.Sc. Pre¬ sented by Professor H. T. Barnes, F.R.S.C. ‘ ‘ The Solubility of Aluminium Hydroxide in So¬ lutions of Ammonia, ” by E. H. Archibald and T. Habasian. Presented by Professor Ruttan. ‘ ‘ The Occlusion of Iron by the Ammonium Phosphomolybdate Precipitate,” by E. H. Archi¬ bald and H. B. Keegan. Presented by Professor Ruttan. ‘ ‘ A Comparison of Radium Standard Solutions, ’ ’ by J. Moran. Presented by Professor A. S. Eve, F.R.S.C. ‘ ‘ The Release of Radium Emanation from Water at Different Temperatures by Bubbling Air through the Solution at a Uniform Rate,” by J. Moran. Presented by Professor A. S. Eve, F.R.S.C. “The Double Salts Formed by Sodium and Po¬ tassium Carbonates,” by J. W. Bain, F.R.S.C., and C. E. Oliver. ‘ ‘ On the Effect of Stationary Sound Waves on Viscous Flow in Pipes and Channels,” by Louis Vessot King, M.A. (Cantab.), D.Sc. (McGill), F.R.S.C., associate professor of physics, McGill University, Montreal. December 8, 1916] SCIENCE 833 “Concerning a Certain Non-in volutory System of Partial Differential Equations,” by C. T. Sulli¬ van, lecturer in mathematics, McGill University, Montreal. Presented by Jas. Harkness, F.E.S.C. ‘ 1 The Algebraic Basis for Two Formulae in the Theory of Expansions according to Bessel Func¬ tions,” by James Harkness, M.A., F.E.S.C. “Alternate Number Indices in Triangular Co¬ ordinates,” by J. C. Glashan, LL.D., F.E.S.C. “On the Scattering and Attenuation of Eadia- tion in the Solar Atmosphere,” by Louis Yessot King, M.A. (Cantab.), D.Sc. (McGill), F.E.S.C., associate professor of physics, McGill University, Montreal. “On Boundary Conditions in the Dynamical Theory of Gases,” by Louis Yessot King, M.A. (Cantab.), D.Sc. (McGill), F.E.S.C. 1 1 Progress on 72-inch Eeflecting Telescope,” by Dr. J. S. Plaskett, F.E.S.C., Dominion Observatory, Ottawa. “ Hygrometry, ” by A. Norman Shaw, B.A. (Cantab.), D.Sc., Macdonald College, McGill Uni¬ versity. Presented by Professor H. T. Barnes, F.E.S., F.E.S.C. The important question of industrial research introduced by the president, was very thoroughly discussed at two sessions of the Section and vari¬ ous opinions as to the best methods of procedure were advanced. The following resolution which was adopted represents the final conclusion arrived at by the members of Section III. : “Whereas, it is important that the scientific forces of Canada should be organized to aid in the vigorous and efficient prosecution of the war and in the development of Canadian industries to meet the present conditions as well as those which may prevail after the war, “Resolved that the Eoyal Society of Canada re¬ spectfully suggests to the government the ap¬ pointment of a committee or commission of scien¬ tific men whose duty it shall be to advise the gov¬ ernment how best to utilize the men and labora¬ tories available for such purposes.” The commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of Confederation was decided to be marked, at the meeting of 1917, by historical papers deal¬ ing with the progress of the various divisions of mathematical and physical sciences. The officers of the Section were asked to select the members * who would prepare such papers. The election of officers for Section III. resulted in the choice of the following: President — E. F. Euttan, M.D., C.M., D.Sc. Vice-president — A. S. Eve, D.Sc. Secretary — F. T. Shutt, M.A., D.Sc. Progress was reported on the 72-inch reflecting telescope now approaching the final stages of erec¬ tion and adjusting at the Dominion Observatory at Ottawa, Canada. SECTION IV. (GEOLOGICAL AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES) This section reports five sessions under the chair¬ manship of Mr. J. B. Tyrrell, M.A., F.G.S. Twenty-nine fellows were in attendance as fol¬ lows: Messrs. Adams, Bailey, Bethune, Brodie, Buffer, Coleman, Dowling, Dresser, Faribault, Faull, Grant, Harrison, Hewitt, Huard, Lambe, Maeallum, Mackay, McConnell, Mclnnes, McMurrich, Mat¬ thew, Moore, Parks, Prince, Tyrrell, White, Harris, Hunter and Lloyd. Four absent Fellows are on active service: Dr. Adami, Dr. Harrison, Dr. MacKenzie and Dr. Nicholls. To the membership were added the names of Professors Harris, Hunter, Lloyd and Fraser. The following officers were chosen for the year 1916-17: President — J. P. McMurrich, F.E.S.C. Vice-president — E. G. McConnell, F.G.S. Secretary — J. J. Mackenzie, F.E.S.C. Acting-Secretary — J. H. Faull, F.E.S.C. Publication Committee — Dr. Hewitt, Mr. Dow¬ ling and Dr. Harrison. List of Papers Presented in Section IV Twenty-one papers, a list of which is appended, including a presidential address of much interest on “Notes on the Geology of the Nelson and Hayes Eiver, Manitoba,” were presented to the Section, contributions in the gross that represented a large amount of important and stimulating work. Presidential Address — “Notes on the Geology of the Nelson and Hayes Eiver, Manitoba,” by J. B. Tyrrell, F.E.S.C. “Notes on the Plankton of the British Colum¬ bia Coast,” by J. Playfair McMurrich, F.E.S.C. “On a New Anthomedusan from the Coast of British Columbia,” by H. B. Bigelow. Presented by Professor McMurrich, F.E.S.C. 1 1 The Quantitative Study of Climatic Factors in Eelation to Plant Life,” by J. Adams, M.A. Presented by C. Gordon Hewitt, D.Sc., F.E.S.C. “Geologic Eange of the Phyla, Classes, Sub¬ classes and Orders of the Plant and Animal King¬ doms, ’ ’ by Lancaster D. Burling. Geological Sur¬ vey, Canada. Presented by Lawrence M. Lambe, F.E.S.C. ‘ ‘ Ganoid Fishes from near Banff, ’ ’ by Law¬ rence M. Lambe, F.E.S.C., F.G.S.A., vertebrate paleontologist to the Geological Survey, Canada. “Achondroplasia, a Problem in Development,” by Albert G. Nicholls, M.A., M.D., Sc.D. 834 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1145 ' ‘ Studies on a Timber Destroying Fungus — Fomes officinalis,” by J. H. Fault, Ph.D., F.R.S.C. “ Notes on Cambrian Faunas,” by G. F. Matthew, LL.D., D.Sc. ‘ ‘ Studies on the Protozoan Parasites of the Fishes of the Georgian Bay,” by J. W. Mavor, B.A., Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison, U. S. A. Presented by E. E. Prince, LL.D., F.R.S.C. “Statistical Studies on the Growth of the Pol¬ lock, Haddock and Hake, ” by J. W. Mavor, Douglas Macallum and Dorothy Duff; with twenty figures. Presented by E. E. Prince, LL.D., F. R.S.C. “The Abscission of Flower-buds and Fruits in its Relation to Environmental Changes,” by Pro¬ fessor Francis E. Lloyd, F.R.S.C. “On the Development of PEquorea forskalea,” by C. McLean Fraser, Ph.D., F.R.S.C. “Bibliography of Canadian Botany for the Year 1915,” by A. H. MacKay, LL.D., F.R.S.C. “Bibliography of Canadian Entomology for the Year 1915,” by C. J. S. Bethune, D.C.L., F.R.S.C. “Bibliography of Canadian Zoology for 1915 (exclusive of Entomology),” by E. M. Walker, B.A., M.B., F.R.S.C. “Bibliography of Canadian Geology for the Year 1915,” by Wyatt Malcolm. Presented by R. G. McConnell, B.A., F.R.S.C. “Some Further Observations on- the Discharge of Spores in the Uredinece,” by Professor. A. H. Reginald Buller, F.R.S.C. “Upon the Germination of the Spores of Copri- nus Sterquilinus,” by Professor A. H. Reginald Buller and S. G. Churchward. “Structure of the Basin of Lake St. John,” by J. A. Dresser, F.R.S.C. “Dysentery, and the Dysentery Bacillus. A Re¬ port of some Cases with Isolation of Organisms of the Shiga Group,” by R. F. Kelso, M.D., and W. Sadler, B.S.A. GENERAL NOTES The council of the society recommended to the various sections the advisability of suitably com¬ memorating the 50th anniversary of confederation of the various provinces of British North America by preparing papers dealing with the progress of literature and science in Canada during this period. Action on the part of the sections fol¬ lowed. The presidential address by Professor Baker, of Toronto University, was entitled “Canada’s In¬ tellectual Status and Intellectual Needs.” In this address the retiring president, Dr. Baker, discussed the educational problems of the various provinces of all Canada, of native born and also those of European birth. The writer argued for an increased study of the French lan¬ guage, and then turned his attention to the press, the public libraries and to technical education as well as education in agriculture for the Dominion. Museums, as factors in modern civilization, were also discussed, including art museums. Canadian literature, agricultural research, the work of the Biological Board of Canada, and general scientific research, on the lines of the Carnegie Institute, followed together with the work of the Rockefeller Institute and similar institutions in the United States that make for the benefit of humanity as a -whole. Professor Baker paid a glowing tribute to the benefactors in the United States %ho by en¬ dowments and munificent donations, had done so much to increase our knowledge in so many direc¬ tions, thus raising the status of research work to such a pitch that the summit or center of gravity of scientific discovery in this world may soon be found in the Republic of our neighbors. The officers for 1916-17 are as follows: Hon. President — His Grace the Duke of Devon¬ shire, Governor-General of Canada, etc. President — Professor A. B. Macallum (Toronto, Ont.). Vice-president — His Honor Mr. Justice J. W. Longley. Hon. Secretary — Mr. Duncan C. Scott (Ottawa, Ont.). Hon. Treasurer — Dr. C. Gordon Hewitt. Hon. Librarian — Mr. D. B. Dowling. Amongst the other papers read before Section II., not included in the foregoing, of special in¬ terest in geography, archeology, ethnology, etc., may be mentioned the following: 1. “Place Names in the Southern Rockies,” by James White, F.R.G.S., Canadian Commission of Conservation (Ottawa). 2. “Signposts of Pre-historic Time,” by W. D. Lighthall, M.A. (Montreal). 3. “An Organization of the Scientific Investi¬ gation of the Indian Place-Nomenclature of the Maritime provinces of Canada” (sixth paper), by Professor W. F. Ganong, M.A., Ph.D. 4. ‘ ‘ The Refugee Loyalists of Connecticut, ’ ’ by Professor W. H. Siebert, of the Ohio State Uni¬ versity. H. M. Ami Geological Survey, Ottawa, Canada SCIENCE Friday, December 15, 1916 CONTENTS The Relation of Mathematics to the Natural Sciences: Professor Thos. E. Mason _ 835 Education after the War: Professors W. S. Franklin and Barry MacNutt . 841 The Value of the Sanitary Survey: Professor W. P. Mason . 844 The Convocation-WeeTc Meetings of Scientific Societies . 845 Scientific Notes and News . 848 University and Educational News . 851 Discussion and Correspondence : — Opinions on Some Ciliary Activities : Pro¬ fessor James L. Kellogg. Chlorosis of Pine¬ apples: P. L. Gile. Relative Importance of Fungi and Bacteria in Soil: H. Joel Conn. The Sudden Appearance of Great Numbers of Medusae in a Kentucky Creek: Harrison Garman . 852 Scientific Books: — Taylor’s With Scott: General A. W. Greely. Blatchley and Leng on Weevils of Northeastern America: H. C. Fall . 860 Scientific Journals and Articles: — • Bollettino Bibliografia e Storia delle Science Matematiche: Professor David Eugene Smith. The American Mineralogist: G. F. K . 862 Nitrate Deposits in the United States . 864 Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians: Pro¬ fessor Albert Ernest Jenks . 864 Special Articles: — The Chemical Constitution of Chitin: Dr. S. Morgulis. Outliers of the Maxville Limestone in Ohio: Professor G. F. Lamb. A Method for maintaining a Constant Vol¬ ume of Nutrient Solutions: Dr. Orton L. Clark . 866 Societies and Academies: — The Botanical Society of Washington: Dr. W. E. Safford. The South Dakota Acad¬ emy of Science: R. J. Gilmore . 869 MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended for review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison- On-Hudson, N. Y. THE RELATION OF MATHEMATICS TO THE NATURAL SCIENCES* In considering the relationship of mathe¬ matics to the natural sciences, we shall do well to see what mathematics is and what are its methods. Mathematics has not always been looked at through the same glasses. The field of mathematics to the early workers was num¬ ber and quantity. Euclid put into his axioms what he considered to be the funda¬ mental facts of the world about him. Diophantus, of Alexandria, a worker in algebra, considered only positive roots of equations. They were dealing with reali¬ ties and not with abstract matters. Some time later mathematicians tried to prove their axioms— often called self-evident truths — and made a wonderful discovery. That was, that a £ ‘ self-evident truth ’ ’ might be replaced by its contrary and the result still be a consistent body of doctrine. And thus the glasses were changed, to be mathe¬ matical the conclusions must be the result of the assumptions and these must be con¬ sistent. The assumptions need have no physical interpretation, indeed they might contradict any of our theories, but they must not contradict each other. There might be foreign war, but no internal con¬ flict. I like the following of Professor Keyser, of Columbia University \2 He (the mathematician) is not absolutely cer¬ tain, but he believes profoundly that it is pos¬ sible to find axioms, sets of a few propositions each, such that the propositions of each set are compatible, that the propositions of such a set imply other propositions, and that the latter can i Read before the Purdue University chapter of Sigma Xi, October 25, 1916. a Science, Yol. 35 (1912), p. 107. 836 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1146 be deduced from the former with certainty. That is to say, he believes that there are systems of co¬ herent or consistent propositions, and he regards it as his business to discover such systems. Any such system is a branch of mathematics. A word might be said about pure and ap¬ plied mathematics. We may have a branch of mathematics with its postulates or axioms consistent and have no physical interpretation of them. On the other hand, we may make our postulates consistent with what we believe to be the proper interpre¬ tation of certain phenomena, and this would be applied mathematics. It is to be ob¬ served that after we have our conditions once fixed by our interpretation of these phenomena, we proceed to our conclusions in a way which is wholly independent of whether we have the right interpretation or not, and are thus back in the domain of pure mathematics. The popular conception of mathematics has been that it devoted itself to problem solving. You will see, however, that the mathematician concerns himself not with the solution of particular problems, but with the principles which underlie the so¬ lution of classes of problems. There is and has been a lively interest in problem solv¬ ing as is evidenced by the problem depart¬ ments of various journals. To some the so¬ lution of these problems has offered simply the diversion which comes from the solu¬ tion of a puzzle, to others they have offered a real mathematical stimulus. There are two general methods of work¬ ing — I mean of research — in mathematics, the intuitional and postulational. In the case of the first the worker jumps to his conclusions, as it were, guided by some analogy or by his sense of what the facts should be or by his experience ; and then follows this drawing of conclusions by fill¬ ing in his proof by rigorous deduction. In the second method the postulates are kept definitely in view and results are reached by deduction. Most discoveries are, I think, made by the intuitional method. Most progress can be made by leaping across barriers and viewing the country be¬ yond and then returning to build roads and tunnels. It is true that when we at¬ tempt to build the road it may not lead us where we leaped, it may not lead us any¬ where, and we must return to our starting point. But we build with so much more enthusiasm, with so much more skill, if we think we know where the road leads. The postulational method of work is more for¬ mal and is a better tool for the road build¬ ing than for spying out the land. We learned our arithmetic by the intui¬ tional method. We said 1 -f- 1 = 2, not be¬ cause of some set of postulates, but because in our experience one and one gave some¬ thing to which we attached the name two. Now to set down our postulates and prove that 1 -f- 1 = 2 is possible and profitable at the proper time, but altogether out of place in an elementary arithmetic. In plane geometry we had our introduction to the postulational method. In this subject we started with a set of postulates explicitly stated and deduced from them certain re¬ sults. In discovering the facts of Eucli¬ dean geometry, intuition is largely called upon, while in setting those facts down in a text-book we use the postulational method. Euclidean geometry is so largely intuitional in discovery because its postu¬ lates agree with our notions of space. In the non-Euclidean geometries we can not trust our intuition and must depend di¬ rectly on our postulates. If instead of saying that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts, we say that a part may equal the whole, our intuition is no safe guide. Other examples might be given. Research work in mathematics attracts two classes of workers, those interested for December 15, 1916] SCIENCE 837 mathematics’ sake and those interested in creating a tool with which to attack some other science. The search after truth — - geographical, religions, scientific — has al¬ ways lured men. The desire to create, to build some new thing, is continually find¬ ing outlet in invention, in exploration, and jn scientific research. That desire which sends some men to the poles of the earth, to the tops of mountains, or to the heart of the desert, sends other men over the mountain tops of geometry, or among the pitfalls of analysis, or through the laby¬ rinth of point sets, to some hitherto un¬ trodden field of mathematics. The mathe¬ matician creates an intellectual fabric which is just as real and just as beautiful to him as the tapestry is to the weaver. Some put forth their effort in any field that attracts ; others, the utilitarians, choose parts which they think will be fruitful in applications. Knowledge of pure science precedes its application. The properties of conic sec¬ tions were well known before Kepler and ^Newton wanted to use them in their theo¬ ries of planetary motion. The infinitesimal calculus was developed before and not after it was needed in physics. The differ¬ ential equation had to be understood before it could be applied. Mathematicians have ready now the integral equation and the difference equation which, I believe, have only made a beginning in their service to science. It may be the man who is not seek¬ ing utilitarian ends who discovers the most useful facts. Roentgen was not seeking an aid for the medical profession when he dis¬ covered the X-rays. That man who reads carefully the history of scientific discovery and its application will not criticize any worker for choosing a field which is ap¬ parently remote from usefulness. How many are working in mathematics, what have they done and what are they do¬ ing? There are some six or eight of the more important mathematical societies in various parts of the world with a total membership of over three thousand. These societies comprise in their membership practically all the research workers, be¬ sides many others not so engaged. The Subject Index of the Royal Society of Lon¬ don Catalogue of Scientific Papers, volume 1, which gives practically a complete list of mathematical articles which appeared during the nineteenth century, says in its preface that it contains 38,748 entries re¬ ferring to articles in 701 serials and has re¬ jected 750 as having no scientific value. G. Valentin, of Berlin, has collected a list of 150,000 titles of books and articles pub¬ lished before the beginning of the twentieth century. The Jahrbuch ilber die Fort- schritte der Mathematik is a yearly review and each year publishes a volume of about 1,000 pages with very short reviews of books and of papers published in about 200 serials. A very conservative estimate would be that each year there appear 2,000 ar¬ ticles, in addition to the books which con¬ tain no new matter. Professor G. A. Miller, of Illinois University, estimates that there was published during the first fifteen years of the present century about one fifth as much mathematical research as dur¬ ing all time before. Mathematicians have varied greatly in their productivity. At one extremity is Galois, killed in a duel before he was twenty-one years old, whose essential contribution to mathematics re¬ quires about sixty pages of print; and at the other are Cauchy, whose works are ex¬ pected to fill twenty-seven volumes when printed, and Euler, the printing of whose work as planned will fill forty-five large volumes. Now, what relation can this science which deals with the abstract have to do with the natural sciences which deal with 838 SCIENCE [N. S. You XLIV. No. 1146 the concrete? Professor A. Voss, of the University of Munich, said in a lecture in 1908: Our entire present civilization, as far as it de¬ pends upon the intellectual penetration and utili¬ zation of nature, has its real foundation in the mathematical sciences. You will observe that he does not say in mathematics, but in the sciences which have made use of mathematics in their develop¬ ment. Let us investigate this a little. Can you realize what would happen, just what stage of civilization we should be in, if all that is developed by the use of mathe¬ matics could be removed from the world by some magic gesture? Every branch of physics makes use of mathematics; chem¬ istry is not free from it; engineering is J)ased upon its developments ; sociology, economics and variation in biology make use of statistics and probability. Our sky¬ scrapers must disappear ; our great bridges and tunnels must be removed; our trans¬ portation systems, our banking systems, our whole civilization, indeed, must step back¬ ward many centuries. Mathematics and its symbolism appear in rather unexpected places. S. G. Barton,3 of the Flower Observatory, University of Pennsylvania, says that in the Encyclo¬ pedia Britannica, written not for the spe¬ cialist so much as for the general reader, there are one hundred four articles which make use of the notation of the infinitesi¬ mal calculus, of which only about one fourth are pure mathematics. You may be surprised to know that you need the in¬ finitesimal calculus to read the articles on clock, heat, lubrication, map, power trans¬ mission, ship building, sky, steam engine and strength of materials. Take these sentences from Simon New¬ comb’s article in the Encyclopedia Britan¬ nica on celestial mechanics : 3 Science, Vol. 40 (1914), p. 697. The purpose of the present article is to convey a general idea of the methods by which the re¬ sults of celestial mechanics are reached, without entering into those technical details which can be followed only by a trained mathematician. It must be admitted that any intelligent comprehen¬ sion of the subject requires at least a grasp of the fundamental conceptions of analytical geometry and the infinitesimal calculus, such as only one with some training in these subjects can be ex¬ pected to have. . . . The non-mathematical reader may possibly be able to gain some general idea, though vague, of the significance of the subject. Sir John Herschel in his introduction to his book, “Outlines of Astronomy,” says: Admission to its (astronomy’s) sanctuary and to the privileges and feelings of a votary is only to be gained by one means — sound and sufficient knowledge of mathematics, the great instrument of all exact inquiry, without which no man can ever make such advances in this or any other of the higher departments of science as can entitle him to form an independent opinion on any subject of discussion within their range. Professor and Mrs. Mittag-Leffler have given their fortune to the founding of an institute for the promotion of research in pure mathematics in Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries. They say:4 Our testament owes its origin to the lively con¬ viction that a people that does not accord to mathematics a high place in its estimation, will never be in a position to fulfil the most lofty tasks of civilization, and to enjoy in consequence that international consideration which is itself, in the end, an effective means of preserving our place in the world and of safeguarding our right to live our own life. I am not claiming any superiority for mathematics over the other sciences. I am trying to emphasize how indispensable mathematics has been in the development of other sciences. Wherein lies its worth? Mathematics is an exact science, that is, with the conditions — the postulates — defi¬ nitely given, the conclusion admits of no doubt, of no variation. The worker in the * Bulletin of the American Mathematical So¬ ciety, Yol. XXIII., No. 1 (1916), p. 31. December 15, 1916] SCIENCE 839 fields of the natural sciences sees the result — the conclusion — before him and tries to work back to underlying causes. Nature has laid a foundation and reared thereon a mighty superstructure, through which the natural scientist wanders amid a maze of halls and chambers, scratching the surface a little here and a little there trying to find what sort of a foundation can support all this that he sees. The natural scientist accepts as his foundation that theory which best explains the results. The theory may be wrong, but it serves all the purposes of a scientific theory if it explains to a fair degree of satisfaction observed phenomena. I seem to remember to have read the state¬ ment of a physicist that we should prob¬ ably explain some phenomena of light on the wave theory and other phenomena on the atomic theory. Whenever a theory is contradicted by experiments, the natural scientist seeks another. This may seem a rather “hit or miss” way of scientific re¬ search, but it is the best that man can hope for with his human intellect trying to find first causes underlying the workings of a universe. The mathematician is not thus restricted. He lays his own foundation. Some natural science may furnish the material for this foundation, but the mathematical mason handles each stone and sets it in proper relationship in the mortar of consistency. By being an exact science, mathematics serves the natural sciences in two ways. In the first place, the methods of mathematical deduction offer a convenient means of test¬ ing the consistency of a theory. Mathe¬ matics will take the essential elements of a theory as postulates and deduce the neces¬ sary conclusions. If this leads to a con¬ tradiction of experiment, the incorrectness' of the theory is shown. It might even be possible in certain cases to locate exactly what part of the theory is at fault. If the deduced results agree with experiment our faith in our theory is strengthened. An ex¬ ample of this sort of thing is to be found in Carmichael’s “Theory of Relativity.” The author, a mathematician, has taken as his postulates statements whose truth is ac¬ cepted by a number of physicists. He has arrived, by purely mathematical means, at results whose truth or falsity are susceptible of experimental proof. The results of such an experiment as he suggests would dis¬ prove or increase our faith in the truth of his postulates. A second way in which this exact science can serve the natural sciences, and which does not differ much from the way already mentioned, is in the matter of discovery. If the postulates of a natural theory are true, then all its consequences are true. Mathematics offers a tool for finding out these consequences. A classic example of discovery in this manner is Maxwell’s pre¬ diction of the pressure due to heat or light radiation, which was not experimentally demonstrated for several years after Max¬ well’s death. Sir W. R. Hamilton’s predic¬ tion of conical refraction is another such example. This prediction was experimen¬ tally verified by his