ondary sense cells, that constitute a taste bud.

These three types of chemical sense organs, genetically related in the order just given, show most interesting physiological differences. Some few substances, like ethyl alcohol, stimulate all three, but at strikingly different concentrations (Parker and Stabler, 1913). If the dilution that will just stimulate the most sensitive of

A

B

C

FIG. 6. The primary neurones of the three chemical senses of vertebrates; A, olfactory; B, common chemical; C, gustatory. In each example the peripheral end is toward the left.

the three, the olfactory neurones, is expressed as unity, the concentration necessary to stimulate the terminals of the common chemical neurones is 80,000 and of the gustatory apparatus 24,000. Hence it appears that when the trophic center is at the receptive end of the neurone, as in the olfactory organ, that end is thousands of times more sensitive than when this center has migrated away from it, though it can recover some of its lost sensitivity by appropriating to itself neighboring cells whose nuclear activity may make good in some measure that which was lost by the inward migration of its own trophic center. Why these centers in the course of phylogeny should have migrated from their original superficial positions inward over much of the length of their neurones is difficult to say. Possibly it may have

been due to the advantages of increased. nutritive opportunities in these deeper situations or to the establishment of a second and deeper receptive surface for other systems of neurones.

If, as seems to be the case, the proximity of the trophic center greatly enhances the sensitivity of the receptive pole of a neurone, it is easy to understand why in the differentiation of the protoneurones of the nerve-net into the central neurones of the synaptic system the trophic center should migrate toward the receptive pole of the neurone. Such a step is only another aspect of that whole series of changes that give the synaptic system its high efficiency as compared with that of the nerve-net.

It might seem at first sight that the migrations that have been discussed are the cellular aspects of the general migrations of nerve centers that have been ably and interestingly expounded by Kappers (1907-1917) and his followers, under the head of neurobiotaxis. But these migrations, as a moment's reflection will show, are strictly concerned with nervous operations and have to do with the association of groups of neurones in connection with developing reflexes rather than with what may be called the inner life of the neurone. The neurobiotaxes, therefore, are not to be confused with those intraneuronic shifts whereby the trophic center of the nerve cell is placed in such a position as to administer most efficiently to the metabolic needs of the neurone. These shifts give evidence of the interrelation of the prime factors involved in the organization of every nerve cell, the metabolic and the nervous. Those two factors have been most important in shaping the evolution of this element, but they have not always received at the hands of investigators that separate attention which they deserve. It is one of the objects of this address to emphasize

their separateness without, however, losing sight of their intimate interdependence. G. H. PARKER

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ROLLIN ARTHUR HARRIS

DR. ROLLIN ARTHUR HARRIS, of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, died suddenly of heart disease on the twentieth of January, 1918, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. He was born in Randolph, N. Y., April 18, 1863, and received his early education in the public schools and high school of Jamestown, N. Y. In 1881 he entered Cornell University, receiving the degree of Ph.B. in 1885. He remained at Cornell, taking up graduate work in mathematics and physics. In 1886-7 he was a fellow in mathematics and in 1888 he received the degree of Ph.D. From 1889 to 1890 he was a fellow in mathematics at Clark University where he pursued special studies in mathematics and lectured on mathematical subjects.

He entered the Tidal Division of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey as computer in 1890, through the United States Civil Service. After becoming familiar with the work, he began the preparation of a publication into which would be gathered the tidal information scattered in various journals and memoirs and in which the methods of tidal reduction and prediction would be coordinated. Dr. Harris threw himself into the work with enthusiasm. Because of his splended training in mathematics and his ability, he was specially fitted for the work, and the result, as embodied in the "Manual of Tides," which appeared in six parts in various reports of the superintendent of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, between the years 1884 and 1907, has placed our country well at the front in that branch of scientific enquiry. Taken as a whole the "Manual of Tides" is a monumental work of some 1,200 quarto pages of text and plate containing a large amount of original contributions, in a field cultivated by the most brilliant mathematicians.

It is gratifying to know that the "Manual of Tides" has received the recognition it

merited from scientists the world over. Perhaps it may not be out of place here to quote the words of the eminent French mathematician Henri Poincaré. In his Mécanique Céleste" he subjects the various tidal theories to searching analysis and sums up by saying that "it appears probable that the final theory will have to borrow from that of Harris a notable part of its essential features."

Dr. Harris published a number of articles in SCIENCE and other scientific journals on mathematical and tidal subjects. Mention should also be made of "Arctic Tides," a monograph published by the Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1911 which is a classic of its kind.

Personally, Harris was a man of modest bearing, somewhat reticent, but possessed of a pleasing sense of humor. He was an indefatigable worker with a high conception of the obligations of the scientist. He was a member of scientific societies, both local and national. He leaves a widow, Emily Doty Harris, whom he married in 1890.

His loss will be felt by his friends and colleagues of the Coast and Geodetic Survey and by the many scientific men, engineers and explorers in many parts of the world, who brought their problems to him and received the benefit of his wide knowledge in a peculiarly abstruse branch of science.