colleague Lloyd within a short time after it was announced. This mathematical working out of the conse¬ quences of a theory has, in my judgment, not received its due at the hands of the natural scientist. A more universal service rendered by mathematics has been the furnishing of a system of shorthand that is as exact and much more workable than the completely written out statement. If you do not be¬ lieve in the value of a well-chosen symbol¬ ism, try to calculate the value of 22J dozen eggs at 39^ cents per dozen by using Roman notation. A well-known example of the value of symbolism is furnished by mathe¬ matics itself in the development of the 840 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1146 calculus. Newton and Leibnitz made inde¬ pendent discoveries in this field. Newton chose a rather clumsy notation, Leibnitz our present notation. The English mathe¬ maticians used the Newtonian notation and were hampered to such an extent that they fell far behind the continental mathemati¬ cians in the development of the calculus. The graph is an example of an almost uni¬ versal scientific symbol for representing tabulated data. Some one has said that we capitalize our knowledge in an equation. The natural scientist finds a well-developed .symbolism in mathematics and proceeds to make use of it without taking the trouble Dr. Waldon E. Muns, formerly of Bellevue Hospital laboratory, New York, has been ap¬ pointed first assistant bacteriologist in the Syracuse city laboratory, succeeding Dr. Wil¬ liam L. Culpepper, who resigned to accept a position with the International Health Board of the Rockefeller Foundation. Dr. Rudolf Rubrecht, for several years re¬ search chemist in the chemical laboratory of the Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station, has resigned to accept an industrial position in Philadelphia. Arrangements have been completed by the American Museum of Natural History for an exhibit of some of Charles R. Knight’s recent paintings and small bronzes of modern animals and also of a mural decoration of prehistoric animals in the West Assembly Hall of the Museum from December 15, 1916, to January 15, 1917. Dr. William W. Keen (Brown, ’57), emeri¬ tus professor of surgery at Jefferson Medical College, will deliver three lectures on January 10, 15 and 17 on the Colver Foundation of Brown University, taking as his subject: “Medical Research and Human Welfare.” The lectures will be “ the record of personal experience and observation during a profes¬ sional life of fifty-seven years.” Professor Mary W. Calkins, of Wellesley College, is this year the lecturer in philosophy on the Mills Foundation at the University of California. Her subject is “ The Fundamental Problems of Philosophy.” The first lecture in the Adolfo Stahl Lecture Course in Astronomy was given in San Fran¬ cisco, on the evening of November 10, 1916, by Dr. W. W. Campbell, on the subject “ The Solar System.” , The course is given under the auspices of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and provision for it was made by December 22, 1916] SCIENCE 889 Mr. Adolfo Stahl, a public-spirited citizen. The course will include five additional lec¬ tures, all free to the public, as follows: December 8, 1916, “ Comets,’ ’ W. W. Campbell. January 12, 1917, “A Total Eclipse of the Sun,” R. G. Aitken. February 9, 1917, “Double Stars and Star Clusters,” R. G. Aitken. March 9, 1917, “The Nebulae,” H. D. Curtis. April 6, 1917, “How Astronomical Discoveries are Made,” H. D. Curtis. Professor Henry Melvill Gwatkin, Dixie professor of ecclesiastical history in the Uni¬ versity of Cambridge, England, died in No¬ vember. He was known as a specialist in Mollusca, and his collection of Molluscan radulse was doubtless the largest in existence. It is understood that this collection now goes to the British Museum. Professor J. H. Merivale, formerly of Arm¬ strong College, Newcastle, since engaged in mining engineering, died on November 18 at the age of sixty-five years. Lieutenant Corin H. B. Cooper, R.E., for a time demonstrator in geology at McGill Uni¬ versity, and later engaged on government sur¬ vey work in the oilfields of the Rocky Moun¬ tains, has been killed in the war. The directors of the Fenger Memorial Fund announce that the sum of $500 has been set aside for investigation in medicine or surgery in 1917. The money will be used to pay all or part of the salary of a worker, the work to be done under direction in an established insti¬ tution, which will furnish the necessary facili¬ ties and supplies free of cost. It is desirable that the work undertaken should have a direct clinical bearing. Applications giving full par¬ ticulars should be sent to Dr. L. Hektoen, 629 S. Wood St., Chicago, before January 15, 1917. The Naples Table Association for Promo¬ ting Laboratory Research by Women an¬ nounces the offer of the Ellen Richards Re¬ search Prize of $1,000 for the best thesis writ¬ ten by a woman embodying new observations and new conclusions based on independent lab¬ oratory research in biology (including psychol¬ ogy), chemistry or physics. Theses offered in competition must be in the hands of the chair¬ man of the committee on the prize before Feb¬ ruary 25, 1917. Application blanks may be ob¬ tained from the secretary, Mrs. Ada Wing Mead, 283 Wayland Avenue, Providence, R. I. The Sarah Berliner Research Fellowship for Women of the value of $1,000 is offered an¬ nually, available for study and research in physics, chemistry or biology. Applicants must already hold the degree of doctor of phi¬ losophy or be similarly equipped for the work of further research. Applications must be re¬ ceived by the first of February of each year. Further information may be obtained from the chairman of the committee, Mrs. Christine Ladd-Franklin, 527 Cathedral Parkway, New York. Forty-seven students who recently passed final examinations of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, have enlisted for serv¬ ice in the medical corps, and will leave in the immediate future for overseas service. A spe¬ cial convocation was held on the evening of November 28 in Grant Hall, Queen’s Univer¬ sity, Kingston, Ont., at which sixty-three med¬ ical graduates were granted their degrees. All these graduates will go overseas shortly to serve at the front. Legislation has recently been enacted which will provide for approximately 300 additional medical officers in the Medical Corps of the United States Navy. The pay ranges from $2,000 per year, with quarters or an allowance therefore, for assistant surgeons with the rank of lieutenant, junior grade, to $8,000 with al¬ lowances upon attaining the grade of medical director with the rank of read admiral of the upper half. Applicants must be between the ages of 21 and 32 years, citizens of the United States, and must submit satisfactory evidence of preliminary and medical education. The examination for appointment in the medical corps consists of two stages, the first stage securing appointment in the Medical Reserve Corps, and the second stage securing an ap¬ pointment as a commissioned officer in the regular medical corps. After the candidate passes the preliminary examination he attends 890 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1147 a course of instruction at the Naval Medical School. During this course he receives full pay and allowances of his rank, and at the end of the course he takes a final examination. Two of these courses begin each year, one com¬ mencing about the first of October, and the second course beginning early in February. The examinations are held in several of the coast cities in the United States, both on the east coast and the west coast, and also at Chicago, Ill. Literature describing the navy as a special field for medical work, and cir¬ culars of information for persons desiring to enter the medical corps, may be obtained by addressing the Surgeon General, U. S. Navy, Navy Department, Washington, D. C. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS By the will of Mrs. Mary W. Harkness, widow of Charles W. Harkness, about $1,100,- 000 is bequeathed to public purposes. The largest bequest is $300,000 to Yale University, the income to be used in the payment of salaries of officers of instruction. Boston University has received an anony¬ mous gift of $100,000 for scholarships for young men in the college. The gift is made in honor of Augustus Howe Buck, emeritus professor of Greek. Professor and Mrs. William A. Herdman, of the University of Liverpool, have given to the university the sum of £10,000 for the en¬ dowment of a chair in geology in memory of their son, who was killed in the war. Paul Sabine, of Harvard University, has been appointed assistant professor of physics at the Case School of Applied Science and will have charge of the physics laboratory. Dr. A. R. Davis, formerly research assistant at the graduate laboratory, Missouri Botanical Garden (Shaw School of Botany, Washington University), has been appointed assistant pro¬ fessor of botany at the University of Nebraska. Mr. R. A. Studhalter and Mr. H. C. Young, formerly Rufus J. Lackland research fellows in the same institution, have been appointed, respectively, assistant botanist in the Mon¬ tana Agricultural Experiment Station and in¬ structor in botany in the Michigan Agricul¬ tural College. Miss Ruth Beattie has ac¬ cepted a position as instructor in botany at Wellesley College. At the University of Sheffield Dr. W. E. S. Turner has been appointed lecturer in charge of the new department of glass technology. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE PSYCHOLOGY AND MEDICAL EDUCATION To the Editor of Science: In your issue of November 10, Dr. Cecil K. Drinker has ap¬ proached the problem of advising students planning to enter the medical profession as to what courses over and above those required they can most profitably give their attention to during their college years. Dr. Drinker has urged the undergraduate to take as much physics and chemistry as possible: I should like to enter a similar plea in favor of psy¬ chology. The importance of a knowledge of psychol¬ ogy to all persons engaged in the practise of medicine is, no doubt, widely recognized by both practitioners and teachers of that sci¬ ence and art to-day, and the value of psycho¬ logical study as a part of medical education received special attention in a symposium and report on the subject in Science for October 17, 1913. Little has been heard of the matter recently, however, and I feel it can do no harm to bring up the subject again in the hope that real interest may be aroused in pushing it more effectively to the front. The conclusions of the report referred to clearly enunciate the need of more cooperation than is at present existent between psychol¬ ogists and — not only psychiatrists, whose con¬ cern is primarily with the problems of the dis¬ eased mind — but also the physicians of the body. Eor all schools of psychology to-day acknowledge and even emphasize the insepa¬ rableness of mental states and processes from the physiological conditions which underlie or at least invariably accompany them, and med¬ ical men are fully aware of the influence which mental states have upon the health of the body. December 22, 1916] SCIENCE 891 But I am especially interested here in add¬ ing to what was said by Dr. Franz’s commitee a word for the subject of abnormal psychology in a premedical course. A glance at any of the text-books on mental disorders — such as those of Stoddart or Diefendorf — reveals at once psychological conceptions of the crudest nature. In the medical school, when the student’s at¬ tention is necessarily directed entirely to the body side of that complex affair called the human individual, it is but natural that a strongly materialistic bias should develop which, if not counterbalanced by a predirected emphasis on the side of the psychical, is cer¬ tain to issue finally in a complete loss of the necessary scientific equilibrium. The medical school teacher delights in demonstrating to his pupils that the phenomena of insanity are merely symptoms of diseases of the brain and nervous system, which can be explained in purely physiological terms without invoking any non-material influences. Now this may all be true, but certainly it is but fair that the psychologist should be given his oppor¬ tunity to demonstrate also that those same phenomenon can be fully described, and many of them explained, in purely mental terms without referring to the brain or nervous sys¬ tem at all, and that a purely psychological description is in many cases the only really valid and useful one. It would be well, of course, if all psychologists and all physicians were broad-minded enough to appreciate equally the mental and the physiological fac¬ tors in human life, but this is perhaps too much to expect of any infra-angelic intelli¬ gence ! Such being the weakness of the human intellect, therefore, we can but recognize it, and seek to overcome the one-sidedness of the physician’s outlook by the other-sidedness of the psychologist’s viewpoint. For the reassurance of the physician it may be well to add that, on the principle that “ he who laughs last laughs best,” no possible harm can be done by accepting the suggestions I urge, as it is the medical school teacher who will have the last shot at the student and thus the better chance of influencing his views for the future. Furthermore I am convinced that a firm preliminary grounding of the student in the principles of the normal and abnormal mind as the psychologist studies them can not but be of the greatest positive value to the physician. Jared S. Moore Western Reserve University THE RETENTION OF OIL BY CLAY AT WATERVILLE, MAINE While attempting to unravel the extent of the post-Pleistocene terrace at Waterville, I had occasion to ask one of the railroad officials, Mr. Thomas Harrold, whether the railroad yards are underlain by clays or the slate ledge which outcrops near by. He informed me that they are underlain by clay and gave the fol¬ lowing interesting facts in explanation of his knowledge. In March, 1911, he was superin¬ tending the installation of a new set of scales in the Waterville yards. During the excava¬ tion for the foundation, clay was encountered a few feet below the surface and a fluid, sup¬ posedly water, collected in the hole. Further examination showed this to be kerosene, and about five barrels were removed. The pres¬ ence of the oil was explained when it was re¬ membered that in 1909 the contents of a tank car had been lost in the yards. Several years after the events recorded above, in the summer of 1914 or 1915, came a period of unusually heavy precipitation. The water table over the clay rose near the surface and kerosene began to collect in the drainage ditches near the tracks. One man is said to have collected eleven barrels of the kerosene and the adjoining population were so active in digging pits to collect the fluid that the tracks were undermined and the railroad officials found it necessary to prohibit the removal of the oil. These are the facts as reported to me. I might add that the railroad yards are just to the west of the Kennebec River. The river flows in a slate gorge here, the rock extending to the top of the bank on this side ; then comes a flat of 10-15 feet representing the old railroad bed; back of this the ledge is overlain imme¬ diately by the fill beneath the present tracks. 892 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1147 The writer has many times noticed the large amount of oil which covers the flat, killing vegetation and sending out a disagreeable bituminous odor. I had always supposed that the oil must represent the concentration from cotton waste, etc., collected there year after year, especially as large car shops are nearby. The true explanation, bringing out as it does the retention of the oil by the clay and the response to ground water conditions, seemed to make a note of the facts worth placing on record. Homer P. Little Waterville, Maine THE RECOGNITION OF ACHIEVEMENT There are probably a good many successful scientific men in America who will echo in some measure the sentiments expressed by W. E. Allen in a recent issue of Science. There certainly should be some method of dis¬ tinguishing individuals who have attained eminence in their respective lines irrespective of whether they hold a doctor’s degree or not. Even the holder of such degrees may well join in a movement to distinguish the real workers from those who have merely secured degrees. It is clear that the doctor’s degree does not necessarily indicate exceptional merit; in fact the degree itself has varying shades of impor¬ tance. A man who has been educated in a prominent institution is much more inclined to write the name of the university after the degree than he is if his university is less prominent. To the man with a degree, it may seem ab¬ surd for others who are not doctors to suggest a distinguishing mark for meritorious work but if such marks are not desirable, why attach college and university degrees to an individ¬ ual at all? Is the mere fact that he has gone through a prescribed course in a university to be forever remembered regardless of the quality of his work in after years, or shall we demand that he measure up to his promises when the degree was conferred; in short, is it schooling or achievement that shall count? As time goes on and doctors continue to increase in numbers, some such distinction as has been suggested will become increasingly desirable. This seems a good time to do some¬ thing about it. Willard N. Clute Joliet, III. CLOUDS Since the many forms of fog and cloud re¬ veal, as obviously nothing else can, the motions and conditions of the atmosphere, it would seem that their every type must have been the object of innumerable photographic records, and that nothing could be easier than to make a reasonably complete collection of such photo¬ graphs. This, however, at least so far as making the collection is concerned, is not the case. Some clouds, such as the mammato-cumuli, the scarf¬ like wisps that form above thunder heads, the tornado’s funnel and several others of some¬ what infrequent occurrence appear rarely to be photographed — -I have never seen a good photo¬ graph of any one of them — while even the more common clouds seem generally to be photo¬ graphed with inadequate equipment. To obtain the best photographs of cirri, for instance, that is, to secure such contrast that the finer details may be seen, it is absolutely necessary to use some sort of device by which the maximum amount of polarized sky light may be cut out. Heedless to say this is seldom done. Similarly, if one would accentuate the beauty of his cloud picture by including an interesting landscape it is obvious that he must use a suitable ray filter. Finally, as the clouds are drifting, often with considerable velocity, the exposures must be practically instantane¬ ous. But difficult as photographing clouds may be surely some enthusiasts must have accumu¬ lated many fine pictures of them, and I am taking this opportunity of asking if those who have exceptionally fine cloud and fog pictures will not kindly write to me of them, as I am anxious to obtain good examples of every type for the purpose of study and comparison. Of course none would be reproduced without per¬ mission and proper acknowledgment. W. J. Humphreys U. S. Weather Bureau, Washington, D. C. December 22, 1916] SCIENCE 893 SCIENTIFIC BOOKS A Text-book of Biology for Students in Gen¬ eral, Medical and Technical Courses. By William Martin Smallwood, Professor of Comparative Anatomy, Syracuse University. Philadelphia, Lea and Febiger. 1916. 317 pages, 261 engravings and 10 plates. If a healthy interest in the method of teach¬ ing elementary zoology may be inferred from the number and variety of text-books appear¬ ing we may congratulate ourselves upon our present state. It is clear, however, from the varied character of the materials treated, that there is as yet no agreement regarding the matter which should enter into such a course. Since almost every phase of the subject has been presented, through methods of great di¬ versity, it would seem possible that in time the experience of many teachers in widely differ¬ ent surroundings would point to the types of books best suited for elementary instruction. Judging by numbers, the present tendency would seem to be toward some very general treatment to which the term “ biology ” might be given. Some of these books have been long enough in service to have passed the first edi¬ tion stage, and of these Smallwood’s “ Text¬ book of Biology ” is one. This now appears in the “ second edition, thoroughly revised and enlarged.” A change in the title may be sig¬ nificant of an altered viewpoint of the author. In the first edition it is stated that the book is “ for students in medical, technical and gen¬ eral courses ” but in the present edition the last is made first and emphasis is placed on “ general courses ” by their early mention. Specific statement is also made of the impor¬ tance of breadth of training in the preface, and, although this occurs in a reference to the purpose of the earlier edition, it is evident that the author has come to place additional value upon the underlying general principles of the subject. While he doubtless felt like “ leaving their application to the teachers of advanced zoological, botanical and professional courses ” at the time of writing the book, he is now strongly enough of the opinion to say so. It is to be hoped that this is an indication of a general change in attitude toward too much of the “ applied ” in elementary biological in¬ struction. That the author should be encour¬ aged to announce his position more definitely on this point because of the formulated opin¬ ion of teachers of anatomy is very encourag¬ ing to all who believe in the value of thorough preparation in general subjects and who rightly feel they should have the support of those who teach the more specific and applied branches. Such a conception of the relation of general to applied biology does not, however, signify to the author of the text that his subject-mat¬ ter must be remote from experience or removed from practical interest, as is indicated by Chapter XV., which deals with “ some biolog¬ ical factors in disease.” Indeed, the length of this chapter in comparison with others — it ex¬ ceeds the one devoted to “ The Plant King¬ dom ” — and the details of disease symptoms re¬ corded might incline a captious critic to question the emphasis claimed for broad prin¬ ciples. In this attitude he would be strength¬ ened by the criterion adopted for an inclusion of a study of the Pelecypods in the book — this being that “ clams and oysters are so generally used as food and so frequently cause disease ” (p. 157). But the temptation to popularize our subjects is great, so it is not well, perhaps, to blame the author overmuch for occasional lapses toward the “ practical.” There is now little chance in general texts to introduce anything new in the arrangement of the subjects, but Smallwood endeavors to add this touch by emphasizing the historical development of biology in the sequence of chapters. Since this represents the natural approach to the subject and follows the course of improvements in technique and instru¬ ments, it can not be far wrong practically. “ The earlier chapters (I.-IX.) of this work, accordingly, take him (the student) through a consideration of the organism as a whole, the structure and function of organs, the structure and properties of tissues, and the parts of the cell and their work. The chapter devoted to the biology of cells furnishes the basis for the modern point of view and acts as a background for the remainder of the book.” The topics of 894 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1147 these later chapters are “ XI., Biology of Bac¬ teria, Yeast and Moulds; XII., Classification the ‘ Worms,’ Mollusca and Arthropods; XIII., The Plant Kingdom; XIV., Some Biological Adaptations; XV., Some Biological Factors in Disease; XVI., Evolution; XVII., Variation- heredity; XVIII., Animal Behavior and Its Relation to Mind.” Erom this outline it will be seen that the author maps out a very exten¬ sive program and it is not surprising that con¬ sideration of many topics is very brief, and, almost necessarily, inadequate many times. An account of “ The Plant Kingdom ” in 23 pages can not be very satisfying. The style of the book is readable, but un¬ fortunately is marred by many loose statements and faulty definitions. The cell is stated to be composed of the “ nucleus ” and “ cytoplasm ” — a structure and a substance, instead of nucleus and cytosome — structural subdivisions. Many examples of such definitions appear throughout the book. Physiology is defined as “ the work that an organism does or the work of its parts ” ; metamorphosis as “ a name given to the life-history of insects, frogs, etc.” ; sym¬ biosis as “the living together of dissimilar plants or animals or a plant and an animal.” The illustrations are good and are properly chosen to represent other forms than the ones used in the laboratory. Xo laboratory outlines are given and the brief and very general chap¬ ter headings, called “ Laboratory Studies,” would be of no service to a competent teacher and are far too general to help an untrained one. They could properly be omitted. C. E. McClung SPECIAL ARTICLES THE CAUSE OF THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CUMARIN, VANILLIN, PYRIDINE AND QUINOLINE IN THE SOIL PRELIMINARY NOTE Considerable attention has been devoted recently to the fact that organic substances which are toxic to higher plants in water cul¬ ture lose their toxicity when added to the soil.1 i Davidson, J., Jour. Am. Soc. Agr., 7: 145-158, 221-238 (1915). Upson, F. W., and Powell, A. R., Jour. Ind. and Engin. Chem., 7: 420-422 (1915). Fraps, G. S., Texas Ag. Ex. Sta. Bui., 174 (1915). This depends, however, on the soil.2 This loss of toxicity would seem to be due to the fact that the substances, as such, disappear in the soil.3 Funchess4 has also found that many of the organic nitrogenous compounds toxic to plants in water culture are apparently nitrified in the soil. This would point to their disap¬ pearance as being due to biological causes. Some observations made by the writer during the past year on the cause of the disappearance of four of these compounds may prove sug¬ gestive to those who are investigating this problem. Cumarin, vanillin, pyridine and quinoline were added separately at a concentration of 1,000 parts per million to soil in pots. This soil was similar to that used by Funchess,5 in which the organic toxins were found to lose their toxicity or even become beneficial to plant growth. The number of microorganisms developing in the treated pots and in the check pots was determined at intervals over a period of about three months. In each case the num¬ bers of microorganisms increased enormously in the treated pots, after, in some cases, an initial depression in numbers. The phenom¬ enon appeared entirely analogous to that found in partial sterilization. In order to determine whether micro¬ organisms are concerned in the destruction of the substances named above, the compounds were added to sterile soil in two liter bottles. Part of each set of bottles, treated with one of the four substances mentioned above, was in¬ oculated with an infusion from normal soil. The bottles were incubated about two months at room temperature. At the end of that time sterile wheat grains were planted in the bottles. The growth of the wheat plants showed that in the inoculated soil the toxic properties of the vanillin, cumarin, pyridine and quinoline had largely disappeared, but were still very evident in the bottles contain¬ ing sterile soil. This seemed to indicate that Funchess, M. J., Alabama Ag. Ex. Sta. Tech. Bui., 1 (1916). 2 Skinner, J. J., U. S. Dep ’t Agr. Bui. 164 (1915). s Fraps, loc. cit. 4 Unpublished data. s Loc. cit. December 22, 1916] SCIENCE 895 the disappearance of the compounds was chiefly due to biological causes. From the bottles or pots three species of bacteria were isolated, one of which uses pyri¬ dine as a source of nitrogen, one vanillin as a source of carbon and one cumarin as a source of carbon. An organism acting on quinoline has not yet been found. This would seem to show that the enormous increase in numbers of organisms noted in the treated pots and the disappearance of the four substances in the soil depend on the fact that they (the compounds) serve as food sources to definite species of bacteria. The significance of these facts to the soil toxin theory of soil fertility is evident. The persistence of vanillin, for example, in some soils and not in others may he due to the fact that the vanillin organism is absent or to the fact that conditions are not suitable for its development or for the use of the vanillin. If we should be able to improve a soil containing vanillin by treating it with the vanillin organ¬ ism the results should be a strong argument for the soil-toxin theory of soil fertility. This of course is a step into the future. The results are also suggestive in explaining some of the phenomena accompanying “ par¬ tial sterilization.” They would suggest that in “ partial sterilization ” (at least that caused by these four compounds) we do not have a large increase in the numbers of microorgan¬ isms because the less resistant are killed and the resistant forms given opportunity to develop; or because voracious protozoa are eliminated; but because the sterilizing agent used serves directly6 as a food source. In the case of steam, and perhaps carbon bisulphide, unavailable food supplies are probably made available. William J. Robbins Department of Botany, Alabama Polytechnic Institute, Auburn, Alabama SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY The eighty-fifth regular meeting of the Ameri¬ can Physical Society was held in the Eyerson Lab- o This has been suggested for pyridine. See Buddin, W., Jour. Agr. Sci., 6, 416-451 (1914). oratory of the University of Chicago on Saturday, December 2. The following papers were presented: “On the Velocity of Sound in Metal Tubes,’ ’ by Karl K. Darrow, University of Chicago. “Collapse of Thin Tubes Shorter than the Crit¬ ical Length,” by A. P. Carman, University of Illi¬ nois. “An Acoustical Thermometer,” by P. E. Wat¬ son and H. T. Booth, University of Illinois. “A General Method of producing the Strobo¬ scopic Effect, and its Application in the Tono- deik, ” by L. E. Dodd, State University of Iowa. “The Intensity-factor in Binaural Localization and an Extension of Weber’s Law,” by G. W. Stewart and O. Hovda, State University of Iowa. “An Apparatus for the Demonstration to an Audience of Simple Harmonic Motion,” by Paul E. Klopsteg, University of Minnesota. “Deport of Progress on the Measurement of Earth Eigidity, ” by A. A. Michelson and Henry G. Gale, University of Chicago. “The Accuracy with which Gravity may be pre¬ dicted at any Point in the United States,” by John F. Hayford, Northwestern University. “A Proposed New Method for the Determina¬ tion of the Acceleration due to Gravity,” by Her¬ bert Bell, University of Michigan. “On Some Very Large Variations in the Ad¬ sorption of certain specimens of Charcoal, ’ ’ by Harvey B. Lemon, University of Chicago. * ‘ The Principle of Similitude, ” by C. S. Frazel, University of Illinois. “Preliminary Notes on the Torsional Elasticity of Drawn Tungsten Wires,” by L. P. Sieg, State University of Iowa. “A Precision Calorimeter for measuring Heats of Dilution,” by D. A. Maclnnes and J. M. Braham, University of Illinois. “Note on the Amount of Error in applying to Non-Parallel Plates the Formula for Electrical Capacity of Parallel Plates,” by L. E. Dodd, State University of Iowa. “The Kinetic Theory of Non-Spherieal Eigid Molecules,” by Yoshio Ishida, University of Chi¬ cago. “The Photo-electric Emission from Crystals of Selenium,” by F. C. Brown, State University of Iowa. ‘ 1 The Production of Light by Cathode Eays in Air,” by Gordon S. Fulcher, University of Wis¬ consin. “The Optical Constants of Liquid Alloys,” by Carleton V. Kent, University of Michigan. 1 1 The Single-lined and the Many-lined Spec- 896 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1147 trum of Mercury,” by T. C. Hebb, University of Chicago. “Note on the Single-lined and the Many-lined Spectrum of Mercury,” by R. A. Millikan, Uni¬ versity of Chicago. “The Structure of the Bismuth Line at Wave¬ length 4722,” by Henry G. Gale and Lester Aron- berg, University of Chicago. “Visual Diffusivity, ” by Herbert E. Ives, United Gas Improvement Co., Philadelphia. “Measurement of Wave-lengths with the X-ray Spectrometer,” by Elmer Dersliem, State Univer¬ sity of Iowa. “A Single Bar and Yoke Method for the Mag¬ netic Testing of Iron Bars, ’ ’ by Arthur Whit¬ more Smith, University of Michigan. ‘ ‘ Some Effects of Cross-Magnetizing Fields on Hysteresis,” by N. H. Williams, University of Michigan. “A. C. and D. C. Corona in Hydrogen,” by John W. Davis, University of Illinois. 1 ‘ The Magnetic Properties of Fe, Ni and Co above the Curie Point, and Iveesom’s Theory of Magnetization,” by Earle M. Terry, University of Wisconsin. “A Simple Method for determining the Audi¬ bility Current of a Telephone Receiver,” by Ed¬ ward W. Washburn, University of Illinois. “An Extension of the Mayer Experiments,” by R. R. Ramsey, Indiana University. ‘ ‘ The Derivation of the Retarded Potentials, ’ ’ by Max Mason, University of Wisconsin. ‘ ‘ The Mass of the Electric Carrier in Copper, Silver and Aluminium,” by Richard C. Tolmau and T. Dale Stewart, University of Illinois. ‘ ‘ An Experimental and Theoretical Investiga¬ tion of Binaural Beats, ” by G. W. Stewart, State University of Iowa. “Contact Electro-motive Forces and the Energy of Emission of Electrons under the Influence of Monochromatic Light,” by R. A. Millikan, Uni¬ versity of Chicago. “The Permanence of the Wave-length Sensibil¬ ity Characteristics of Photo-electric Cells, ’ ’ by Herbert E. Ives, United Gas Improvement Co., Philadelphia. “An Effect of Light on the Contact Potential of Selenium and Cuprous Oxide,” by E. H. Ken- nard and E. O. Dieterich, University of Minnesota. “A Peculiar Gas-Crystal Resistance Change in Selenium,” by W. E. Tisdale, State University of Iowa. “The Variation in the blackening of a Photo¬ graphic Plate with Time of Exposure, Total Energy Remaining Constant,” by P. S. Helmick,. State University of Iowa. “Note on the Ionizing Potential of Metallic Vapors,” by H. J. van der Bijl, New York City, A. D. Cole, Secretary THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON The 558th meeting of the society was held in the Assembly Hall of the Cosmos Club, Saturday, October 21, 1916, called to order at 8.10 by Presi¬ dent Hay, with 50 persons in attendance. The president announced the death of Professor F. E. L. Beal, a member of the society, distin¬ guished for his work in economic ornithology. On recommendation of the council Mrs. Ella M. Enlows was elected to active membership. Under the heading brief notes, exhibition of specimens, the following informal communications were presented: Mr. A. L. Quaintance called attention to a new peach pest (related to the coddling moth), lately found in the District of Columbia and immediate vicinity. These remarks were illustrated by lan¬ tern-slide views of the insect and its work. Dr. C. W. Stiles commented on zoological nom¬ enclature and gave notice that it was the intention to set aside the rules of strict priority with refer¬ ence to Holotliuria and Physalia and to use these terms for the animals to which they are currently applied in the usual text-books. Dr. Stiles also commented on recent cases in which trichina had figured in certain lawsuits. He expressed the view that with the purchase of meat products went the requirement that the product should be properly cared for and that in the case of pork this care required cooking before con¬ sumption. It was somewhat unfair to hold the seller of trichinous meat entirely responsible. Dr. L. O. Howard cited an instance in which a cockroach was figuring in a lawsuit. A man was suing a Texas railroad for damages on the ground that typhoid fever had been contracted through his drinking pop which had been contaminated by a cockroach, which had apparently been in the bottle before the man drank the pop purchased of the common carrier. The regular program consisted of an illustrated lecture by Dr. Paul Bartsch : ‘ ‘ Mollusk Collecting in the Philippines. ’ ’ Dr. Bartsch reviewed the work of previous collectors, gave an account of his own collecting expedition, describing the methods and apparatus used; he spoke of mollusks as a source of food for the natives, their method of gathering December 22, 1916] SCIENCE 897 them ; he called attention to the variations of these animals as found on different islands; showed the necessity of exact locality determinations on specimens; and discussed the geographic distribu¬ tion of the Philippine molluscan fauna, pointing out its possible origin from other islands or land masses. The lecture covered not only the land mollusks, but the marine forms as well. The 559th meeting of the society was held in the Assembly Hall of the Cosmos Club, Saturday, No¬ vember 4, 1916, called to order at 8 p.m. by Presi¬ dent Hay, with sixty persons present. On recommendation of the council the following persons were elected to active membership: Dr. Wm. B. Bell, Biological Survey; Prancis Harper, Biological Survey; H. E. Anthony, American Mu¬ seum of Natural History, and A. B. Howell, Covina, California. The president announced the death of Dr. E. A. Mearns, a member of the council of the society and distinguished for his work in birds, mammals and other branches of natural history. Under the heading of brief notes and exhibition of specimens, Dr. R. W. Shufeldt exhibited a speci¬ men of the Japanese giant salamander and made some remarks on its habits and habitat. The regular program consisted of four papers as follows : A Review of Recent Worlc on the House-fly: R. H. Hutchison. This paper was restricted to a discussion of re¬ cent studies on the preoviposition period, the range of flight and the question of the over-win¬ tering of the house-fly. The remarks on the preovi¬ position period summarized a recent bulletin of the Department of Agriculture on this subject (Bul¬ letin 345). In discussing the range of flight, attention was directed to the fact that up to 1914 the longest re¬ corded flight was 1,700 yards. During the season of 1915 experiments were carried out in a suburban locality near Washington by Max Kisliuk, Jr., under the direction of the writer. In these, several rec¬ ords of from 1,800 to 2,175 yards were obtained. These were compared with the records obtained by R. R. Parker during the same season at Miles City, Montana. His longest record was 3,500 yards. The question of how the house-fly overwinters in this latitude was said to be still undecided. It was pointed out that flies were not killed by the first heavy frost, as has often been stated; in fact a large percentage revived after several nights’ ex¬ posure to minimum temperatures of 25° F. They are killed by temperatures of 15° F. Flies were found emerging up to the first week in December, and these late forms were found in heated build¬ ings until the end of January. None were again seen till April 27. Other observations were cited as indicating that flies do not overwinter in the adult state, but, on the other hand, a long series of experiments and observations failed to give any positive evidence that they overwinter in the larval or pupal state. Recent Spread of the Cotton Boll Weevil: W. Dwight Pierce. A brief history of the movement of this pest through the United States suggests from a study of specimens collected in all parts of the infested regions of North America that there are three lines of dispersion. It seems probable that the boll weevil originated in Guatemala or some other portion of Central America and that the most typical strain migrated northward through the mountains of Mexico into Arizona, where it is now found as a native species on the wild cotton-like plant Thurberia thespesioides. The main migra¬ tion was along the Gulf Coast through the culti¬ vated cotton regions into the United States. The third line of dispersion was through Yucatan across the Gulf, to Cuba. Specimens collected at the three termini of these dispersions appear to be very distinct varieties. That variety which is found on cultivated cotton in the United States is the smallest found and the most variable. The movement of the weevil is controlled by the amount of food supply, which regulates the time and distance of natural movement by winds and floods; and by artificial agencies. The most interesting development of the pres¬ ent year is the extension of the weevil to the north¬ ern limits of cotton growth in Oklahoma and Ar¬ kansas into Central Tennessee; eastward to the Atlantic Ocean south of Savannah; and the infes¬ tation of practically all the cotton region of Flor¬ ida. The only Sea Island cotton section now not infested is that of South Carolina. Remarks on Entomological Inspection and Disin¬ fection of Products offered for Entry into the United States: E. R. Sasscer. A brief review of the Plant Quarantine Act of 1912 was given, pointing out the principal features of the act relating to the control of stock entering the states and what is required of the broker, the nurseryman, or party importing plants or plant products. The quarantine relating to insects were referred to, and lantern slides of a number of these quarantined insects and others collected by inspectors were shown. Brief mention was made 898 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1147 of the method of examining nursery stock in the District of Columbia, and it was shown that such stock was naturally divided into commercial ma¬ terial, including plants and plant products re¬ ceived by florists, department stores and private individuals; and departmental material, including plants and plant products introduced by the vari¬ ous offices of the Department of Agriculture, more particularly the Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction. Some time was devoted to discuss¬ ing the new method of disinfecting cotton, and lantern slides were shown exhibiting the plants which are now operating in Boston, Mass., Brook¬ lyn, N. Y., Newark, N. J. and Oakland, Calif. An Outline of the Glow-worms of the American Family Phengodidce : H. S. Barber. M. W. Lyon, Jr., Recording Secretary THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF VARIABLE STAR OBSERVERS On November 18, 1916, the American Asso¬ ciation of Variable Star Observers held its fourth annual meeting at the Harvard College Observatory, Cambridge, Mass., at the invita¬ tion of the director, Dr. E. C. Pickering. The meeting was called to order in the library of the institution at three o’clock with twenty- two members present. The results of the previous year’s work were carefully discussed and more definite plans adopted for the future course of the association. Numerous light curves and plottings pertaining to the work were on exhibition, illustrating the observa¬ tions on variable stars, particularly those of long period. Later, a tour of the observatory was made, at which time Professor Pickering and Miss Cannon explained in detail the work of the astro-photographic department, and Professor King explained the manipulation of the differ¬ ent photographic telescopes. This was followed by a lantern-slide exhibition of views of Are- quipa, Peru, and the work of the Southern Station of the Harvard College Observatory by Mr. Campbell. The meeting then adjourned to the commo¬ dious quarters of the 12-inch polar telescope, when nineteen experienced observers had the unique opportunity of observing the same variable star, SS Cygni, under like conditions, with an average deviation between observers of only 0.14 magnitude. From seven until ten o’clock Professor Pick¬ ering acted as host at a dinner given to the members of the association. Following the dinner many of the members enjoyed the op¬ portunity of observing with the historic 15- inch equatorial until the wee sma’ hours of the morning. The next day a small party availed them¬ selves of the chance to visit the well-equipped students observatory at Wellesley College, by the courtesy of the director, Dr. J. C. Duncan. In no period in the history of astronomy has an opportunity offered itself, as at the present time, whereby a group of amateur astronomers has been able to combine and organize them¬ selves for such useful scientific work. In fact no other branch of science offers this possibility so completely, in which a two-fold purpose is so well accomplished, namely: service and con¬ tribution to science and personal pleasure to those taking part therein. Not all the problems of astronomy are so easily adaptable or inviting to amateurs, as this study of variable stars. Nevertheless, in the past five years a most productive field of re¬ search has been developed, and one which has called together one of the most enthusiastic assemblages of men and women, some forty in number and from all the different walks of life. The study of variable stars is one of the old¬ est branches of astrophysical astronomy, and it was not until twenty-five years ago that syste¬ matic work was undertaken. To this work the Harvard College Observatory has devoted, under the directorship of Dr. E. C. Pickering, the greater part of its time and resources. The methods and results in this study have proved so simple and attractive that it has lent itself admirably to non-technically trained as¬ tronomers, with the result that in 1911 there was formed this association of amateur ob¬ servers, with Mr. Wm. Tyler Olcott as its sec¬ retary and prime mover. From the character of the work thus far performed, a number of its members have recently received recogni¬ tion by election, to membership in the Ameri¬ can Astronomical Society. F. E. B. SCIENCE Friday, December 29, 1916 CONTENTS The American Association for the Advance¬ ment of Science: — Recent Progress in Spectroscopy : Professor E. P. Lewis . 899 William Rane Lazenby : Professor J. H. Com¬ stock . 912 Scientific Events: — Anthropological Essays in Honor of Pro¬ fessor W. H. Holmes; Dedication of a Tab¬ let in Honor of Professor Volney M. Spald¬ ing ; Smithsonian Regents Meeting . 913 Scientific Notes and News . 916 University and Educational News . 918 Discussion and Correspondence: — A Reply to' “Methods of Criticism of ‘Soil Bacteria and Phosphates’ ” : H. J. Wheeler. 1916 or 1816: Dr. Ales Hrdlicka . 919 Quotations : — Science in Germany from an English View¬ point . 921 Scientific Boohs: — Soils, their Properties and Management ; Chamberlain’s Organic Agricultural Chem¬ istry: Professor C. W. Stoddart . 922 The United States Geological Survey Maps.. . 923 A New Insect Enemy of the Peach . 925 Special Articles: — The Habit of Leaf-oviposition among the Parasitic Hymenoptera: Harry Scott Smith . 925 Societies and Academies: — New Orleans Academy of Sciences: R. S. Cocks. The Botanical Society of Washing¬ ton: H. L. Shantz . 926 MSS. Intended for publication and books, etc., intended for review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison- on-Hudson, N. Y. THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE RECENT PROGRESS IN SPECTROS- COPY 1 We should pause a moment to pay a trib¬ ute of respect to the eminent physicists who have died during the past year. Among these may be named John Oren Reed, of the University of Michigan ; Arthur W. Wright, one of the pioneers in physical research in this country ; Cleveland Abbe, the father of the Weather Bureau; Sylvanus Thomp¬ son, the many-sided scholar; Ernst Mach, the philosophic thinker, and Pierre Duhem, the mathematical physicist. We honor these men for their achievements, hut we need not grieve that they have left us, for their full day ’s work was done ; but sorrow we must over the needless and untimely end of many young men who had given promise of brilliant careers, and countless others, whose names we shall never know, whose potential genius has been sacrificed to the Moloch which is the mongrel off¬ spring of the union of a brutish feudalism with the vampire of commercial exploita¬ tion. While we may form some concep¬ tion of the loss of life and property in the great war, no one can ever guess the ex¬ tent of the irreparable loss to humanity caused by the destruction of embryo schol¬ ars and statesmen, artists and scientists. It is the irony of fate that so many scien¬ tists have been the victims of the condi¬ tions arising from ignorance, superstition, greed and devotion to outworn traditions i Address of the vice-president and chairman of Section B — Physics — of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, New York meet¬ ing, December, 1916. 900 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1148 Which science has ever sought to remedy; ^and yet there are many who hold science in some measure responsible for the ter¬ rible destructiveness of this war. Fire is man’s friend, but it may become a ter¬ rible scourge when uncontrolled; and so the beneficent discoveries of science may be perverted to evil ends. We must re¬ member, however, that death-dealing de¬ vices based on scientific discoveries may be ■ the defense of the rights and liberties cof peoples as well as the instruments of tthose who would devastate the world for their own advantage. There have always been those who have exploited the discov¬ eries of science for their own selfish ends, but who can point to one of these exploit¬ ers who was himself a scientist ? When we are told that the ends of science are ma¬ terial, let us think of Faraday, who never had time for money-making; when we are told that the aims of science are selfish, let us think of the men engaged in medical re¬ search who have sacrificed themselves to discover how others might be saved. Such men are typical of the ideals of science. Yet it is true that we are sometimes too much absorbed in our individual work, al¬ though our aims may be unselfish. With the lesson before us of the great cataclysm in Europe, we must not only recognize our greater responsibility in carrying forward scientific investigation, but we must like¬ wise seek to arouse in our people a fuller realization of the relations of this work to their own happiness and prosperity. Conditions and habits of thought simi¬ lar to those which have brought dis¬ aster upon Europe are not entirely ab¬ sent from our own country, and will have similar results if not remedied in time. Certain social, economic and po¬ litical ills which are held to be inevitable to imperfect humanity by minds which move in the grooves of tradition or of le¬ galistic logic may be found capable of im¬ provement if treated by scientific methods, which seek the truth regardless of the harm it may do to ancient superstitions, preju¬ dices and privileges. We must look to those who think scientifically, even though they may not call themselves scientists, to replace our haphazard ways in agricul¬ ture, business, manufacture, law and poli¬ tics, our criminal wastefulness and careless extravagance, by more efficient methods, not only to the end of increasing national prosperity, but still more to the end of promoting intellectual development, uni¬ versal justice and happiness, unselfish and enlightened patriotism, and exalted ideals of life and conduct. Fortunately there seems to be a growing tendency to recog¬ nize the service which science may render to society. For the first time in our his¬ tory, our government has sought advice from scientific men, and those who have been called upon are giving their services fully and loyally, with no thought of pay or political preferment. It seems not altogether irrelevant to preface my remarks with this protest against some current criticism of science ; but now I turn to the specific subject of my address. Ten years ago the subject of Professor Crew’s vice-presidential address was “Facts and Theories in Spectroscopy.” Since that time some notable discoveries have been made and some remarkable theories have challenged attention. It is my purpose to review a few of the more important experimental results and to dis¬ cuss the relations of some of them to theo¬ ries brought before you in two recent vice- presidential addresses on “Atomic Theo¬ ries of Radiation” and “The Theory of the Nucleus Atom.” Inasmuch as it will be necessary to refer to them, I will restate the salient features of the theories which have attracted the most attention. Planck derived an expression for the December 29, 1916] SCIENCE 901 spectral energy distribution of black-body radiation from the assumption that the radiation was emitted and absorbed by electric oscillators in definite quanta, each equal to the frequency of the oscillator multiplied by a universal constant, h, the wirkungsquantum. Later he modified this theory so far as absorption is concerned. Einstein and others went further in as¬ suming that these quanta preserve their identity in their propagation through space, thus reviving a form of corpuscular theory. This extreme view has been gen¬ erally abandoned, but it has been found impossible to explain away the wirkungs¬ quantum h. It appears in too many rela¬ tions to be the result of chance. The work of Millikan in particular proves the exact validity of Einstein’s relation Ve = h(v — v0) in the photoelectric effect, in which Ve is the measure of the emission energy of the electrons, v the frequency of the incident light, and v0 the minimum frequency which will cause emission of electrons. A similar relation appears to hold good in many cases of X-ray and light spectra. It seems probable that this con¬ stant depends upon atomic structure only, and affects radiation through space only in so far as emission and absorption are determined by atomic structure. The theory of the nucleus atom is like¬ wise of fundamental importance in spec¬ troscopy. The work of Rutherford and others leaves no escape from the conclu¬ sion that the nucleus of the atom is a con¬ centrated group of positive charges and electrons, with an excess of positive ele¬ mentary charges approximately equal to half the atomic weight, while the same number of electrons circulate about the nucleus in rings. The spectroscopist must try to fit his theories to these probable facts, but he is met at the outset with ap¬ parently insuperable difficulties in ac¬ counting for the stability of such atoms and for the manifold complexity of spectra ac¬ cording to accepted electrodynamical laws. Bohr cut the Gordian knot by supposing that the classic laws apply only to condi¬ tions of stability, when no energy is radi¬ ated, and that radiation attends the transi¬ tion of an electron from one state of stability to another, the frequency being determined by the relation that h multiplied by the frequency is equal to the difference between the energies of the system in the two stable states. In the case of hydrogen, to which he assigns one radiating electron and one nucleus charge, it is difficult to account for the existence of so many stable states, for the failure to radiate while sub¬ ject to uniform radial acceleration, and for monochromatic radiation while passing be¬ tween two positions of stability. Never¬ theless Bohr derived an expression like that of Rydberg which locates accurately not only the Balmer series, but also an infra¬ red and an ultra-violet series predicted by Ritz and found by Paschen and by Ly¬ man, respectively. His attempt to apply the same method to helium led to results which are still in dispute, and which will be referred to later. In reviewing recent progress we may be¬ gin with that field in which this country has taken a leading part — that of astro¬ physics. This domain belongs as much to the physicist as to the astronomer. The heavenly bodies are laboratories on a vast scale, in which nature has provided condi¬ tions of temperature, pressure and elec¬ trical state which we may never hope to rival on the earth. The spectroscope gives us data from which it may be possible to form some idea of these conditions by com¬ parison with our feeble laboratory imita¬ tions of celestial phenomena, and con¬ versely, the latter may aid in the interpre¬ tation of terrestrial phenomena. One of the most fruitful astronomical applications of the spectroscope is to the 902 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1148 determination of velocities in the line of sight, by the Doppler-Fizeau principle. A large mass of such data has been col¬ lected, from which some important gen¬ eralizations have been derived. For ex¬ ample, Campbell has determined the ve¬ locity and direction of motion of the solar system through space, and has found a re¬ markable and as yet unexplained relation between the velocities of stars and their apparent age, the redder and presumably older stars aud a class of nebulae having in general the greater velocities. It like¬ wise appears that two immense star streams are crossing each other in the Milky Way. Many spectroscopic binaries have been dis¬ covered and their orbits determined, and recently there have been found remarkable displacements and rotations in nebulae which may throw some light on the nature and destiny of these bodies. The spectro¬ scope has enabled astronomers to under¬ take the ambitious task of tracing the course of stellar evolution. The most ingenious and fruitful device for studying the sun is the spectrohelio- graph, invented by Hale in 1892. With this instrument photographs of the distri¬ bution of a given constituent of the solar atmosphere may be obtained by restrict¬ ing the light falling on the photographic plate to the wave-length of one of the characteristic lines of the element. The configuration of the hydrogen clouds in the neighborhood of sunspots led Hale to sus¬ pect vortical motions in such regions. In 1908 the study of a number of plates, which showed that hydrogen flocculi were actually drawn into these spots from great distances, proved without question that sunspots are cyclonic areas of enormous extent. Thus the long-disputed question as to the nature of sunspots was answered, but this was not all. Vapors which emit or absorb line spectra are ionized, and as the more mobile electrons would diffuse more rapidly to higher levels than the posi¬ tive ions, Hale inferred that the immense whirls of electrified vapors in the neigh¬ borhood of the spots must cause a radial magnetic field. If such fields are suffi¬ ciently intense, the longitudinal Zeeman effect should be produced. As a matter of fact, the spectrum of light from the spots is characteristically different from that of the surrounding photosphere, one of these peculiarities being the doubling of many lines. As Hale anticipated, an examina¬ tion of the state of polarization of such lines showed them to be circularly polar¬ ized, and the direction indicated that the whirling vapor was negatively electrified. Hale likewise sought for the more minute effects which might be expected from the rotation of the solar atmosphere as a whole. A study of the breadth of spectral lines at different latitudes and the detec¬ tion of traces of circular polarization at their edges showed that the sun possesses a magnetic field with polarity correspond¬ ing to that of the earth, but of much greater intensity. Although the atmos¬ pheric conditions on the earth are very different from those on the sun, it is pos¬ sible that these investigations may assist us in solving the baffling problem of the earth’s magnetism. One of the most impressive facts re¬ vealed by the spectroscope is the substan¬ tial identity of constitution of the heavenly bodies. Everywhere we find evidence of the existence of such elements as hydrogen, sodium, calcium and iron. But we also find an infinitude of differences in the ap¬ pearance of the lines, which we must at¬ tribute to differences of temperature, vapor density, pressure and electrical con¬ dition. It is suggestive to find that the spectrum of some stars resembles that of the arc, of others that of the spark. We may hope by comparing the spectra of these bodies with those produced in our December 29, 1916] SCIENCE 903 laboratories under varied conditions to reach some conclusions regarding their physical state. The Mount Wilson physical laboratory is doing much valuable work of this kind. In the spectra of the solar corona and of nebulce and nebulous stars certain lines are found which do not belong to known elements. This need not indicate any fundamental differences between the life history of such bodies and that of the older stars. Twenty-five years ago Lockyer’s views regarding the dissociation of ele¬ ments in the stars were treated with levity by most physicists and astronomers. To¬ day such notions are held to be quite ra¬ tional. The more elementary forms of matter would naturally be of small atomic weight, and hence would diffuse to higher levels than the heavier elements, and might ultimately escape into space. If it were not for the fact that it is held captive in chemical combinations, we should know nothing of hydrogen. Helium first re¬ vealed itself to us through its solar lines, and would still be otherwise unknown to us were it not for its continuous produc¬ tion in radioactive processes. The ele¬ ments giving the spectra of the corona and of the nebulae are presumably of small atomic weight, and are possibly the units out of which more complex known elements are built, in later stages of development; or they may be, conversely, the results of the disintegration of such ele¬ ments. It is not impossible that in the fu¬ ture we may detect traces of these elements on the earth or manufacture them by some powerful disintegrative process. Mean¬ while deductions from known relations be¬ tween frequencies of the spectral lines, their breadth, and the atomic weight of the elements may give us some. clue to their atomic weights. Nicholson has succeeded • in constructing hypothetical atoms with given nuclear charges and electron ring systems which give with remarkable accu¬ racy the positions of the lines of the corona and nebulae. Rayleigh showed from kinetic theory and Michelson proved experimen¬ tally that at low pressures the width of lines may be entirely due to Doppler dis¬ placements, which vary directly as the square root of the absolute temperature and inversely as the square root of the atomic weight. Buisson and Fabry have verified this law and applied it to the study of nebulae. The width of certain lines, determined from the limit of inter¬ ference, indicates that the temperature of the Orion nebula is about 15,000 degrees, and that two groups of lines are due to atoms of weights 2.72 and between 1 and 2 respectively. This is a remarkable confir¬ mation of Nicholson’s previous conclusion that the emission centers are of atomic weights 2.95 and 1.31. During the past ten years the bounda¬ ries of the known spectrum have been greatly extended in both directions. The difficulties of investigation in the infra¬ red are very great, but by the methods of reststrahlen and of focal isolation Rubens, working in succession with Nichols, Wood and von Baeyer, has isolated and meas¬ ured certain regions of great wave-length. The longest wave-length measured is about .3 mm., while the shortest Hertzian waves so far obtained are 2 mm. long. The study of line radiation in this region is even more difficult, but Paschen and his pupil, the American Randall, have succeeded in meas¬ uring many lines extending to about 90,- o 000 Angstrom units. In the ultra-violet Lyman has extended the region first made known to us by Schumann to a wave-length of about 600 o Angstrom units. Beyond this point it is difficult to go, on account of absorption, lack of sensitiveness of the photographic plate, and small reflecting power of specu¬ lum metal. Gratings ruled on silicon and photoelectric detectors may enable us to bridge the gap between these waves and 904 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1148 the much shorter ones which may be ex¬ amined with the aid of nature’s diffraction gratings, crystals, which have made the study of X-ray spectra possible. Of all the discoveries of recent years, that of the wave nature of the X-rays and of a practical method of examining their spectra is the most remarkable and the most important, for it has revealed to us the most fundamental radiations of the elements and has given us a glimpse into the very heart of the atom. In quick suc¬ cession Laue and his pupils demonstrated the diffraction effects produced by crystals, the Braggs showed how reflection might be employed to isolate waves of different lengths by a principle similar to that pro¬ ducing colors of thin plates, but of far greater resolving power by reason of the greater number of effective reflecting sur¬ faces, and Moseley photographed many characteristic spectra by an extraordinarily simple method. He found that the prin¬ cipal lines in the spectra of a large number of elements were connected by a remark¬ ably simple relation, namely that the square roots of the frequencies are pro¬ portional to the ordinal numbers, which in¬ crease by one in passing from one number of a periodic group to the next. When there are anomalies between the atomic weight and the place of an element in a group, this anomaly disappears when the atomic number rather than the atomic weight is considered. This work has been extended by others, notably by Siegbahn and Friman, to include nearly all the known elements between sodium and uranium, inclusive, with the result that all the atomic numbers between hydrogen and uranium are accounted for, with the ex¬ ception of six gaps. As interpreted by Bohr’s theory, the ordinal number which determines the frequency is the excess number of positive elementary charges in the nucleus, and these results are, there¬ fore, in complete harmony with the theory of the nuclear atom developed by Ruther¬ ford, van den Broek, Soddy and others. The comparison of the X-ray spectrum of lead obtained by Siegbahn with the gamma- ray spectrum of radium B obtained by Rutherford and Andrade shows the iden¬ tity of ten of the principal lines. This strikingly confirms the accepted theory of isotopes, or elements of different atomic weights, which are chemically and spec¬ troscopically alike because they have the same resultant nuclear charge. The positions of the principal lines are consistent with Bohr’s general formula, but perhaps this relationship is purely for¬ mal. But whether or not this theory ap¬ plies, apparently we can not dispense with the wirkungsquantum. In addition to the characteristic X-radiation of an element, there is a continuous spectrum, with a sharply defined boundary on the side of shorter wave-lengths. The investigations of Duane, Hull and D. L. Webster have shown that this boundary is accurately de¬ fined by Einstein’s relation Ve = hv for fields up to 110,000 volts. Such a simple law does not hold for the characteristic radiations; but Webster has shown that they do not appear until the voltage some¬ what exceeds that demanded by the Ein¬ stein relation. The longest X-waves so far discovered by Siegbahn are about 12 Angstrom units in length, so that there is not a very great gap between them and the shortest ymves discovered by Lyman. The investigation of this region is difficult, but undoubtedly means will be found to attain success. Much also remains to be done in the study of details of X-ray spectra, which contain many weak lines, and possibly bands, which have not so far been carefully examined. During the past ten years great advance has been made in our knowledge of spec¬ tral series. Rydberg, Ritz, Paschen, Fow- December 29, 1916] SCIENCE 905 ler and others have shown that a general¬ ized form of the Balmer equation, with Rydberg’s universal constant and a few special constants, is capable of wide appli¬ cation. Different combinations of a few constants have been found to give a num¬ ber of related series, and many new lines so predicted have been found. The com¬ mon limit and other numerical relation¬ ships between different series of the same element indicates that the different emis¬ sion centers have some dynamic coupling and Rydberg’s universal constant indi¬ cates a structural element common to all substances. According to Bohr, this quantity is a function of the electronic and atomic mass, the elementary electrical charge, and the wirkungsquantum h, and should slightly increase with increasing atomic weight. As it is commonly as¬ sumed that it is an absolute constant, care¬ ful measurements may furnish a test of the validity of Bohr’s theory. The relationships of frequency to atomic number found by Moseley recalls that Ramage, Watts, Runge and Precht and Hicks have found linear relationships be¬ tween the squares of the atomic weights and the frequencies or frequency differ¬ ences of homologous lines in the spectra of elements of the same group. Ives and Stuhlmann have shown that in some cases the results are improved by substituting atomic numbers for atomic weights, but the relationship is evidently not so simple as in the case of X-ray spectra. The discovery of the Zeeman effect and the explanation of its simpler forms by Lorentz was the first step toward a ra¬ tional spectroscopic theory. The later dis¬ covered complexities and anomalies, while they may defy mathematical analysis, do not lessen our confidence in the theory, for they are what we might expect as a result of complicated atomic structure. The same intellectual satisfaction does not at¬ tend the discovery of the analogous effect of an electric field, because the simplest cases are so complex that they can not be adequately explained by any theory yet proposed. The possibility of such an effect had long been the subject of speculation, but Stark was the first to realize and at¬ tain the necessary conditions for its oc¬ currence. Lo Surdo also discovered it in the neighborhood of the cathode in capil¬ lary tubes. As in the case of the Zeeman effect, the phenomena are different when viewed transversely and parallel to the field. In each case the lines are split into a number of components, the number be¬ ing different for different lines, even for those belonging to the same series. In the transverse effect the components are plane- polarized in hydrogen and helium, the stronger central lines vibrating at right angles to the field, and the stronger outer components vibrating parallel to the field. A remarkable relation is found for the series lines of hydrogen, helium and lithium. For each the number of princi¬ pal normal components appears to be equal to the ordinal number of the line in the series. Higher dispersion shows that in the case of hydrogen each component is double. If this rule holds good through¬ out the series, the last known line, the twenty-eighth, would have 56 such com¬ ponents, an equal number polarized at right angles to these, and a number of weaker components of both kinds — truly a formidably complicated system. In gen¬ eral the longitudinal components appear to be unpolarized, although Miss Howell has found some anomalies with lithium and calcium. In some cases the compo¬ nents are unsymmetrical both in position and in intensity. Of all the other elements investigated, mercury alone shows a slight broadening. It might be expected that the great nuclear charges of heavy atoms would diminish the effect of an external 906 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1148 field. The inverse absorption effect has so far not been observed. Long before the Stark effect was ob¬ served Voigt showed that snch results might be expected from qnasi-elastic forces in the atom and the stresses pro¬ duced by the field. Schwarzschild has at¬ tempted to explain it by the ordinary laws of electrodynamics, and Warburg, Gehrcke, Garbasso and Bohr by Bohr’s theory. Each attempt was successful in some re¬ spects, but each failed to account fully for all the components, their displacements and their state of polarization, and all the theories assign the same number of com¬ ponents to each line of a series, whereas one of the most significant features is the progressive difference in number of com¬ ponents, displacements and relative inten¬ sities in passing from one line to another. Stark not only rejects them all, but is led by his study of the phenomenon to finally abandon the quantum and light-cell theo¬ ries, because he considers that he has proved that the greatest possible energy which an electron can acquire in its orbit falls far short of one energy quantum. Moreover, he argues that it seems impos¬ sible to explain the phenomenon in terms of Bohr’s one electron. He concludes that a number of electrons must take part in the emission of a single line, each having the same frequency under ordinary condi¬ tions or in a magnetic field, but different frequencies when displaced unsymmetric- ally in an electric field. It is difficult, however, to understand why hydrogen has only one detachable electron if Stark’s view is correct. It has already been mentioned that at low pressures the width of lines may be ascribed entirely to the Doppler effect. The great broadening at higher pressures has never been explained, but it has been assumed that damping, collisions and ro¬ tations all play a part. Stark suggests that it may be largely due to atomic electric fields, which may exercise a large influence when the atoms are crowded together. It seems significant that the broadening in¬ creases with the ordinal number of a line in a series, is often unsymmetrical, and diminishes with increasing atomic weight in most cases, quite in harmony with the effects of an electric field. Nicholson and Merton have found that the broadening of hydrogen lines is in quantitative agree¬ ment with Stark’s suggestion. With changes in vapor density, pres¬ sure, temperature or the mode of excita¬ tion lines belonging to one series may weaken or disappear, other lines may be strengthened, and new lines may appear. We must assume that different groups of lines are due to different emission centers. These differences must depend upon the size of the particles, or upon the number and arrangement of electrons. Any theory must take account of the molecular or atomic state or the electrical charge of the emission centers. In some cases we have rather definite information on these points. A number of elements emit band spectra under some conditions, line spectra under others. One conclusion which seems to be well established is that band spectra are emitted by molecules, line spectra by atoms. Universally we find that com¬ pounds give band spectra, never line spectra. If a compound is dissociated by the discharge the line spectrum of one or both constituents appears. Elements give band spectra with feeble excitation, line spectra when the discharge is so intense as to cause dissociation. It seems reasonable to infer that the band spectra of elements is likewise associated with the molecular condition. In the case of monatomic ele¬ ments which give both band and line spec¬ tra electrical conditions must determine the nature of the radiation. Radiation is an electromagnetic process, December 29, 1916] SCIENCE 907 and must be determined by the electrical state of the radiator. A molecule may be neutral or for a moment charged by the loss or gain of an electron. This type of ionization must actually occur, as indi¬ cated by the conduction of electricity through the vapor of a compound which shows no evidence of chemical dissociation. What causes the light emission? It may accompany the loss or gain of an electron by a neutral molecule, in which case the emission center would be charged. It may be due to the shock of elastic collision with an electron or ion, or to the reunion of an electron with a positively charged molecule, in which cases the emission center would be neutral. Luminous vapors emitting band spectra usually appear to be neutral at the instant of emission, so that it seems prob¬ able that band emission is due either to elastic shock or to the recovery of a lost electron. It is to be remarked that as a rule band spectra are not subject to the Zeeman, Stark or Humphreys-Mohler ef¬ fect; in the exceptional cases it is probable that those subject to one of these effects are subject to all. It would be of interest to examine these cases with reference to the nature of the molecular charge. Luminous vapors emitting line spectra appear, in many cases at least, to be posi¬ tively charged. A sodium flame is at¬ tracted to the negative plate of a con¬ denser. A metallic salt introduced near the cathode of a spark discharge colors the spark only in that neighborhood; if intro¬ duced near the anode, the color flashes en¬ tirely across the spark. The most promis¬ ing method of verifying such conclusions appears to be by the study of canal or posi¬ tive rays. Sir Joseph Thomson, from a study of the deflections produced by mag¬ netic and electric fields, found that, with very few exceptions, no molecules of either elements or compounds carry a negative charge, while those with positive charges are common. No molecule acquires more than one positive charge. The atoms of but few elements are found with a negative charge, but all may acquire positive charges and many may be multiply charged. For example, krypton may have as many as five and mercury eight posi¬ tive charges. Hydrogen never has more than one charge, which accords with Bohr ’s view that it has but one detachable elec¬ tron. Stark has reached similar conclusions from a study of the spectra of canal rays. In many cases the motion in the line of sight gives a Doppler effect. There is an undisplaced line due to the stationary gas and a displaced line due to the canal rays. A distinct separation between the dis¬ placed and stationary lines shows that the canal rays can not radiate until their kinetic energy reaches a threshold value, which Stark first interpreted in favor of the quantum theory, but which he now be¬ lieves to represent the energy necessary for ionization. There may be two or even three displaced lines, with separations con¬ sistent with the view that the luminous centers are doubly or triply charged. The radiation is evidently due to collisions, for a reduction of pressure in the canal ray chamber causes a reduction of lumi¬ nosity. In general, all series lines are sub¬ ject to the Doppler effect. Fulcher has shown that nitrogen canal rays give the negative pole band spectrum, with dis¬ placements, but no other bands have been found to give this effect. The series lines of hydrogen show displacements, but they are not observed in the many-line spec¬ trum except to a slight extent in a few cases. Stark concludes that the series lines are emitted by positive atom ions, and the lines of the secondary spectrum by neutral atoms. He thus associates the compound spectrum with band spectra, which he sup¬ poses to be due to neutral systems. It may 908 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1148 be remarked that Fabry and Buisson have concluded from measurements of the width of lines that both spectra are due to emis¬ sion centers of atomic size. From a study of the displaced components of many ele¬ ments, electronegative as well as electro¬ positive, Stark concluded that in all cases line spectra are emitted by positively charged atoms. Aluminum atom ions may have one, two or three charges, which ap¬ pear in succession as the voltage is in¬ creased. The same is true of argon. The red spectrum is apparently due to singly charged ions, the blue or spark spectrum to multiple charges. Mercury may have as many as four charges, each giving rise to a characteristic group of lines, all those due to multiple charges being spark lines. From an examination of many such cases Stark concludes that in general arc lines or those of the positive column are due to singly charged ions, sharp spark lines to double charges, and diffuse spark lines to triple charges. There are some apparent exceptions to this classification, but in the main the evidence seems to support his views, which are also consistent with the results obtained by Reichenheim from the study of anode rays. For the first time we are thus enabled to assign a common cause for spark lines produced under apparently very different conditions. They are found in the spectra of disruptive discharges, of the negative glow in vacuum tubes ; in the intermittent or oscillating arc when rapid changes in potential occur, although the maximum potential may be small ; near the poles of the arc, where the anode and cathode potential gradients are steep; in the electric furnace when the temperature is high ; in high temperature stars, and, as found by Hemsalech and de Watteville, even in the green cone of the Bunsen flame, where chemical action is energetic. In all these cases we might expect multiple ioni¬ zation to be favored. Similar conclusions regarding the charges of emission centers may be derived from observations by Stark, Child, Strutt and others on the luminous vapors from an arc between charged condenser plates. The carriers of the line spectra are swept out of the field, while the luminous vapors giv¬ ing band spectra are unaffected; or, if the lines of several series are present, their in¬ tensities are modified in different degrees by the electric field. Studies of the os¬ cillatory spark by Schuster and Hemsa¬ lech, Schenck, Milner, Royds and others indicate that the spark lines do not per¬ sist as long as arc lines. If the emission centers of the former are multiply charged this is what we might expect. Investigations on the mechanism of the spark give results which at first sight seem opposed to Stark’s theory. All observers agree that the luminous vapors appear to be projected from the cathode, with dif¬ ferent velocities for different lines, and the tacit assumption seems to have been made that they are negatively charged. That metallic vapors are projected from the cathode is evident from the fact of cathode disintegration, and probably the particles are initially negatively charged. We know very little concerning this phe¬ nomenon, but two things are almost cer¬ tain — that only a small fraction of the me¬ tallic particles take part in the luminosity, and that these particles are not negatively charged while radiating. The large veloc¬ ities indicated by the curvature of the streamers viewed in a rotating mirror do not give rise to a corresponding Doppler effect, and it seems highly probable that Hull and Royds are correct in their sur¬ mise that what happens is really the propagation of a condition of luminosity through vapor which continuously fills the gap after the first discharge. Electrons initially projected with a high velocity, which diminishes as the field intensity December 29, 1916] SCIENCE 909 drops to zero, and producing multiply charged ions in the beginning and singly charged ions toward the end of their course, would apparently account for all the observed effects. While the experimental evidence seems to favor the idea that lines are emitted by positively charged centers, there is no a priori reason why neutral or even negative ions should not emit line spectra. It is quite possible that the canal ray lines which Stark attributes to singly charged ions may be emitted at the instant of neu¬ tralization ; but we can not escape the con¬ clusion that spark lines at least are emitted by positive ions unless wre accept the im¬ probable view that a multiple charge may be instantaneously entirely neutralized. Lenard inferred from the distribution of emission centers in the arc that the lines of the principal series are emitted by neu¬ tral atoms, those of subordinate series and spark lines by multiply charged atoms. Wien and others have suggested that line spectra may be emitted by molecules, but this seems improbable. On the other hand, we must admit the possibility of negatively charged centers which would probably ex¬ ist only under exceptional conditions. Nicholson has, with success, assumed the existence of positive, neutral, and negative centers in accounting for the spectrum of the corona. The fundamental importance of reach¬ ing definite conclusions as to the magnitude of the electric charge of emission centers is evident when we remember that any theory must take this into account. Bohr’s theory rests upon the assumption that series lines are emitted by electrons previously de¬ tached as they return to equilibrium posi¬ tions determined by the resultant charge of the system. In the case of hydrogen, if there be but one detachable electron, the radiating system must be neutral. If it can be shown without question that the emission centers of the Balmer series are positively charged, some modification of the theory seems necessary. Furthermore, if the centers are thus deprived of the one detachable electron, we must accept Stark’s view that the series emission is due to elec¬ trons which can not be detached. Fulcher has pointed out the necessity for a similar conclusion with respect to helium. Some of its lines are attributed to doubly charged atoms ; but these are identical with alpha particles, the nuclei of the atoms,, from which the radiation must be emitted. Beyond the probable fact that band spec¬ tra are usually emitted by neutral systems, there is little evidence upon which we may rest a theory. Emission may accompany the neutralization of a positively charged molecule by an electron or may be the re¬ sult of internal vibrations due to colli¬ sions, without complete ionization. Stark believes that the band emission is due to the detachable valency electrons, although the coupling between them and more firmly bound electrons may cause the latter to^ take part. Evidence supporting Stark’s views is to be found in absorption spectra. Hydrogen shows no absorption until it is ionized by a current. The cold vapors of the alkali metals and of mercury show line absorp¬ tion, but their susceptibility to the photo¬ electric effect indicates how ionization may be the prelude to absorption. All the cor¬ responding emission lines appear to be due to singly charged emission centers. Ab¬ sorption of the lines due to multiple charges does not take place until the vapor is highly ionized by electric discharges or high temperature. Substances which show band absorption under ordinary conditions, such as iodine, do not appear to be ionized when either emitting or absorbing. Both processes appear to be due to neutral sys¬ tems. In such cases emission must be due to internal disturbances, without ioniza- 910 SCIENCE [N. S. VOL. XLIY. No. 1148 tion. The bands of some substances, such as nitrogen, are not found in absorption under any conditions, and the conditions of their occurrence indicate that the emis¬ sion bands are due to the recombination of a detached electron with a positive mole¬ cule. The negative pole bands appear under the same conditions as spark lines, and it seems not improbable that they are due to the neutralization of a doubly charged molecule. The spectral differences attending dif¬ ferent stages of ionization are well illus¬ trated by some recent experiments. Franck and Hertz found that mercury vapor is ionized by a field of 4.9 volts, and then emits the one ultra-violet line 2537. The Einstein relation Ve = hv is fulfilled. McLennon and Henderson verified this con¬ clusion, and also found that with a field of about 12 volts a second stage of ioniza¬ tion occurs, attended by the emission of the many-lined spectrum attributed by Stark to multiple charges. McLennon finds that zinc, cadmium and magnesium also give single line spectra which prob¬ ably conform with Einstein’s equation, which we should not expect to apply in a simple form to the many-line spectrum. It appears from such experiments that there is a threshold value of kinetic energy which must be imparted to an emis¬ sion center before it can radiate, which represents the work of ionization and is equal to a light quantum. Franck holds that this energy may be devoted either to ionization or to emission, but that both can not simultaneously occur. Stark believes that the two are coincident, the emission accompanying the rearrangement of elec¬ trons in the atom after one has been ejected. This suggests an explanation of quantum emission involving no departure from accepted electromagnetic theory. The spectra of hydrogen and of helium are of particular interest because their atoms are of the simplest type and because it is possible that they are the basic units of which all elements are composed. The Pickering series in stellar spectra was at¬ tributed to hydrogen because of its nu¬ merical relationships with the Balmer series. The study of series relations led Rydberg to predict the occurrence of a principal Series for hydrogen beginning at wave-length 4686, and this line was subse¬ quently found in nebular and stellar spec¬ tra. After many attempts to reproduce these spectra in the laboratory, Fowler suc¬ ceeded in 1812, by passing a powerful dis¬ ruptive discharge through a mixture of hydrogen and helium. Produced only under such conditions, these must be classed as spark lines ; and if Stark ’s views are correct and if they are really due to hydrogen, that element must have more than one detachable electron. In applying his theory to the helium spectrum, and assuming one electron re¬ turning to a helium atom from which two electrons have been detached, Bohr ob¬ tained a formula which gives lines corre¬ sponding in position to those of the Pick¬ ering and Rydberg series, and also another series almost coincident with the Balmer hydrogen series. This remarkable conclu¬ sion was strengthened by Stark’s discov¬ ery of 4686 in a helium tube which gave no lines of the ordinary hydrogen spectrum. He concluded from the canal-ray displace¬ ments that the emission centers were doubly charged. Evans also found the first members of all the series assigned to helium by Bohr, including that correspond¬ ing to the Balmer series, in a tube contain¬ ing no hydrogen. The experimental evi¬ dence thus favors Bohr’s theory, but we must remember the remarkable way in which the presence of one element may in¬ tensify or suppress the spectrum of another. For example, Lyman found that the ultra¬ violet series attributed without question to December 29, 1916] SCIENCE 911 hydrogen is greatly intensified by the pres¬ ence of helium. It may be added that Mer¬ ton has concluded, from a study of the width of 4686, that it is due to an atom smaller than that of helium. Some light may be thrown on this prob¬ lem by observations such as those made by Wright and others on the distribution of materials in nebuhe,. as indicated by the length of the nebular lines. Wright finds that usually 4686 is confined to the nu¬ cleus ; helium lines extend further, and those of nebulum and hydrogen still further. These results favor the view that the elements distribute themselves accord¬ ing to their atomic weights and that 4686 is due to an atom at least as heavy as that of helium. But this is not conclusive, be¬ cause a high temperature line of hydrogen might be found only in the hot nucleus, if we grant the possibility of a higher de¬ gree of ionization for hydrogen. Fundamental questions which are of im¬ portance to physicists and astronomers alike are involved in this problem, but it is evidently an elusive one. Curiously enough, as Fowler has proved by compari¬ son with other spectra, general series rela¬ tions would permit us to. assign the dis¬ puted series to hydrogen or to helium im¬ partially, and it seems possible that both elements may give the same spectrum under appropriate conditions. Bohr has also concluded, from the formula derived from the assumption of the return of an electron to a lithium atom which has lost three electrons, that lithium would emit lines close to the Balmer series. Bohr has not yet succeeded in applying his method to the case where an electron returns to a singly charged helium or lithium atom, and hence has not been able to account for the known helium lines, which are assigned by Stark to singly charged atoms. Nor has he taken account of atomic magnetic fields, which, as Humphreys, Allen and others have shown, may exercise an ap¬ preciable influence. One of the most fascinating fields of re¬ search is that of fluorescence and reso¬ nance spectra, in which much work has re¬ cently been done, particularly by Wood. He has found that white light will excite the complete band and line resonance spectrum of sodium or iodine, but that a single exciting line will cause the emission of a line of the same length and also of a number of lines approximately equally spaced which may not always coincide in position with one of the absorption lines. Thus the vapor is caused to emit forced vi¬ bration, giving a spectrum not its own. As Wood has suggested, this method enables us to strike one key of the complex vi¬ brating system of the atom, instead of the whole keyboard at once. Time does not permit a detailed account of this remark¬ able work, but it is evident that it may render great service in the study of the mechanism of the atom. Nor is there time to even mention any of the results ob¬ tained in the field of absorption spectra. After reviewing the work of the past decade, we may feel encouraged by the progress that has been made both in the perfecting and application of spectroscopic methods of research and in the discovery of new phenomena. Some of these discover¬ ies have led to fundamental revisions of our notions of atomic structure. The Rutherford atom has definitely displaced that of Thomson. In some respects this has seemed to make the problem more diffi¬ cult, but it has at least defined it more pre¬ cisely. Many attempts have been made to represent an atomic structure which would satisfy the necessary mathematical condi¬ tions, most of them so impossible as to be absurd or so speculative that they suggest no experimental tests of their validity. The great merit of Bohr’s hypothesis is that it does lend itself to such tests, and 912 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1148 it is for that reason that I have paid spe¬ cial attention to the methods of experi¬ mental attack which seem to give the most concrete results in this connection. Hesi¬ tant as we may be to accept in all its de¬ tails a theory which asks us to abandon laws upon which we have pinned our faith, this theory, and the quantum theory as well, may be the flashes of genius which reveal incompletely the outlines of the truth toward which we struggle along a dimly lighted path. Fuller knowledge may resolve some of our difficulties and recon¬ cile apparent contradictions. Ptolemy’s theory of epicycles would appear wholly irrational to one acquainted with Newton’s laws but ignorant of Kepler’s conclusions, yet it correctly described the facts as Ptolemy saw them. Some day the Kepler and the Newton of the atom may appear, but their task will not be an easy one. If the astronomer is baffled by the problem of three bodies which he can see, how can we expect to define the exact laws deter¬ mining the motions of the invisible hosts of electrons and positive charges in an atomic system? How can we hope to cor¬ rectly picture the mechanism which emits radiations of almost infinite complexity, or account for the additional complications called forth by external forces? We may be almost tempted to accept the pessimistic view expressed by Planck in his Columbia lectures, that nothing in the world entitles us to believe that it will ever be possible to represent completely through physical formulas the inner structure of the atom. And Kayser has said : A true theory must assume a complete knowl¬ edge of electrical and optical processes, and there¬ fore is an Utopia. But even if we never reach the goal, who can set a limit to our approach to it? We may never set foot upon the promised land, but some day we may perceive its shadowy outlines dimly from afar. University of California E. P. Lewis WILLIAM RANE LAZENBY William Bane Lazenby, professor of for¬ estry in Ohio State University, died at Colum¬ bus on September 14 of pneumonia. In the passing of Professor Lazenby there is removed from us one who has devoted his life with marked success to the advancement of agri¬ culture and agricultural education. He was born on a farm at Belona, Yates County, N. Y., December 5, 1850; he entered Cornell University in the fall of 1870, and graduated with his class in 1874. During this period, he not only kept up his studies, but also supported himself by labor, first, on the univer¬ sity farm and campus, and later, in the botan¬ ical department. This at times was an ex¬ tremely difficult thing to do, as the compensa¬ tion for such labor was small and the time that he could spare for this work was limited. At times he was greatly discouraged; but the steadfastness of purpose, which was a promi¬ nent characteristic of his entire career, kept him at his self-imposed task. In spite of the handicap of the necessity of self-support he was so successful in his studies that he won the Ezra Cornell prize in agriculture, and on graduation he was made a member of the teaching staff of the university. His first appointment was as instructor in horticulture; later he was promoted to an assistant professorship in horticulture, which position he held till he was called to the Ohio State University. As he was the first mem¬ ber of the Cornell faculty whose duties were limited to horticulture, he may be regarded as the founder of the horticultural department of this institution. He was called to the Ohio State University as professor of botany and horticulture in 1881, which position he held till 1892, when his title was changed to professor of horticulture and forestry; since 1910 his field has been re¬ stricted to forestry. Professor Lazenby had published much on the subjects that he taught. He spent many of his summer vacations in studying horticul¬ ture and forestry in Europe. He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advance¬ ment of Science, a founder and past president of the Ohio Academy of Science and a life December 29, 1916] SCIENCE 913 member of the American Pomological Associa¬ tion and the American Forestry Society. His wife and a daughter, who is a student in Smith College, survive him. In his undergraduate days at Cornell, Lazenby was a great favorite with his fellow students. His genial good nature, his un¬ selfishness, and his great earnestness won the hearts of those associated with him. Already at that early period in his career, he was de¬ votedly interested in the cause of agriculture, and took a prominent part in the work of the Grange and of agricultural and horticultural societies, and later his influence in these or¬ ganizations did much to bring their support to the development of the agricultural work at Cornell. He also took a prominent part in the movement that resulted in the establish¬ ment of the agricultural experiment station at Geneva, drafting the bill, the passage of which by the New York State Legislature estab¬ lished this station. While Professor Lazenby found his great interest in life the mastery and development of his special field in science, it was the human side of him that had the strongest hold on his friends and colleagues. He never lost his in¬ terest in the struggles of students with limited means and in a quiet way extended aid to many of them. He never lost an opportunity of service to his friends or others in need; sympathy, helpfulness and loyalty were his characteristic qualities as a man and friend; and his loss to all of us who knew and loved him is irreparable. J. H. Comstock SCIENTIFIC EVENTS ANTHROPOLOGICAL ESSAYS IN HONOR OF PROFESSOR W. H. HOLMES A five-hundred page volume of anthropo¬ logical essays abounding with pertinent and beautiful illustrations was presented to Mr. William Henry Holmes, head curator of anthropology in the United States National Museum, on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, December 1, 1916. The volume is a tribute by his friends and colaborers in the study of anthropology, forty-four of whom contributed original articles for publication in the anniversary volume. The book, of which only 200 copies were printed, was edited by Mr. Frederick W. Hodge, ethnologist-in¬ charge of the Bureau of American Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution. The presentation took place at a dinner held at the Lafayette Hotel, at which were present most of those who took part in the prepara¬ tion of the book, and proved a complete sur¬ prise to the guest of honor. Mr. Holmes has been engaged in scientific investigations under the government for forty-five years; first with the government geological surveys, then with the Geological Survey, and finally the Bureau of American Ethnology, and the United States National Museum. In fact, he has been in the scientific service of the government con¬ tinuously since 1871, with the exception of three years (1894-97) during which time he was curator of anthropology in the Field Mu¬ seum of Natural History and professor of anthropic geology at the University of Chi¬ cago. Besides being a geologist and anthro¬ pologist, Mr. Holmes is an artist of note, and has been curator of the National Gallery of Art, a branch of the National Museum, since its establishment several years ago. Inci¬ dentally, he has been the representative of the government at seven national and interna¬ tional expositions. His influence upon the work of his collabo¬ rators and assistants has been very marked. The note of appreciation, which prefaces the anniversary volume of anthropological essays, remarks in part: This volume . . . must not be regarded as merely commemorative of the day on which you achieve the seventieth milestone in your journey of life. It is rather an epitome of the influence you have exerted on others through the passing years, a testi¬ monial of your masterly leadership in both science and art. You are still at the height of your re¬ markable activity. At no time in your career have you done more noteworthy work in the advance¬ ment of knowledge than you are doing now. So with your splendid reserve of force, and with the inspiration derived from the important results of a generation of research in American archeology, we hope and expect you will continue to bestow upon us the influence of that experience for years to come. 914 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1148 Accept then, this book, not as measure of our indebtedness for what you have already accom¬ plished, but as a token of our affection, our ap¬ preciation and high esteem. Among the many interesting and instructive articles are thirteen written by members of the staff of the Smithsonian Institution and its branches. “ The Cliff Ruins in Fewkes Canyon, Mesa Verde National Park, Colo¬ rado,” is the subject of a report by Dr. Jesse Walter Fewkes of the Bureau of American Ethnology, on his recent excavation and re¬ pair of Oak-tree House, Painted House and other prehistoric ruins in the canyon. “ Music in its Relation to the Religious Thought of the Teton Sioux,” is the title of an article by Miss Frances Densmore. Other articles per¬ taining to the work of the Bureau of Ethnol¬ ogy are by Mr. F. W. Hodge, Miss Alice C. Fletcher, J. N. B. Hewitt, John Peabody Harrington, Francis LaFlesche, Truman Michelson and John R. Swanton. Dr. I. M. Casanowicz, assistant curator of old-world archeology of the National Museum, writes on “ Parallels in the Cosmogonies of the Old World and the New.” Three other members of the museum staff contributed ar¬ ticles as follows: Dr. Walter Hough, “Experi¬ mental Work in American Anthropology and Ethnology,” in which he speaks of the work, methods and influence of Mr. Holmes among American scientists ; Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, “ Anthropology of the Chippewa,” wherein he reports on his studies of the White Earth Chippewa in an endeavor to establish their identity as full or mixed bloods; and Neil M. Judd, “ The Use of Adobe in Prehistoric Dwellings of the Southwest.” Contributions from other eminent anthro¬ pologists include discussions on “ The Cult of the Ax,” by George Grant MacCurdy ; “ The Supplementary Series in Maya Inscriptions,” by Sylvanus G. Morley ; “ The Domain of the Aztecs and Their Relation to the Prehistoric Cultures of Mexico,” by Alfred M. Tozzer; “ Cardan’s Suspension in China,” by Berthold Laufer, and articles by Gerald Fowke, Edgar L. Ilewett, George G. Heye, Charles Peabody, Charles C. Willoughby, A. V. Kidder, S. A. Barrett, Eranz Boas, Theodoor de Booy, David I. Bushnell, Jr., William Churchill, Roland B. Dixon, William Curtis Farabee, P. E. Goddard, George Byron Gordon, Albert Ernest Jenks, A. L. Kroeber, Robert H. Lowie, Charles W. Mead, William C. Mills, Warren K. Moorehead, Nels C. Nelson, George IT. Pepper, Marshall H. Saville, Frank G. Speck, Herbert J. Spinden and Clark Wissler. The volume closes with a bibliography of Mr. Holmes comprising 184 titles, which was compiled by the librarian of the Bureau of American Ethnology. DEDICATION OF A TABLET IN HONOR OF PROFESSOR VOLNEY M. SPALDING Several years ago at a meeting of the Amer¬ ican Association for the Advancement of Sci¬ ence at Baltimore, a number of former stu¬ dents of Professor Volney M. Spalding got to¬ gether and proposed that a fund be collected for the purchase of a memorial to their teacher. They selected a committee composed of Dr. Erwin F. Smith, of the Bureau of Plant In¬ dustry, Professor L. R. Jones, of Wisconsin University, and Professor F. C. Newcombe, of Michigan University, to select and secure the memorial. The committee decided a bronze tablet the most suitable object for the purpose, and ad¬ dressed a circular letter to Professor Spal¬ ding’s former students, asking that the contri¬ bution from each be small so as to allow many to participate. Over one hundred sent in con¬ tributions, and the tablet was designed and cast. The authorities at Ann Arbor decided that the tablet should be erected in the pro¬ posed new botanical building. With the com¬ pletion of the natural science building last year, the tablet was placed on the wall in the main corridor of the botanical section of the building, and dedicatory exercises held. Presi¬ dent Hutchins presided, addresses were made by Professors J. E. Reighard and E. C. God¬ dard, Professor F. C. Newcombe presented the tablet in behalf of the former students of Pro¬ fessor Spalding, and Regent Beal accepted the tablet in behalf of the university. The inscrip¬ tion reads : December 29, 1916] SCIENCE 915 VOLNEY MOEGAN SPALDING In commemoration of the twenty-eight years of faithful service as teacher of botany in this uni¬ versity (1876 to 1904) and as a token of love and gratitude this tablet is erected by 100 of his former students. Per naturae opera mentem ad humanitatem finge- bat atque virtutem. Done in MCMIX. It may not be known to some of Professor Spalding’s pupils and friends that, since re¬ signing from the staff of the Carnegie Desert Laboratory at Tucson seven years ago, Pro¬ fessor Spalding with his wife has resided the most of the time at the sanatorium at Loma Linda, Calif., where, though considerably crippled by rheumatism, he enjoys a measure of health and happiness, and is held in the highest regard by both patients and staff, with whose ills he sympathizes and to whose mental enjoyment he daily contributes. SMITHSONIAN REGENTS MEETING The Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution assembled at the institution on December 14, 1916, for their 71st annual meet¬ ing, Chief Justice Edward D. White, chan¬ cellor, presiding. The others present were: Vice-President Thomas R. Marshall; Senators Henry Cabot Lodge, of Massachusetts, and Henry P. Hollis, of Hew Hampshire; Repre¬ sentatives Ernest W. Roberts, of Massachu¬ setts, and James T. Lloyd, of Missouri; Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, and Mr. John B. Henderson, Jr., of Washington, D. C., and Mr. Charles E. Choate, Jr., of Boston. Dr. Charles D. Walcott, secretary of the in¬ stitution and the administrative representa¬ tive of the board, announced the re-appoint¬ ment by the Speaker of the House of Repre¬ sentatives, of Scott Perris and Ernest W. Roberts, and the appointment of James T. Lloyd, of Missouri, to succeed Maurice Con¬ nolly, of Iowa, whose term in Congress had expired. Announcement was also made of the re-appointment of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, of the City of Washington, as “ citizen ” regent, by a joint resolution of Congress. Dr. Bell was also re-elected a member of the ex¬ ecutive committee. The resignation of Dr. Andrew D. White, of Ithaca, Hew York, was presented and accepted. A resolution was adopted by the board in ap¬ preciation of his long and valued service, of nearly thirty years. The report of the executive committee of the board was presented for the fiscal year end¬ ing June 30, 1916, and accepted. The report showed the total resources • of the institution to be $1,048,134.38, and the total income for the past year to be $107,662.46. A summary of the appropriations for the several govern¬ mental branches of the institution for the fiscal year was also made. The secretary’s report for the fiscal year was presented and accepted by the board, follow¬ ing which he reviewed the recent work carried on and outlined the principal operations now under way. He stated that in September work was begun on the foundation of the million- dollar building donated by Charles Freer, for his collections of American and Oriental art presented to the institution some time ago, and that present indications point to its com¬ pletion within two years. A bequest by the late artist, Henry W. Ranger, gives the Hational Gallery of Art an opportunity of selecting and purchasing such paintings of deceased American artists as may be deemed desirable, the selected paintings being paid for from the Ranger fund. Mention was made of the need of more funds for the proper classification and public installation of the Hational Museum’s art- industrial collections, believed to be the rich¬ est and most varied of their kind in the coun¬ try. Extensive and valuable additions to the several collections of the museum were re¬ ported as having been acquired during the year. Among the researches of the Bureau of Ethnology, the secretary mentioned the exca¬ vation and repair of a large pueblo ruin in Mesa Verde Hational Park, conducted in co¬ operation with the Department of the Inte¬ rior; and field investigations among the Fox, Quilente, Iroquois and Cherokee Indians. In the report concerning the Hational Zoo¬ logical Park, the need of certain tracts of land for entrances and boundaries was reported. 916 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1148 and the statement made, that an item for the sum required had been included in the park estimates for the fiscal year of 1918. The ap¬ pointment of Ned Hollister, assistant curator of mammals of the National Museum, as superintendent was also announced. In co¬ operation with two other zoological institu¬ tions, the park sent a representative to South Africa to collect and purchase live animals. Recent advices from him seem to indicate ex¬ cellent results. The secretary reported briefly on the work of the astrophysical observatory on Mount Wilson, in connection with the investigations concerning the variations of the sun. An allotment has been made to Director Charles G. Abbott for the maintenance of an astro- physical observatory in South America for the purpose of determining the transmission of the sun’s rays through the atmosphere. Dr. Walcott, as chairman of the executive committee of the National Advisory Com¬ mittee for Aeronautics, which organization has taken up much of the work that the Langley Aerodynamical Laboratory aimed to perform, reported considerable progress. An allotment from the Langley Laboratory, in connection with the Weather Bureau, provides for the investigation of problems of the atmos¬ phere in relation to aeronautics, which inves¬ tigation, it is expected, will ultimately result in the mapping of the atmosphere over the whole United States and adjoining areas, to a height of 20,000 feet. Other reports concerning the operations of the Research Corporation, which handles, among other things, the Cottrell patents for the precipitation of dust, etc., the researches of Dr. Cottrell in fog precipitation and the work of Dr. C. Hart Merriam in zoology under the Harriman fund. Among the expeditions and field work con¬ ducted recently, the secretary spoke of his own geological investigations in Alberta and Brit¬ ish Columbia, the work of Dr. W. L. Abbott, whose gifts of ethnological and zoological specimens and generous financial contribution have been most valuable; and the zoological expedition being maintained in north China, through the generosity of another friend of the institution. The secretary stated that the Collins-Garner Congo Expedition, in the interests of the Smithsonian Institution, was about to leave for the Erench Congo, where zoological col¬ lections would be secured for the National Museum, the institution and museum being represented by Mr. Charles R. W. Aschemeier. Arrangements for a three years’ lease of the Cinchona Botanical Station by the institution from the government of Jamaica, were re¬ ported as practically completed. The main building, known as “ Bellevue House,” situ¬ ated on the Island of Jamaica, together with the offices, laboratories and other buildings and about ten acres of land, are leased by the in¬ stitution for the furtherance of the study of botany in this region. Assignments to botan¬ ists desiring to prosecute studies there, will be made by a committee composed of representa¬ tives of the 14 organizations which contributed the funds for the lease. Mention also was made of the work of the other two government bureaus under the Smithsonian; the International Catalogue of Scientific Literature, and the International Exchange Service. Eollowing adjournment, the regents in¬ spected an interesting exhibit illustrating some of the many lines of work in which the institution or its branches took part during the past year. SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS The meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the National Scientific Societies affiliated with it, opened in New York City on December 26 with a very large attendance. The address of the retiring president, Professor W. W. Campbell, of the Lick Observatory, on “ The Nebulae,” given on the evening of the first day, will, owing to the extensive illustrations, be printed in The Scientific Monthly. We hope, however, to give an abstract in Science. There is printed elsewhere the address of Professor E. P. Lewis, chairman of the Section of Physics, and this will be followed by other addresses December 29, 1916] SCIENCE 917 given by chairmen of the sections and of the presidents of the affiliated societies. There will also be printed in Science the transactions of the association and reports of the proceed¬ ings of the different societies, as well as many of the more important papers presented before them. The number of papers announced in ad¬ vance to be read before the New York meet¬ ing of the American Association for the Ad¬ vancement of Science and affiliated societies listed under the related sections of the asso¬ ciation is: A — Mathematics and Astronomy . 57 B — Physics . 38 C — Chemistry . 18 D — Engineering . 50 E — Geology and Geography . 51 E — Zoology . 217 G — Botany . 292 H — Anthropology and Psychology . 137 I — Social and Economic Science . 49 K — Physiology and Medicine . 355 L — Education . 53 M — Agriculture . 15 Total . 1,332 Professor M. I. Pupin, of Columbia Uni¬ versity, has been elected president of the New York Academy of Sciences, which in 1917 will celebrate its hundredth anniversary. Dr. Simon Flexner, director of the Labora¬ tories of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, has been elected foreign associate member of the Paris Academy of Medicine. Professors Paul Painleve, of Paris, and Yito Yolterra, of Rome, have been elected honorary members of the Royal Institution, London. Dr. Robert A. Millikan, professor of phys¬ ics in the University of Chicago, will hereafter spend three months of each year in research work and lecturing at the Throop College of Technology, at Pasadena, California. This arrangement is similar to .that with Dr. A. A. Noyes, professor of physical chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is made possible by the recently an¬ nounced gift of $100,000 for physical research. At a recent meeting of the corporation of Yale University, a “ Yale Research Com¬ mittee ” was appointed to cooperate with the National Research Council. The committee is composed of President Arthur Twining Had¬ ley; Mr. Harry Goodyear Day, of New Haven, and Mr. John Yilliers Farwell, of Chicago, representing the corporation of the university ; Mr. Edwin Musser Herr, of Pittsburgh, and Mr. William Wallace Nichols, of New York City, representing the alumni ; and Professors Treat Baldwin Johnson, Ernest William Brown, James Farley McClelland, Ernest Fox Nichols, Charles-Edward Amory Winslow and Russell Henry Chittenden, chairman, repre¬ senting the faculties. At its last meeting the Rumford Committee of the American Academy of Arts and Sci¬ ences made the following appropriations. To Mr. Everett T. King, of Cambridge, $25 in aid of his researches on physical measurements of the color of pigments. To Professor Ed¬ ward Ivremers, of the University of Wiscon¬ sin, $300 in aid of his research on the chemical action of light on organic compounds. Dr. H. S. Grindley, professor of animal husbandry in the University of Illinois, was elected president of the American Society of Animal Production at the annual meeting held at the University of Illinois on December 1. Professor John M. Ervard, professor of animal husbandry at Iowa State University, was elected vice-president. Admiral Sir Henry Jackson, K.C.B., F.R.S., first sea lord of the British admiralty, has been appointed to the vacant post of president of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, and has been succeeded as first sea lord by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, K.C.B. Nature states that Dr. Eric Mjoberg, assist¬ ant in the entomological department of the Swedish State Museum, has received leave of absence for three years in order to prepare and conduct an expedition to the interior of New Guinea. His intention is to penetrate into the country by aeroplane, taking as his starting point one of the small islands in Geelwink Bay, at the northwest end of the country. Dr. 918 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIY. No. 1148 Mjoberg recently left for America to carry out a lecture tour by which he hopes to raise sums to cover some of the expenses of his ex¬ pedition. Major-General George W. Goethals will speak in the Great Hall of the College of the City of New York on the evening of January 15, on “ The Panama Canal.” General Goeth¬ als was formerly a student of the City College. Professor Eobert A. Millikan, of the Uni¬ versity of Chicago, will deliver the William Brewster Clark Memorial lectures at Amherst, probably early in January. The subjects of his four lectures will be: “ The Nature of Elec¬ tricity ” ; “ Brownian Movements and the Kinetic Theory ” ; “ The Insides of the Atom”; “ The Nature of Badiation.” Dr. E. W. Scripture recently read to the Pathological Section of the Eoyal Society of Medicine a communication on registration of speech sounds in the diagnosis of nervous dis¬ eases. Mr. E. W. Lanchester, the new president of the Junior Institution of Engineers, will de¬ liver his inaugural address to the institution on Monday, December 11, on “ Industrial Engineering: Present Position and Post-War Outlook.” According to the Journal of the American Medical Association the late Professor A. Neisser, the distinguished pathologist, be¬ queathed his property to the city of Breslau. It is valued at nearly $400,000. He stipulated that his villa with its art treasures be main¬ tained as a museum for contemporaneous art, and further, that the rooms be used in giving high-grade municipal concerts and similar en¬ tertainments. Professor J. Wrightson, president of the College of Agriculture, Down ton (1880-1906), honorary professor of agriculture at the Eoyal Agricultural College, Cirencester, and pro¬ fessor of agriculture and agricultural chemis¬ try in the Eoyal College of Science, South Kensington, from 1882 to 1898, died on No¬ vember 30. The committee which was formed with the object of commemorating the late Sir William White’s services to the nation in the develop¬ ment of engineering science, and more partic¬ ularly of naval architecture, has now com¬ pleted its task. A sum of over $15,000 was raised by private subscriptions, and this amount has been expended as follows: (1) The provision of a fund for providing a Post Grad¬ uate Kesearch Scholarship in Naval Architec¬ ture of over £100 per annum, tenable for two years; (2) the erection of a Memorial Panel; (3) a donation of one hundred guineas to the Westminster Hospital. The Memorial Panel has been erected in the entrance hall of the Institution of Civil Engineers. The Eesearch Scholarship Fund has been made over to the Council of the Institution of Naval Architects, who will administer the fund and award the scholarship. The latter is to be known as the “ Sir William White Eesearch Scholarship in Naval Architecture.” The London Times states that Christmas Island, in the Indian Ocean, 780 sea miles from Singapore, is suffering from the war. Its sole wealth consists in phosphates of lime, and exports decreased from 150,000 tons in 1913 to 25,700 in 1915. Formerly Germany and Austria took large quantities of its phosphates ; in 1915 the whole export went to Australia. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS An anonymous gift of $250,000 has been added to the endowment fund of the proposed medical school of the University of Chicago. The total amount of the fund has now reached four million dollars, leaving one million three hundred thousand dollars to be collected. Purdue University is erecting a building of brick and Bedford stone for the school of science. In floor area it will be one of the largest structures on the campus. The number of students during the summer semester of 1916 in the Austrian universities is reported to be as follows: Vienna, 3,472; Prague (Czech University), 1,891; Cracow, 1,281; Lemberg, 1,174; Graz, 647; Prague (German University), 638; Innsbruck, 584. The proportion of medical students was high¬ est at Vienna and at Graz (both about 30 per December 29, 1916] SCIENCE 919 cent, of the total). At Vienna nearly two fifths of the medical students are women. The following promotions have been made at the College of the City of New York: From instructors to be assistant professors : Philos¬ ophy, Dr. Howard D. Marsh; mathematics, Dr. Paul H. Linehan; chemistry, Dr. Robert W. Curtis and Dr. William L. Estabrooke. From assistant professorships to associate professor¬ ships: Physics, Dr. Joseph G. Coffin. At the Iowa State College Dr. Charles A. Mann, of the University of Wisconsin, has been appointed associate professor of chemical engineering to succeed Professor George A. Gabriel, who goes into practical work. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE A REPLY TO “ METHODS OF CRITICISM OF ‘SOIL BACTERIA AND PHOSPHATES’” In the issue of Science of November 3, 19161 Drs. Hopkins and Whiting have taken occa¬ sion to arraign me for having sent to certain editors of agricultural papers a letter headed “Confidential and Not For Publication.” They also impugn my motives in writing the letter, for they say it was evidently done to “ belittle ” the importance of their work, whereas my reason for doing so is explained very fully in the second paragraph of the letter, appended below, and as stated, it was sent to the editors because the work of Hopkins and Whiting was “unfortunately being used by some writers for the purpose of making it ap¬ pear that the same reaction will take place in the soil in connection with raw rock phos¬ phate to essentially the same extent.” Instead of publishing my letter in full, Drs. Hopkins and Whiting quote only certain parts because of alleged lack of “ space,” but space was taken, nevertheless, to enter into a lengthy discussion of the validity of the work of Professor Mooers and of Director Thorne on raw rock phosphate, and the intimation was made that I had overlooked some work of the latter. This was seemingly not germane to the real issue, for instead of my having at¬ tempted to review their work, I wrote to each i Vol. XLIY., No. 1140, p. 649. of them asking what their results actually showed, and merely quoted, with permission, from their letters. In fact, these letters were of a later date than the literature cited by Hopkins and Whiting in refutation of Mooers’ and Thorne’s conclusions. It will be seen, therefore, that the attack by Hopkins and Whiting on these statements re¬ solves itself into an allegation that Professor Mooers and Director Thorne were, in their opinion, incompetent to analyze their own work properly or had misrepresented it to me. This fact I regret exceedingly, for no agri¬ cultural investigators in the United States are held in higher esteem by their colleagues than Mooers and Thorne, and hence such allegations can only result in injury to those who make them. Had my letter been intended as an unfavor¬ able criticism of the work of Hopkins and Whiting, they would most assuredly have been favored with a copy immediately. It was, however, only intended, as stated in the letter itself, as a criticism of the improper use that other persons were making of their results. I take pleasure in introducing below my letter of July 28, 1916. The reader is asked to note carefully if the letter constitutes an unfavorable criticism of the work of Drs. Hopkins and Whiting or if, as intended, it is merely an appropriate warning to the agri¬ cultural press not to draw too far-reaching and improper conclusions from it, for this is the real point at issue. Boston, Mass., July 28, 1916 Confidential and Not For Publication Dear Sir: My attention has been called within a few days to several articles appearing in the agri¬ cultural press which have been inspired by Bulletin No. 190 of the Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station. It appears that Drs. Hopkins and Whit¬ ing have experimented with the microorganisms which produce nitrous and nitric acid by the oxi¬ dation of ammonia. The work was done in water cultures into which artificially prepared and puri¬ fied tricalcium phosphate had been introduced. They claim to have shown that the nitrite bacteria caused the lime and phosphoric acid of a highly insoluble phosphate to become soluble. While this work is of much value as a scientific contribution, it is unfortunately being used by 920 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1148 some writers for the purpose of making it appear that the same reaction will take place in the soil in connection with raw rock phosphate to essen¬ tially the same extent. This, however, is not true, as will be explained. All agricultural soils contain the bases soda, lime, potash and magnesia combined as silicates. Often these silicates are highly basic or, in other words, the proportion of base to the silica is so great that pure water will dissolve appreciable quantities of the bases. Furthermore, if soils have been limed heavily, especially with coarse lime¬ stone such as has been recommended by Dr. Hop¬ kins, they are likely to contain in addition some carbonate of lime. The organic acids and the car¬ bonic acid produced in the decomposition of veg¬ etable matter or brought down in the rainfall, in¬ cluding also nitrous and nitric acid, produced as described above, tend to unite in the soil with the most readily attackable bases in the basic silicates and with the lime of the carbonate of lime before they can attack raw rock phosphate effectively. In. other words, when nitrous acid is produced in a soil which has been properly limed and has, there¬ fore, been rendered sufficiently basic for the best production of agricultural plants, it is incredible that all or most of it will react upon raw rock phosphate in the soil to the extent that it did in the water cultures used by Hopkins and Whiting in which there was nothing but phosphate which it could attack. In this connection let me cite Lyon, Fippin and Buckman who, in their recent book on soils, say: “It has been found, for instance, that calcium carbonate decreases the availability of raw rock phosphate and bone meal. ” This action of the calcium carbonate is similar to the action of the highly basic silicates, and it corresponds to the action of the ammonia in stall manure when it is stored under the best condi¬ tions for its preservation, for the ammonia com¬ bines with the acid so readily as to interfere seri¬ ously with its solvent action on raw rock phos¬ phate. In fact, it was probably because of this that Hartwell and Pember in Rhode Island and Hart and his coworkers in Wisconsin failed to demonstrate that composting manure and raw rock phosphate made the latter soluble or highly avail¬ able to plants. In this connection note what Director Thorne, of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, says: “Where we have used floats as a reenforcement of manure on this farm alongside of acid phos¬ phate, the acid phosphate has given us a slightly larger net gain in the average of the 18 years’ work, and a decidedly larger gain during the last half of this period — a result the opposite of what we expected when we started the experiment. The floats and the acid phosphate being used in the same quantity, or 40 pounds per ton of manure, we expected that the larger accumulation of phos¬ phorus in the soil due to the floats would finally result in the floats exceeding the acid phosphates in total and net gain, but this has not happened. ’ ’ If there were such a tremendous solvent effect of raw rock phosphate in the soil as some writers would make us believe after they have read and commented upon this bulletin, it is surprising that the Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station should report as it does on raw rock phosphate, for Professor Mooers says: “In reply to your recent inquiry will say that we have not published anything recently with re¬ gard to the comparative values of acid phosphate and rock phosphate, but we have conducted ex¬ periments with these two materials on various types of soil in different parts of the state for the past ten years. The results of our experimental work do not allow us to recommend raw rock phos¬ phate for general use. In fact, we discourage its use anywhere in the state and recommend acid phosphate as the most profitable of all phosphates. In some of our experimental work the raw rock has given profitable returns, but in no instance clearly equal to acid phosphate. In all of the ex¬ periments the two materials have been used in ap¬ proximately equal money values and in connection with green manuring, which is supposed by some to increase appreciably the availability of rock phosphate. “In some of our experiments conducted on soils especially poor in phosphoric acid the returns from the rock phosphate have been very meager and not at all comparable with those from acid phosphate. For us to give the preference to rock phosphate would be to ignore all of our experi¬ mental data. I may add that when the land is limed the acid phosphate shows considerably greater superiority over the rock phosphate than where unlimed. ’ ’ The work of Hopkins and Whiting was done on an especially soluble, artificial tricalcium phos¬ phate, in a solution in a glass vessel kept at a high temperature where the acid could attack noth¬ ing but the phosphate, whereas the farmer has to deal with a soil containing far more readily de¬ composable silicates and carbonates, substances upon which the acid can react to a very large ex¬ tent before it has a chance to attack the less sol¬ uble raw phosphate rock. December 29, 1916] SCIENCE 921 Let us appreciate this work of Hopkins and Whiting as an interesting contribution to the study of nitrification, but let us not draw too far-reach¬ ing and improper conclusions from it which are only partially applicable to field conditions. In fact Hopkins and Whiting say in this Bulle¬ tin that: ‘ ‘ The addition of limestone with the insoluble phosphates prevents the detection of soluble phos¬ phates. ’ ’ They also say that: ‘‘The nitrous acid produced may act upon com¬ pounds of iron, aluminum, potassium, sodium or magnesium which occur in soils, or it may act upon tricaleium phosphate, calcium silicate or cal¬ cium carbonate, if present. ’ ’ In their hope of confining the solvent action of the nitrous acid as fully as possible to the raw phosphate rock, Hopkins has recommended that the phosphate be turned under in intimate con¬ tact with organic matter, yet when one realizes the even closer contact of the many soil particles with the organic matter at the same time, it will be ob¬ viously impossible for the nitrous acid to attack wholly or even chiefly the raw rock phosphate. This idea is fully supj>orted by Thorne’s practical field tests in Ohio, by the work of Mooers and others in Tennessee, and by the collective evidence of practically all of the agricultural chemists in the United States and Europe. H. J. Wheeler I gladly leave the judgment of the ethical and scientific questions involved to the impar¬ tial court of my colleagues at home and abroad. H. J. Wheeler 92 State Street, Boston, Mass. 1916 OR 1S16? The following announcement has appeared in the Washington Times, Wednesday, De¬ cember 20, 1916 : PHRENOLOGIST TO SPEAK Professor G. W. Savory, a graduate of the Fowler School of Phrenology of New York, will address the Enosinian Literary Society of George Washington University on the evening of January 15. His subject will be “Brains — How to Know and Handle Them.” The lecture will be given in the assembly hall of the Arts and Sciences De¬ partment building, 2023 G street northwest. Comments would seem superfluous. A. Hrdlicka QUOTATIONS SCIENCE IN GERMANY FROM AN ENGLISH VIEWPOINT Germany has been held up to us so long as the model in all matters of state organization that most English students of institutions will read with surprise the letter published in another column, -which has been addressed by the Committee of the Institution of German Engineers to Herr von Bethmann Hollweg in favor of the opening of the German civil service to men of scientific training. To-day the higher branches of the German civil serv¬ ice are reserved for lawyers, and are not open to graduates of the technical high schools. The evil of this system has long been felt in Germany. Ten years ago the German govern¬ ment admitted that the higher branches of their civil service were not manned in accord¬ ance with the requirements of the time. The training of those officials, even since the re¬ forms of 1906, consist of a secondary-school course with a strong bias towards the humani¬ ties, followed by a short university course al¬ most exclusively composed of legal subjects. The ordinary law course is the higher civil service course. Whatever a student’s inclina¬ tion or tendency may be, the legal training is a condition precedent to a civil service career. “ Civil servants,” the chancellor is told with pathetic force, “ are called upon to deal with problems the expert solution of which calls for just the type of mental equipment that is provided by the technical high schools. . . . The forcible exclusion of the intellect that is available amongst these circles from par¬ ticipation in the higher civil service consti¬ tutes a waste of the intellectual powers of our nation.” The loss of the German nation under such an absurd system is not our concern ; the point that we are interested in is that this nation, which claims to lead the world in adminis¬ trative efficiency is in this instance, at least as dissatisfied with its achievements in the most important part of the organization of a nation as even England herself. Of course all the world knows now that Germany has long eked out her various weaknesses in adminis¬ tration by trumpetings that have brought down with a run the Jericho walls of foreign 922 SCIENCE [N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1148 prejudice. She has so long and so loudly in¬ sisted that she leads the world in all organiza¬ tion and administration that it is a shock to find that her civil service is admittedly inefficient. It is already well known that her social science, as reflected in the infant death- rate, is inefficient. Various branches of her educational system are very weak and ill-or¬ ganized. We are beginning at last to realize that German face-values are not always true values. But this, though entertaining, is not necessarily comforting to us. Is our own Home Civil Service, devoted though it is, se¬ lected on a system that is calculated to secure men who have, as part of their outfit, the scien¬ tific method of thought? We do not want pure or applied scientists for our service any more than the Germans want lawyers. We believe that 'the German engineers are wrong in the system that they would substitute for the legal system. What is needed for an effi¬ cient civil service is a class of men and women trained to think, to see and to foresee. — Lon¬ don Times Educational Supplement. SCIENTIFIC BOOKS Soils, Their Properties and Management. By T. Lyttleton Lyon, Ph.D., Professor of Soil Technology; Elmer 0. Pippin, B.S.A., Extension Professor of Soil Technology; and Harry O. Buckman, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Soil Technology, all of Cornell University. Hew York, The Macmillan Company. 7 64 pages. This is a very complete text on soil tech¬ nology, as can be seen from the following chapter heads : I. Some General Considera¬ tions; II. Soil-Forming Processes; III. The Geological Classification of Soils; IV. Geo¬ logical Classification of Soils (Continued) ; V. Climatic and Geochemical Relationships of Soils; VI. The Soil Particle; VII. Some Physical Properties of the Soil; VIII. The Organic Matter of the Soil; IX. The Colloidal Matter of Soils; X. Soil Structure; XI. The Forms of Soil Water and their Movement; XII. The Water of the Soil in its Relation to Plants; XIII. The Control of Soil Moisture; XIV. Soil Heat; XV. Availability of Plant Hutrients as Determined by Chemical .Anal¬ ysis ; XVI. The Absorptive Properties of Soils; XVII. Acid or Sour Soils; XVIII. Alkali Salts; XIX. Absorption of Hutritive Salts by Agricultural Plants; XX. Organisms in the Soil; XXI. The Hitrogen Cycle; XXII. The Soil Air; XXIII. Commercial Fertilizers; XXIV. Soil Amendments; XXV. Fertilizer Practise; XXVT. Farm Manures; XXVII. Green Manures; XXVIII. Land Drainage; XXIX. Tillage; XXX. Irrigation and Dry Farming; XXXI. The Soil Survey. Particular attention should be drawn to the all too brief chapters on the organic matter and the colloidal matter of soils, both of which are admirably done. The discussion is clear and to the point. Too often organic matter is hazily treated, and colloids neglected entirely. As a book of reference for students of soils this text is exceptionally good, not only for the subject-matter itself, but also for the pro¬ fuse bibliography. But as a text for a general class in soil technology it is somewhat too comprehensive, and the subject-matter not sufficiently coordinated. The various phases of soil study are taken up as separate subjects and not treated as parts of a whole. Although the soil is a very complex material, its various functions work together and should be studied in their interrelationships. There are a few corrections to be made. The word “ protein ” is better than “ proteid,” page 12, line 7. The formula for kaolinite on page 22 does not agree with the formula on page 9. The latter is correct. On page 128, line 14, “ proteosis ” should be “ proteoses.” There is too frequent use of the phrase “ and the like ” after a series of names. It is as bad as too many “ and so forths.” The typography and binding are excellent. Such illustrations as are given are good, but a text should be more profusely illustrated for the average student. Good pictures well chosen add very greatly to the pedagogic value of a text-book. All things considered, however, the authors are to be congratulated on pro¬ ducing a book so complete, so accurate, so well written, and so useful to all students of the soil. C. W. Stoddart State College, Pa. December 29, 1916] SCIENCE 923 Organic Agricultural Chemistry ( The Chem¬ istry of Plants and Animals). A text-book of general agricultural chemistry or ele¬ mentary bio-chemistry for use in colleges. By Joseph Scudder Chamberlain, Ph.D., Professor of Organic and Agricultural Chemistry in the Massachusetts Agricultural College. New York, The Macmillan Com¬ pany, 1916. 319 pages. In following out certain modern ideas that science can be applied from the beginning and not lose any of its scientific value, this text comes as a distinct change from the usual books on the subject of organic and agricul¬ tural chemistry. It starts in with a brief de¬ scription of systematic organic chemistry, but keeps in mind all the time that the compounds described have an agricultural value. Then follows a section on physiological chemistry dealing first with animals .and then with plants. Finally there is a section on crops, foods and feeding which presents “the chem¬ ical basis for the valuation of animal foods but without entering into the discussion of the practical operation and results of animal feeding.” The following are the chapter headings : Section I. Systematic. Chapter I. Hydro¬ carbons ; II. Substitution Products of the Hydrocarbons ; III. Oxidation Products of Alcohols; IV. Derivatives of Alcohols and Acids; V. Mixed Compounds; VI. Amino- Acids, Proteins, IJrea, Uric Acid; VII. Carbo¬ hydrates. Section II. Physiological. Chapter VIII. Enzymes and Enzymatic Action; IX. Composition of Plants and Animals; X. The Living Cell and Its Food; XI. Animal Food and Nutrition; Digestion and Absorption; XII. Animal Food and Nutrition; Metabolism; XIII. Milk, Blood and Urine; XIV. Plant Physiology. Section III. Crops, Foods and Feeding. Chapter XV. Occurrence and Uses of Important Constituents in Agricul¬ tural Plants; XVI. Occurrence and Uses of Important Constituents in Agricultural Plants (Continued) ; XVII. Animal Foods and Feeding. One criticism to be made is of the statement occurring now and then that certain processes can not be explained here, or that it is unnec¬ essary to give the proof for some reaction. In an elementary text it is not wise to make such statements. It is far better to give as many of the facts as are desirable or necessary for the case in point and make no apologies. An¬ other fault to be found is that there are no illustrations. All texts should be generously illustrated with good pictures if the average student is to make the best use of the book. The idea of using only those compounds occurring in a study of agricultural chemis¬ try is well worked out, and the student is car¬ ried rapidly from simple to complex forms without any loss of time and without any loss of the unity or coordination of systematic organic chemistry. This section shows very well how such a subject can be practically ap¬ plied without losing any of the pure science. In the section on physiological chemistry the action of enzymes and the chemistry of the cell are made very plain. Crops are dis¬ cussed briefly but efficiently, and the question of nutrition treated with just enough detail to acquaint the student with the underlying prin¬ ciples. The book is well printed and neatly bound. It is a volume to be recommended to those who desire a condensed treatment of biochemistry, being thoroughly scientific and yet practical and interesting. C. W. Stoddart State College, Pa. THE UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY MAPS The thirty-seventh annual report of the U. S. Geological Survey states that the project of covering the 3,000,000 square miles of the United States with accurate topographic sur¬ veys was definitely adopted by the federal gov¬ ernment in 1882, and the work is even now less than half completed. The standards of accu¬ racy and refinement in topographic surveying have been constantly raised by the topographic engineers, with the view of meeting adequately every use to which the resulting maps can be put. The law provides for the sale of the United States Geological Survey maps at the 924 SCIENCE [N. S. Yol. XLIY. No. 1148 cost of printing, a charge that must be con¬ sidered merely nominal when it is realized that the cost of an edition of the printed map may be only a small percentage of the cost of sur¬ veying the area it represents. The government itself is making a large and increasing use of these topographic maps, but the expenditure of public funds for these surveys is otherwise fully warranted only as the public uses the maps. To promote this use, the survey has re¬ cently given more attention to the wider dis¬ tribution of the maps. The distribution of a government map is largely a problem of publicity, though the ne¬ cessity of adopting commercial business meth¬ ods in handling orders for the maps when once a demand is created must not he overlooked. In informing the public of the existence of authoritative maps published by the federal government a special effort is now made to reach the communities in each area covered by a map, and to this end every map as issued is brought to the attention of the local and state press, as well as of postmasters and school-teachers. Other methods of promoting wider distribu¬ tion involve the cooperation of boy-scout mas¬ ters, schoolboys and hotel managers, as well as of a large number of bookstores as local agents. Within the last year the most helpful pub¬ licity has been gained through the voluntary cooperation of several press services and mag¬ azines of large circulation, in connection with their policy of bringing the people into closer touch with the work and publications of the federal government. The publication in one magazine of a brief statement regarding the Geological Survey’s maps resulted within a month in orders for 550 maps and thousands of inquiries for the state indexes that show the areas already mapped. The periods of maximum demand for these governments maps are the beginning of the vacation period and the beginning of the school year. The larger use of topographic maps in 1915-16, both in the open and in the classroom, is a gratifying index of the popular benefit already resulting from the increase in the work of publicity. A NEW INSECT ENEMY OF THE PEACH An insect destructive to the peach and kin¬ dred fruits, believed to be new in the United States, has been discovered by entomologists of the U. S. Department of Agriculture in the District of Columbia and its environs. This insect, which in its adult form is a brownish moth and in its larval stage a small white and pink caterpillar, attacks both the tender shoots and fruit, causing serious losses. Because of the habits of the worm, the usual control measures, such as spraying with cer¬ tain arsenates, will probably not be effective. The smooth young shoots, owing to their rapid growth, are protected by the poison solution for only a very short time after the spray is applied, and hence it is almost impossible to poison them. The entomologists of the de¬ partment who have been investigating the pest, will continue to study it in the hope of de¬ veloping control measures. The insect, known to science as Laspeyresia molesta, is believed to have been introduced from Japan. So far as the department’s ento¬ mologists know, it has not been found in America other than in the District of Colum¬ bia and in the adjoining territory in Mary¬ land and Virginia. The specialists are de¬ sirous of knowing if the insect has attacked peach, plum or cherry trees elsewhere in the United States. The presence of the insect can best be de¬ termined in most cases by the nature of its injury to peach trees. It bores into practically every tender twig and causes new shoots to push out from lateral buds. These are at¬ tacked in turn, the abnormal stimulation of lateral growth producing a much branched and bushy plant. A copious flow of gum from the twig-ends often follows the attacks of the caterpillars. In attacking fruit the young caterpillars generally eat through the skin at or near the point of attachment of the fruit stem. The larva, as it grows, makes its way to the pit, where it feeds on the flesh, which soon be¬ comes much discolored and more or less slimy. Larvae entering at the side of the fruit are more likely to eat out pockets or cavities in the flesh. The full-grown caterpillar spins a whit- December 29, 1916] SCIENCE 925 ish silk cocoon in which to pupate. Moths emerge in the spring for egg-laying by the time the shoots are well out. The Bureau of Entomology, U. S. Depart¬ ment of Agriculture, especially requests owners of peach or other fruit trees to report the pres¬ ence of this new pest in their orchards. Speci¬ mens of twigs may be mailed wrapped in paper or, preferably, in a suitable box. SPECIAL ARTICLES THE HABIT OF LEAF-OVIPOSITION AMONG THE PARASITIC HYMENOPTERA Entomologists have for several years been more or less familiar with the strange habit of leaf-oviposition among the parasitic Diptera. Up to the present time, however, no such star¬ tling deviation from the normal has been ob¬ served in parasitic Hymenoptera. A few years ago the writer, while engaged in the study of the hymenopterous parasites of the gipsy moth for the United States Bureau of Entomology, carried on an investigation of the life-history and habits of Perilampus hyalinus , a hyperparasite of the fall webworm. The first stage larva, a very curious being heavily armored with chitinous plates and pro¬ vided with numerous hooks and curved spines, was found crawling about on the outside of the caterpillar. Later these first-stage larvae or planidia were found to bore their way into the body cavity of the caterpillar, there swimming about freely until the primary parasite larva, either hymenopterous or dipterous, was found and into which they gained entrance. The Perilampus larva then remained quiescent until the primary parasite became full-fed and made its exit from the caterpillar to spin its cocoon or form its puparium. At the time of ecdysis the planidium found its way to the ex¬ terior of the host, after which it fed as an ectophagous parasite in the normal way. The egg-laying habit of this strange parasite has, however, remained a riddle to entomologists and has been the. subject of considerable specu¬ lation. For several years the ‘writer has been looking for a solution of this problem, but the opportunity did not present itself until about two weeks ago. During the previous summer specimens of Perilampus were occasionally bred from Chrysopa cocoons. Recently the writer was successful in capturing several adult female Perilampus of this species hovering about oleanders infested with Aphis nerii and fed upon by Chrysopa. These were taken into the laboratory and placed in vials, each with an oleander leaf which bore egg-clusters of Chrysopa. The insects were then watched and were observed frequently to touch the tip of the abdomen to the leaf. On placing the leaf under the binocular microscope the minute transparent eggs of the Perilampus were seen, one end of the egg being slightly attached to the leaf. This observation established beyond doubt the habit of leaf-oviposition among the parasitic Hymenoptera. The eggs are numer¬ ous, one female depositing fifty-two in a single day. They hatch in seven to ten days and the first stage larva is of the planidium type. The planidium is active at first, crawling rapidly about, but later it attaches itself to the leaf by the caudal end, standing out at right angles to the surface, where it awaits the approach of the Chrysopa larva and to which it attaches itself by means of the numerous hooks with which it is provided. It is difficult to understand just what is gained, from the standpoint of Perilampus in¬ festing Chrysopa, by this extraordinary habit, since the Chrysopa larva is easily accessible to the normal method of oviposition and is in fact parasitized in the larval state by a num¬ ber of parasites which oviposit directly into the host. In the case of Perilampus hyalinus, however, and other species having similar habits, the advantage is obvious, since by no other method could access be had to the larvae of the primary parasites. In the case, too, of those species of Perilampus infesting wood-boring Coleoptera and gall-making and stem-infesting Lepidoptera (the correctness of which records the writer is frank to confess he previously looked upon with doubt), the usefulness of this method of oviposition taken with the active planidium stage is readily seen, since in this way access is easily gained to the endophagous host through the wanderings of 926 SCIENCE [N. S. Yol. XLIV. No. 1148 the planidium. Needless to say this type of reproduction forms one of the most extraor¬ dinary adaptations to environment in the en¬ tire annals of entomology. Harry Scott Smith California State Insectary, Sacramento, Calif. SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES NEW ORLEANS ACADEMY OF SCIENCES On Tuesday, November 22, 1916, the academy held a special public meeting to arouse the citizens of New Orleans to the danger threatening vegeta¬ tion by the presence in the city in vast quantities of the Cottony Cushion Scale. More than two hundred people were present. Mr. T. E. Holloway, of the IT. S. Bureau of Entomology, read a tele¬ gram from Mr. L. O. Howard regretting his ab¬ sence, and then read a paper on the life history of the scale. Mr. E. Foster, assistant state ento¬ mologist, read a paper upon the different ways in which the scale was being disseminated. Mr. E. R. Barber, of the Bureau of Entomology, read a paper upon the relation to the scale of the Argentine ant, and showed how the presence of the ant com¬ plicated the situation. Professor R. S. Cocks, pro¬ fessor of botany, Tulane University, called atten¬ tion to the very large number of host plants, over seventy, already being attacked, and the probabil¬ ity that the number would be greatly increased. Mr. J. B. Garrett, state entomologist, emphasized the importance of importing from California or Florida sufficient numbers of the vidalia beetle as the only way to control the pest. After some discussion, a committee was ap¬ pointed with Mr. Clarence F. Low, chairman, to call upon the mayor and request that the city supply the requisite funds to carry on the fight. It is gratifying to be able to relate that the city authorities were properly impressed by the committee, and, together with the state, have agreed to furnish the requisite funds for obtain¬ ing and propagating the beetles. R. S. Cocks, Secretary New Orleans Academy of Sciences December 4, 1916 THE BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON The 115th regular meeting of the Botanical So¬ ciety of Washington was held in the Assembly Hall of the Cosmos Club at 8 p.m., Tuesday, No¬ vember 7, 1916. Michael Shapovalov, Dr. Howard G. MacMillan, Dr. Joseph Rosenbaum and F. E. Miller were elected to membership in the society. Under Brief Notes and Reviews of Literature, Mr. W. T. Swingle called the attention of the so¬ ciety to a recent edition of an ancient Chinese work on botany, ‘ ‘ The Cheng lei pen ts ’ao, ’ ’ orig¬ inally published in a.d. 1108. Dr. A. T. Tenaka reviewed briefly a recently issued “Handbook of Plant Diseases of Japan,” by Jinzo Matsumura. Dr. R. H. True presented a paper on notes on the life of John Bradbury. Information concerning the life of this early naturalist and explorer of the Missouri Valley is very meager. A consider¬ able addition has been gained from the correspond¬ ence carried on between Bradbury and Thomas Jefferson who greatly influenced the course of Bradbury’s life and work in this country. Brad¬ bury’s life, gathered from this and other available sources, was sketched in outline. Pathological problems in the distribution of perishable plant products were discussed by Dr. C. L. Shear and Dr. W. A. Orton. The enormous losses in recent years caused by the deterioration and decay of fruits and vegetables between the field and the consumer have led to a more active interest in this subject and a desire on the part of those most directly affected to have the causes and means of prevention determined. In most cases fungi are the active agents in causing the destruction of such products, and the problem is primarily pathological. In order to devise means of avoiding these losses, a thorough knowledge of all the factors and conditions in¬ volved must be obtained. Each fruit and vegetable has its own peculiarities and its own parasites. In some cases the cause of loss may be traced to the field, and in others to conditions of transporta¬ tion and handling. In any specific case the cause and responsibility for the loss can only be deter¬ mined by careful investigation of all the facts. Specific cases of losses to strawberries, peaches, cranberries, watermelons, tomatoes and potatoes were cited to show the complexity of the problems and the danger of drawing any general conclu¬ sions from insufficient data. It was shown that the means of preventing such losses will depend upon the nature of the cause or causes, as deter¬ mined by a knowledge of all the factors in any particular case. The scientific program was followed by a social hour, with refreshments. H. L. Shantz, Corresponding Secretary New Series VoL. XLIV. No. 1148 Friday, December 29, 1916 single copies, 15 ctb ’ ’ Annual Subscription, $5.00 Five New T ext-Books Stiles’ Human Physiology This new physiology is particularly adapted for high schools and general colleges. It is written by a teacher who has not lost the point of view of elementary students. Professor Stiles has the faculty of making clear, even to the unscientific reader, physiologic processes more or less difficult of comprehension. This he does by the use of homely similes and happy teaching devices. 12mo of 400 pages, illustrated. By Percy Goldthwait Stiles, Assistant Professor of$Physiology at Har¬ vard University. Cloth, $1.50 net. Fred’s Soil Bacteriology The exercises described in this book are arranged primarily for students of soil bacteriology, soil chemistry and physics, and plant pathology. As far as possible the experiments are planned to give quantitative results. It is truly a valuable laboratory manual — worked out by a teacher and based on the student’s needs. 12mo of 170 pages, illustrated. By E. B. Fred, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Agricultural Bacteriology, College of Agriculture, University of Wisconsin. Cloth, $1.25 net. Herrick’s Neurology Professor Herrick’s new work is sufficiently elementary to be used by students of elemen¬ tary psychology in colleges and normal schools, by students of general zoology and com¬ parative anatomy, and by medical students as a key to the interpretation of the larger works in neurology. 12mo of 360 pages, illustrated. By C. Judsom Herrick, Professor of Neurology in the University of Chicago. Cloth, $1.75 net. Winslow’s Prevention of Disease This book gives briefly the means to avoid disease. The chapters on diet, exercise, tea, coffee, and alcohol are of speoial interest, as is that on the prevention of cancer. There are ohapters on the prevention of malaria, colds, constipation, obesity, nervous disorders, tuberculosis, eto. The work is a record of 25 years’ active praotice. 12mo of 348 pages, illustrated. By Kenelm Winslow, M.D., formerly Assistant Professor of Comparative Therapeutics, Harvard University. Cloth, $1.75 net. Brady’s Personal Health This book is quite different from other health books. It is written by a physician with some fifteen years’ experience in writing for the laity on health topics. It covers the entire range of health questions — care of mouth and teeth, catching cold, adenoids and tonsils, eye and ear, ventilation, skin, hair and nails, nutrition, nervous ailments, cough, eto. 12mo of 400 pages. By William Brady, M.D., Elmira, N. Y. Cloth, $1.50 net. W. B. SAUNDERS COMPANY Philadelphia and London 11 SCIENCE-ADVERTISEMENTS JUST PUBLISHED A Textbook of a New Type to Meet a New Situation HE RISE OF THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL and the increasing demand for commercial courses have created the need for a geography dealing with industry and com¬ merce. Dryer’s Elementary Eco¬ nomic Geography discusses natural features only in their rela¬ tion to human wants. The matter and manner of the book are serious and substantial, yet the style is such as to interest hoys and girls of grades seven to nine. 415 pages Illustrated Color Maps American Book Company New York Cincinnati Chicago Syllabus and Laboratory Manual of Household Chemistry 107 pages + 101 blank pages for notes, with diagrams, 60 cents This book provides a course in chemistry (chiefly applied) for girls in domestic science and in other courses who prefer to study the chemistry most intimately connected with their daily lives. The author has adopted the syllabus plan. Each section of the book begins with a list of references, exact as to chapter and page, which the author has found best for the study of the topic in question. The general plan of the book is as follows: Part I, General Chemistry, includes (a) the chem¬ istry of the nonmetals, with special attention to air and ventilation, (b) a section on theory, (c) the chemistry of the metals, and (d) a qualitative and quantitative study of textiles. Part II, Food Chemistry, is intended to occupy somewhat less than one half of the year’s work. Food principles are first taken up in general, and then their subdivisions are more particularly de¬ veloped. Ginn and Company Boiton New York Chicago London Thought Suggestive Books For Thoughtful Readers Publications from the American Academy of Medicine Press The Prevention of Infant Mortality 27 papers. Cloth, Five Dollars Conservation of School Children 31 papers. Cloth, Five Dollars Medical Problems of Immigration 11 papers. Cloth, Four Dollars Physical Bases of Crime 20 papers. Cloth, Four Dollars Industrial Medicine 20 papers. Cloth, Three Dollars Medicine an Aid to Commerce 19 papers. Cloth, Three Dollars Sent, post-paid, on receipt of price. Circulars giving tables of contents sent upon application American Academy of Medicine 52 N. Fourth St. Easton, Pa. Send for descriptive circulars and sample pages PRINCIPLES OF ta— — — — — — — — — — pi STRATIGRAPHY BY AMADEUS W. GRABAU, S.M., S.D. PROFESSOR OF PALAEONTOLOGY IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY Large Octavo, 1150 pages, with 254 illustrations in the text. Cloth bound, price, $7.50. Send for descriptive circular A. G. SEILER & CO. PUBLISHERS 1224 Amsterdam Avenue NEW YORK, N. Y. SCIENCE-ADVERTISEMENTS 111 THE LAST WORD ON IVORY IN ART By GEORGE FREDERICK KUNZ, Ph.D., A.M., Sc.D. Gem Expert. Honorary Member of the Chamber of Precious Stones of Paris IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT This volume is more extensive in its scope than a work devoted exclusively to Ivory. While it has been pronounced the most comprehensive art book in recent years because it records the art of sculpturing in Ivories, from the rude work of prehistoric man, down to the wonderful creations of modern artists, it will be of unusual interest to Scientists and to students of Natural History as well. Exhaustive studies of the sources of Ivory, and of its physical characteristics; data regarding man’s knowledge of the Elephant and information concerning the evolution, distribution and habits of Elephants, Mastodons and Mammoths are included. Many half-tone illustrations of exceptional beauty add to the interest and value of this volume. Indexed, Boxed. Net, $7.50 AT ALL BOOKSTORES Doubled ay, Page & Company ('.NK \VY OR K V JUST PUBLISHED RINGS By GEORGE FREDERICK KUNZ, Ph.D., A.M., Sc.D. 290 illustrations in color, doubletone and line. Handsomely decorated cloth binding. Octavo. In a box, $6.00 net. This book might have been called “The Romance of the Ring” as all of importance in regard to the sentimental, the religious, the mystic significance of finger rings from the early mythological rings to the little circlet which today the lady receives from her lover is treated by Dr. Kunz. Rings of famous men and women of past days, and the profuse lore concerning the luck or ill luck which go with certain stones or forms of circlets are two of the many interesting features. Others are the rings of savage peoples, the history of ecclesiastical rings, and a full list of mottoes used in the old days upon betrothal and wedding rings. As a gift book the beauty of this volume makes it unexcelled ; as a reference work its authoritative and exhaustive information makes it very valuable. BY THE SAME AUTHOR THE CURIOUS LORE OF PRECIOUS STONES Being a description of their sentiments and folklore, supersti¬ tion, symbolism, mysticism, use in protection, prevention, religion and divination, crystal gazing, birth-stones, lucky stones and talismans, astral, zodiacal, and planetary. THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHARMS Magic jewels and electric gems ; meteorites or celestial stones ; stones of healing; fabulous stones; concretions and fossils; snake stones and bezoars ; charms of ancient and modern times ; facts and fancies about precious stones. Each : Profusely illustrated in color, doubletone and line. Octavo. Handsome cloth binding, gilt top, in a box. $6.00 net. Carriage charges extra. SHAKESPEARE AND PRECIOUS STONES Treating of the known ref¬ erences to precious stones in Shakespeare’s works, with comments as to the origin of his material, the knowledge of the poet concerning pre¬ cious stones, and references as to where the precious stones of his time came from. Four illustrations. Square Octavo. Decorated cloth. $1.25 net. J. H. Lippincott Company phYladiSphia IV SCIENCE-ADVERTISEMENTS SCHOOL AND SOCIETY A weekly journal, which began publication on Januaiy 2, 1915, covering the field of education in relation to the problems of American democracy. Its objects are the advancement of education as a science and the adjustment of our lower and higher schools to the needs of modern life. Each number ordinarily contains articles and addresses of some length, shorter contributions, discussion and corre¬ spondence, reviews and abstracts, reports and quotations, proceedings of societies and a department of educational notes and news. Annual Subscription $3.00; single copies 10 cents THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY An illustrated magazine, devoted to the diffusion of science, publishing articles by leading authorities in all departments of pure and applied science, including the applications of science to education and society. Conducted on the editorial lines followed by The Popular Science Monthly since 1900. Annual Subscription $3.00 ; single copies 30 cents SCIENCE A weekly journal, established in 1883, devoted to the advancement of the natural and exact sciences, the official organ of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. For twenty years Sciencei has been generally regarded as the professional journal of American men of science. Annual Subscription $5.00 ; single copies 15 cents THE AMERICAN NATURALIST A monthly journal, established in 1867, devoted to the biological sciences with special reference to the factors of organic evolution. Annual subscription $4.00 ; single copies 40 cents AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE A biographical directory, containing the records of about 5,500 scientific men. Price, $5.00 net SCIENCE AND EDUCATION A series of volumes for the promotion of scientific research and educational progress. Volume I. The Foundations of Science By H. PoiNCARfi. Containing the authorized English translation by George Bruce Halsted of " Science and Hypothesis,” “The Value of Science,” and “Science and Method.” Price, $3.00 net Volume II. Medical Research and Education By Richard Mills Pearce, William H. Welch, C. S. Minot and other authors. Price, $3.00 net Volume III. University Control By J. McKeen Cattell and other authors. Price, $3.00 net THE SCIENCE PRESS LANCASTER, PA. GARRISON, N. Y. SUB-STATION 84, NEW YORK CITY To THE SCIENCE PRESS Lancaster, Pa., and Garrison, N. Y. Please find enclosed check or money order for. in payment for the publications checked above. Name . Address. Date. SCIENCE-ADVERTISEMENTS v For Fine Precipitates Difficult of Filtration use Whatman No. 42 (“Ashless”). A hard, close textured paper, somewhat slower than No. 40, but quite rapid when used as a folded filter with vacuum. °W/HATMAN'* iTlFILTHqkPERS Whatman No. 42 it found particularly useful with or with¬ out vacuum when circumstances do not permit of filtration of very fine precipitates in hot solution. No. 40. No. 41. No. 44. ("Aihl.u’’) For inch fine precipitate* as BaSCL, etc., when properly precipitated. (“Ashle**”) For rapid filtration of gelatinous and large particle precipitates. (“Ashless”) Extremely low ash. For the most pre¬ cise analytical work. Also Qualitative Papers Nos. 1 , 2, 3, 4 and 5, and Single Acid-washed Papers Nos. 30 and 31. H. REEVE ANGEL & CO., Inc. 120 Liberty Street New York City Sole Representatives in the U. S. A. and Canada VI SCIENCE-ADVERTISEMENTS WHATMAN ENGLISH FILTER PAPER IN OUR STOCK FOR IMMEDIATE SHIPMENT Large shipments of WHATMAN FILTER PAPER just received against orders placed one year ago enable us for the first time since the line was announced to make prompt shipment of all staple sizes in the following numbers. Our prices are identical with those published by the factory agent and we recommend the entire line both for quality and variety of purpose. The quantitative papers have been distinctively im¬ proved in evenness of texture and filtering properties as compared with early shipments. The makers of Whatman English Filter Paper are engaged in the development and manufacture of a complete line of Filter Papers which they expect to equal in assortment and quality those of any other make. Of this series the numbers listed below are now in our stock for immediate delivery and new numbers are added to our stock as fast as completed by the British factory. No. 1. A high-grade chemical filter paper for general quantitative and qualitative work. This paper is made from high-class materials, is tasteless and free from chlorine. It has been so specially prepared as to render it free from starch. It, moreover, retains Barium Sulphate when properly precipitated. No. 2. A paper similar in general characteristics to No. 1 but thicker, being about 50 per cent, heavier. It filters fine precipitates rapidly, the filtrate being clear and bright. No. 3. Of the same quality as No. 2, but made slightly heavier still. It is, therefore, specially suitable for use in pressure and vacuum filters. It filters fairly fast, and at the same time retains fine precipitates. No. 4. A paper made of very soft material and, therefore, open in texture. It is suit¬ able for filtering fruit juices, syrups, oils, varnishes, etc., where rapidity in ob¬ taining clear filtrates is desirable. No. 5. This paper has been made of the purest material, and subjected to a special hardening process. It is very strong and close in texture, and will retain such fine precipitates as Barium Sulphate and Lead Sulphate, the latter even when freshly precipitated. No. 30. This filter paper is of the same high quality as the foregoing grades, but has been so treated as to remove as far as possible by Hydrochloric Acid such chemical salts as are normally contained in the fibre. This paper, having low ash and close tex¬ ture, is more suitable for quantitative work than No. 1. No. 40. Having been subjected to a combined treatment of Hydrochloric and Hydrofluoric Acids is lower in ash content than No. 30, the Hydrofluoric Acid having the effect of removing traces of silicious matter. This paper is recommended for quantitative work in which a high degree of accuracy is desirable. The paper being pure gives a very low ash, and being close in texture, will retain the finest precipitates. No. 41. Is somewhat similar to No. 40, having been subjected to the same dual treatment of acids, but being softer in texture and more open, it is rather quicker in filtration. This paper is not recommended for use where very fine precipitates are to be re¬ tained unless they have been properly precipitated. No. 42. Similar to Nos. 40 and 41 in chemical properties, but differs in its physical properties, being much harder and extremely close in texture. These features render it par¬ ticularly suitable for use in filter pumps. ARTHUR H. THOMAS COMPANY IMPORTERS - DEALERS - EXPORTERS LABORATORY APPARATUS AND REAGENTS WEST WASHINGTON SQUARE PHILADELPHIA. U. S. A. SCIENCE-ADVERTISEMENTS vi 1 Cornell University Medical College in the City of New York Holders of a Baccalaureate degree or Seniors who oan present a degree before entering the Seoond Year, who also present the requisite oonrses in Chemistry, Physics, and Biology, are admitted from recognized Colleges or Scien¬ tific Schools. The Session opens on the last Wednesday in September. The first year is devoted to Anatomy, Chemistry, and Physiol¬ ogy and may be taken either in Ithaca or New York City. The last three years are chiefly Clinical and most be taken in New York City. For further information and catalogue address The Dean, Cornell University Medical College Department B. First Avenue and 28th St New York City Syracuse University College of Medicine Entrance Two years of a recognized course in arts D or in science in a registered college or Requirements School of Science, which must include German, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology 8ix and seven years’ combination courses are recognised. The First Two are spent in mastering by laboratory _ methods the sciences fundamental to I ears clinical medicine. The Third Year Conrse is systematic and clinical and is devoted to the study of the natural history of disease, to diagnosis and to therapeutics. In this year the systematic courses in Medicine, Surgery and Obstetrics are completed. The Fenrth Year Course is clinical. Students spend the entire forenoon throughout the year as clinical clerks in hospitals under careful supervi¬ sion. The clinical clerk takes the history, makes the physical examination and the laboratory examinations, arrives at a di¬ agnosis which he must defend, outlines the treatment under his instructor and observes and records the results. In case of operation or of autopsy he follows the spe¬ cimen and identifies its pathological na¬ ture. Two general hospitals, one of which is owned and controlled by the University, one special hospital and the municipal hos¬ pitals and laboratories are open to our stu¬ dents. The afternoons are spent in the College Dispensary and in clinical work in medical and surgical specialties and in con¬ ferences. Summer School — A summer course in pathology cover¬ ing a period of six weeks during June and July will be given in caee there is a sufficient number of applicants. Address the Secretary of the College, 307 Orange Street SYRACUSE, N. Y. Washington University Medical School REQUIREMENTS FOR ADMISSION Candidates for entrance are required to have completed at least two full years of college work which must include English, German, and instruction with laboratory work in Physics, Chemistry and Biology. INSTRUCTION Instruction begins on the last Thursday in September and ends on the second Thursday in June. Clinical instruction is given in the Barnes Hospital and the St. Louis Children’s Hos¬ pital, affiliated with the medical school, the St. Louis Mullanphy Hospital, the St. Louis City Hospital, and in the dispensaries connected with these institutions. COURSES LEADING TO ACADEMIC DEGREES Students who have taken their premedical work in Wash¬ ington University, are eligible for the degree of B.S. upon the completion of the first two years of medical work. Students in Washington University may pursue study in the fundamental medical sciences leading to the degree of A. M. and Ph.D. GRADUATE INSTRUCTION Courses for physicians in medicine, surgery, obstetrics, various specialties, pathology, bacteriology, anatomy, and phys¬ iology are given. TUITION The tuition fee for undergraduate medical students is $150 per annum. The catalogue of the Medical School and other information may be obtained by application to the Dean. Euclid Avenue and Kingshighway St. Louis Tulane University of Louisiana COLLEGE OF MEDICINE (Established in 1834) School of Medicine — Admission : One year of college work in the sciences and a modern foreign language. After January 1, 1918, all students entering the Fresh¬ man Class will be required to present credits for two years of college work, which must include Biology, Chemistry and Physics, with their laboratories, and one year in German or French. Graduate School of Medicine — A school for physicians desiring practical clinical oppor¬ tunities, review, laboratory technic or cadaveric work in surgery or gynecology. Excellent facilities offered in all special branches. School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Including Preventive Medicine — Systematic courses offered, leading to certificates in Public Health, diploma in Tropical Medicine, and to the degree of Dr. P. H. Laboratory, Clinic and Field Work. School of Pharmacy — • Admission : Three years of high school work, or 12 units. Two years for Ph.G. degree. Three years for Ph.C. degree. School of Dentistry — Admission : Four years of high school work, with 15 units. Thorough, practical, as well as comprehensive technical training in dentistry. Women admitted to all Schools on the same terms as men. For catalogs and all other information, address TULANE COLLEGE OF MEDICINE, P. O. Box 770, New Orleans, La. SCIENCE-ADVERTISEMENTS viii 1765 School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania 1916 The One Hundred Fifty-first Annual Session of this institution will open September 29, 1916, and continue until June 20, 1917. The first and second year classes are limited to one hundred students, and application for admission should be in the hands of the Dean before July 1st. REQUIREMENTS FOR ADMISSION: Candidates must have successfully completed the work prescribed for the Freshman and Sophomore Classes in colleges recognized by this University, which must include at least one year o^ college work in Physics, General Biology or Zoology and Chemistry (Qualitative Analysis is required ; Organio Chemistry is recommended), together with appropriate laboratory exercises in each of these subjects, and two languages other than English (one of which must be French or German). For detailed information send for catalogue. Certificates from recognized colleges covering these requirements will be acoepted in place of an examination. UNDERGRADUATE COURSE: The course of instruction extends over four annual sessions, the work so graded that the first and second years are largely occupied by the fundamental medical subjects. The third and fourth years are largely devoted to the practical branches, prominence being given to clinical instruction, and the classes sub-divided into small groups so that the individual students are brought into particularly close and personal relations with the instructors and with the patients, at the bedside and in the operating room. After graduation further hospital work is un¬ dertaken by the members of the class ; and more than 90 per cent, attain by competitive examination or by appoint¬ ment positions as internes in hospitals in this city or elsewhere. The Pennsylvania Bureau of Medical Education and Licensure requires of applicants for license, a year spent in an approved hospital. POST GRADUATE WORK: (1) Any graduate possessing a baccalaureate degree may pursue work in Anatomy, Physiology, Physiological-Chemistry, Bacteriology, Pathology, Neuropathology, Pharmacology, Research Medicine and Mental Diseases with view of obtaining the higher degrees of Master of Arts or Science and of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the University. For information address Dean of Graduate School, University of Pennsylvania. (2) Courses in Publio Health (inaugurated in 1906) leading to diploma (Doctor of Publio Hygiene, Dr. P.H.), are open to graduates in medicine who have had a preliminary education similar to that required for admission to the Med¬ ical School. The subjects comprehended in the course are : Bacteriology, Medical Protozoology and Entomology, Chem¬ istry, Sanitary Engineering, Sanitary Architecture, Meat and Milk Inspection, School Inspection, Vital Statistics, Sani¬ tary Legislation, and Personal and General Hygiene. The full course extends over one academic year. Special subjects in the course may be taken by any one possessing suitable preliminary qualifications. For details address Director of Laboratory of Hygiene. (3) From the opening of each term to about February 1 courses in Tropical Medicine are open to graduates in Medi¬ cine comprehending instruction in Medical Climatology and Geography, Hygiene of Tropics and of Ships, Tropical Medicine, Bacteriology, Protozoology, Entomology, Helminthology, and General Medical Zoology, Pathology, Skin Diseases, Eye Diseases, and Surgery of Tropical Affections. (4) During the academic session special courses in any of the branches of the medical curriculum are open to grad¬ uates if this or other regular schools of Medicine, both in the clinical subjects and in laboratory studies. The excellent hospital facilities offered by the University Hospital, the neighboring Philadelphia General Hospital and other institu¬ tions with which the members of the staff of instruction are connected, guarantee exceptional opportunities for clinical observation. , TUITION FEE: Undergraduate study, $200 annually ; fees for special courses on application. For detailed infor¬ mation or catalogue address DEAN OF SCHOOL OF MEDICINE University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, Pa. University of Alabama School of Medicine Mobile, Alabama Entrance Requirement The satisfactoiy completion of two years of study, in an institution of collegiate grade, to include Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and a reading knowledge of French or German. In addition to four year High School diploma. Combined Course The Combined Course which is now offered by the University in connection with its Med¬ ical Department gives to the student the op¬ portunity of obtaining the B.S. and M.D. de¬ grees in six years. This course is recom¬ mended to all intending students. The equipment of the school is complete. The clinical facilities ample. Eight full time teachers. For catalog and any desired information, address Tucker H. Frazer, M.D., Dean School of Medicine St. Anthony and Lawrence Sts., MOBILE, ALA. Northwestern University Medical School The first two years of the medical course are devoted to practical work in the laboratories. The student ap¬ proaches the subjects of the third year after completing those subjects preparatory to clinical medicine, and after courses in physical diagnosis and preliminary medicine in the second year. The principles of medicine, surgery, gynecology, and obstetrics are studied in recitations, in clinics of small sections, in section work in the dispensary, and in larger clinics. The course in clinical pathology closely follows the clinical work, and is accompanied by clinics and recitations on nervous diseases, gynecology; eye, ear, nose and throat, surgery, internal medicine, genito-urinary surgery, dermatology, and diseases of children. In the fourth year the instruction is case¬ teaching and is largely clinical. The subjects taught in the first year are offered both in Evanston and Chicago. This arrangement permits medical students in Evanston to register for work in the College of Liberal Arts, and affords a six year combined course leading to a degree of science and medicine. Applicants are required to present credit for two ears in an approved college. Annual Tuition Fee: 175. For further information, Book of Course, Views of Evanston Campus, etc., write C. W. PATTERSON, Registrar 243I Dearborn Street Chicago, Illinois SCIENCE-ADVERTISEMENTS IX SCIENCE A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE Entered in the post-office at Lancaster, Pa., as second class matter ‘ Published every Friday by THE SCIENCE PRESS LANCASTER, PA. GARRISON, N. Y. SUB-STATION 84: NEW YORK MEMBERS of the American Association for the Advancement of Science whose dues are paid later than January 1, will receive University of Georgia MEDICAL DEPARTMENT Augusta, Georgia The eighty-fifth session begins September 13, 1916; closes May 31, 1917 ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS Candidates for entrance must have completed one full year of work in an approved college in addition to four years of high school. The college work must have included Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and French or German. These requirements are passed upon by the department of secondary Education of the University. INSTRUCTION The course of instruction occupies four years. The first two years are devoted to the fundamental sciences, and the third and fourth to practical clinical instruction in medicine and surgery. All the organized medical and surgical charities of the city of Augusta and Richmond County, including the hospitals, are under the entire control of the Board of Trustees of the University. This arrangement affords a large number and variety of patients which are used in the clinical teaching. Especial emphasis is laid upon practical work both in the laboratory and clinical departments. the back numbers of SCIENCE only on payment of one cent a number to cover the extra cost of mailing. It cannot be guaranteed that the copies will be supplied, as, owing to the extraordinary increase in the cost of paper, only so many extra copies will be provided as are likely to be needed. The office of the permanent secretary of the association and of SCIENCE will be greatly assisted by the prompt payment of dues. TUITION The charge for tuition is $150.00 a year except for residents of the State of Georgia, to whom tuition is free. For further information and catalogue address, The Medical Department, University of Georgia AUGUSTA, GEORGIA The Ellen Richards Research Prize The Naples Table Association for Promoting Laboratory Researoh by Women announces the offer of a research prize of $1000.00 for the best thesis written by a woman embodying new observations and new conclusions based on independent labora¬ tory research in Biology (including Psychology), Chemistry or Physios. Theses offered in competi¬ tion must be in the hands of Chairman of the Com¬ mittee on the Prize before February 25, 1917. Ap¬ plication blanks may be obtained from the secretary, Mrs. Ada Wing Mead, 283 Wayland Avenue, Providence, R. I. Prof. F. A. Saunder’s Wave Projec¬ tion Slide Wm. Gaertner & Co. Standard Apparatus of New and Improved Designs Precision Measuring In- . ^ ^ # Reading Device for Ther- StrumentS of great variety mometers. Catalogue No. 5345-5349 Lake Park Ave. Chicago X SCIENCE-ADVERTISEMENTS “ Preliminary Mathematics ” S1.20 " Examples in Battery Engineering” $1.25 “ How to Make Low-Pressure Transformers” 40c ** Examples in Magnetism” $1.10 “ How to Make High-Pressnre Transformers” 65c "Examples in Alternating-Currents” $2.40 Remit to PROP. P. E. AUSTIIf, Box 441, Hanover, N. H. OPTIC PROJECTION Principles, installation and use of the Mag'c Lantern, Opaque Lantern, Projection Microscope and Moving Picture Machine; 700 pages, 400 figs. By Simon Henby Gage, B.S., and Hbnby Phelps Gage. Ph.D. Postpaid, $3.00. THE COMSTOCK PUBLISHING CO., Ithaca, N.Y. JULIEN’S POWER LATHES COMPACT— ACCURATE— DURABLE Use of Geologists, Mineralogists, etc., in SLICING and POLISHING all hard substances, rocks, eto., and in preparation of MICROSCOPIC THIN SECTIONS. GUSTAVUS D. JULIEN 3 Webster Terrace NEW ROCHELLE, N. Y. MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY WOODS HOLE, MASS. Biological Material 1. Zoology. Preserved material of . all types of animals for class work and for the museum. 2. Embryology. Stages of some invertebrates, fishes (in¬ cluding Acanthias, Amia and Lepidosteus), Amphibia, and some mammals. 3. Botany. Preserved material of Algae, Fungi, Liver¬ worts and Mosses. Price lists furnished on application to GEORGE M. GRAY, Curator, Woods Hole, Mass. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences 28 Newbury Street, Boston, Mass. Just issued. Proceedings, Vol. 52, Nos. 4, 5, 6. 62. 6. Wilson, E. B., and Moore, C. L. E. — Differential Geometry of Two Dimensional Surfaces in Hyperspace. Pp. 267-368. November, 1916. $1.50. 52. 5. Walton, A. C. — The ‘Refractive Body’ and the ‘Mitochondria’ of Ascaris canis Werner. Pp. 253-266. 2 pis. October, 1916. 40 cents. 52. 4. Pierce, George W. — Theoretical Investigation of the Radiation Characteristics of an Antenna. Pp. 189-252. October, 1916. $1.00. Other recent issues of the Proceedings 62. 3. Bridgman. P. W. — Polymorphism at High Pres¬ sures. Pp. 89-187. July, 1916. $1.00. 62. 2. Bridgman, P. W. — The Velocity of Polymorphic Changes between Solids. Pp. 55-88. July, 1916. 50 cents. 62. 1. Thaxter, Roland. — New or Critical Species of Chitonomyces and Rickia. Pp. 1-54. June, 1916. 70 cents. 61. 13. Verhoeff, F. H., Bell, Louis, and Walker. C. B. — The Pathological Effects of Radiant Energy upon the Eye. Pp. 627-818. (8 pis.) July, 1916. $1.50 51. 12. Bridgman, P. W.— Polymorphic changes under Pressure of the Univalent Nitrates. Pp. 579-625. April, 1916. 79 cents. 61. 11. Mavor, James W. — On the Life-History of Cera- tomyxa acadiensis, a new species of Myxosporidia from the eastern coast of Canada. Pp. 549-578. Spli. April, 1916. 70 cents. 51. 10. (I) Blake, S. F — Compositae new and trans¬ ferred, chiefly Mexican: (II) Robinson, B. L.— New, reclassi¬ fied or otherwise noteworthy Spermatophytes; (III) Macbride, J. Francis. — Certain Borraginaceae new or transferred. Pp. 513-648. January, 1916. 50 cents. FOR SALE Large New Polariscope (System Lippich-Landolt) Makers FRANZ SCHMIDT & HAENSCH, Berlin Circular Scale, graduated to 0.01°, measuring angles to about 0.015°. For further particulars address: WATJEN, TOEL & COMPANY 68 Broad Street NEW YORK, N. Y. THE BOOK SHOP Woods Hole, Mass. Offers for sale, The Natural History of New York, 17 Vols., en¬ tire or in parts, and asks for Pfliiger’s Archiv, Vols. 1-129 and 159 to date; La Cellule, Vols. 12-20, and complete sets of Comp. rend. soc. biol., Paris. Anatomische Hefte. Elizabeth H. Dunn. The Sarah Berliner Research Fellowship for Women A fellowship of the value of one thousand dollars is offered annually, available for study and research in physics, chemistry or biology. Applicants must already hold the degree of doctor of philosophy or be similarly equipped for the work of further research. Applications must be received by the first of February of each year. Further information may be obtained from the chairman of the committee, Mrs. Christine Ladd -Franklin, 527 Cathedral Parkway, New York. SCIENCE-ADVERTISEMENTS Cussons Patented Ribbon ‘‘Atwood’s Machine” CUSStHS The Atwood’s Machine shown in the illustra¬ tion is an entirely new form, and furnishes an excellent means of il¬ lustrating the laws of falling bodies. The motion of a single lever allows the weight to drop, and sets the pendulum in vibration. A graphio record of the fall is made on the paper strip which connects the weights. This obviates the difficulties experi¬ enced with the usual types of machines, and makes it possible to obtain results which cannot he approached in accuracy by any other method. Other Cussons products which have met with widespread approv¬ al are the Mathematical Models, consisting of wooden and wire models for the teach¬ ing of Plane and Solid Geometry, eto., shown in Cat¬ alog EE, the. Capstan Block Apparatus, containing a number of interchangeable pieces, with which nearly sixty experiments in mechanics may be per¬ formed, listed in Catalog CCH, Machine and Steam Engine Models, made according to the latest engi¬ neering practice, and painted in colors to show the different metals used, illustrated in Catalag KK, and apparatus for Experimental Mechanics, fully de¬ scribed in Catalog BB. Write for Catalog MM, of the Atwood’s Maohine. JAMES G. BIDDLE Sole Ui S. Agent 1211-13 Arch St. PHILADELPHIA When in Philadelphia be sure to visit our Permanent Exhibit of Scientific Instruments THE TYPE R GALVANOMETER AN INSTRUMENT OF MEDIUM PRICE PATTERNED AFTER OUR HIGH SENSITIVITY GALVANOMETER This instrument is furnished in two types — one of high and the other of low sensitivity. The specifications of eaoh type follow: — Type A — Resistance 10 ohms. Sensitivity 2 mm. per microvolt with critical damping re¬ sistance (50 ohms) in series. Period 6 seconds. Type B — Resistance 550 ohms. Sensitivity 2000 megohms (5 x 10~10 amps. ). Period 6 seconds. External critical damping resis¬ tance 11,500 ohms. PRICE. $40 Descriptive oircular upon request. THE LEEDS & NORTHRUP CO. ELECTRICAL MEASURING INSTRUMENTS 4921 STENTON AVE. PHILADELPHIA i SCIENCE-ADVERTISEMENTS Xll Electric Sterilizer With double wall for tempera¬ tures up to 200° Centigrade. Inside dimensions 18x10x10 inches. Price complete . $71.50 Electric Sterilizer With single wall for tempera¬ tures up to 150° Centigrade. Inside dimensions 14x10x10 Inches. Price complete . $44.00 Complete Electrical Laboratory i Equipment our specialty ! PAL2 COMPANY Laboratory Supplies and Scientific Apparatus 90-94 Maiden Lane, ' New York THWING [high resistance multiple record! PYROMETERS Are Used in Many Laboratories Let us send you our new General Catalogue No. 8. THWING INSTRUMENT CO. C. B. THWING. Ph.D.. Pr«.iJ«.t Removal to 3345 Lancaster Avenue, Philadelphia Made necessary by greatly increased business THE PYROLECTRIC INSTRUMENT COMPANY announces the following addi¬ tions to its line of precision electrical measur¬ ing apparatus: GALVANOMETERS, AYRTON SHUNTS, POHL COMMUTATOR, DIAL RESISTANCE DECADE BOXES. The above are described in Circular No. 2. A complete and very well made line of HANDY RESISTANCE UNITS is listed in Circular No. 3. We will be pleased to send this literature upon request, and to place your name on our mail¬ ing list. The NORTHRUP PYROVOLTER, for the accurate measurement of temperature, marks a distinct advance in pyrometric indicating instruments. Circular No. 1 describes the PYROVOLTER in detail. Pyrolectric Instrument Co. Makers of Precision Electrical Measuring Apparatus 148 East State Street TRENTON, N. J. E. F. Northrup, President and Technical Adviser v . i > / s \ I UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA Q.505SJN.S. C008 SCIENCE NEW SERIES 44 1916