SCIENTIFIC EVENTS DR. FEWKES AND THE BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

MR. FREDERICK WEBB HODGE, who has been the head of the Bureau of American Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution since 1905, has resigned to accept a position in connection with the Museum of the American Indian, founded by George G. Heye, of New York City. Mr. Hodge's resignation, to take effect February 28, has been accepted with regret by the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, with whom he has been associated in scientific work for many years. Mr. Hodge will be greatly missed by his associates and generally by the men of Washington's scientific colony, among whom he is well known.

Dr. Jesse Walter Fewkes, a distinguished archeologist and naturalist, has been appointed chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology in Mr. Hodge's place. Dr. Fewkes has been an ethnologist on the Bureau's staff since 1895 and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and of many scientific societies in this country and abroad.

Dr. Fewkes is a graduate of Harvard University, with the degrees of A.M. and Ph.D. He was a student in the University of Leipsic, Germany, from 1878 to 1880; served as assistant in the museum of comparative zoology at Harvard University from 1881 to 1890; was a member of Louis Agassiz's school at Penikese Island and had charge of the laboratory of Alexander Agassiz, at Newport, Rhode Island, for four seasons. He was secretary of the Boston Society of Natural History from 1885 to 1890. During this year, while in California studying marine zoolgy, he became deeply interested in the aborigines of the southwest and gave up natural history to devote himself entirely to the ethnology of the Indians of New Mexico and Arizona. For five years he had charge of the Hemenway Expeditions organized for the study of the southwest Indians, at Zuni and Hopi. In 1895 he was appointed an ethnologist in the Bureau of American Ethnology. He is preeminently a field worker, and the record of his original researches on archeological subjects can be found in the Journal of American Ethnology, of which he was editor, and in the Bulletins and Reports of the Bureau of American Ethnology and the Smithsonian Institution.

He has made extensive collections of ancient pottery and other prehistoric aboriginal objets, the more notable of which are now on exhibition in the National Museum.

One of the important lines of work inaugurated by Dr. Fewkes was the repair of the large ancient ruin, consisting of several compounds composed of massive buildings, known

destruction the prehistoric buildings they had excavated. An increased interest in these antiquities led to their protection by the government and to the limitation of work on them to systematic scientific investgators. Up to the present time four large ruins on the Mesa Verde-viz., Spruce-tree House, Cliff Palace, Sun Temple, and Far View House-have been preserved in this manner under his direction.

Some of the scientific writings of Dr. Fewkes are: The Snake Ceremonials at Walpi"; "An Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 "; "Two Summers' Work in Pueblo Ruins"; "Casa Grande, Arizona"; "Excavation and Repair of Spruce-tree House"; "Cliff Palace"; "Sun Temple "; and " Far View House." To meet the increasing desire for archeological information on the West Indies, after the close of the Spanish War, several visits were made by him to Porto Rico, a report on which was published in an elaborate memoir, "The Aborigines of Porto Rico and Neighboring Islands."

Dr. Fewkes has received the degree of LL.D. from the University of Arizona, was made a Knight of the Order of "Isabela la Catolica" by the queen regent of Spain in 1872, and was the recipient of a gold medal from King Oscar of Sweden for his archeological researches.

PUBLIC-HEALTH ADMINISTRATION IN RUSSIA

RUSSIA, with about 180,000,000 inhabitants, 85 per cent. of whom live in the rural districts, has developed a combined system of free medical care and health protection for her rural population to a point which is unique and of which we are only beginning to dream. This is a statement of Professor C.-E. A. Winslow, professor of public health at the Yale Medical School, and member of the Red Cross Mission to Russia in 1917, who, in Public Health Reports, as quoted by the Journal of the American Medical Association, gives the history and many details of the public-health administration in that country which he studied in the past year during the revolution.

Previous to the creation of the zemstvos in 1864 by Alexander II., hospitals had been established and medicine had developed chiefly in

the cities. Thirty-two provincial hospitals with 6,200 beds, and 303 district hospitals with 5,100 beds were turned over to the zemstvos, all in poor condition and badly mismanaged, without adequate provisions for isolation or care of communicable diseases. An effort was begun to give medical service free to the rural inhabitants, and by 1870 the zemstvos had arranged a system of fixed medical districts, each provided with a small hospital and a qualified physician. By 1890 there were 1,422 zemstvo medical districts with 1,068 hospitals of 26,571 beds and 414 dispensaries, and the number of their physicians had increased from 756 to 1,805, and the number of nonmedical assistants from 2,749 to 6,788. The tendency has been to make all hospital and dispensary treatment free, the care of the sick being recognized by the zemstvos as a natural duty of society rather than an act of charity. Thus the public care of patients developed first and preventive work developed as an offshoot, both being now closely related.

The province of Moscow is said to have the most highly developed organization for the promotion of zemstvo medicine. It supports a hospital for every 10,000 to 15,000 inhabitants, each with from twenty to sixty beds, an average of two physicians, two medical assistants and four sister nurses. Each of the larger hospitals assigns a certain number of beds for general use, for communicable diseases and for maternity cases; each has its dispensary, and all medicines, as well as medical care, are given free; home visits are made only in serious cases. Financial aid is often given to women in childbirth and to invalids unable to go to the hospital. Separate provision is made for mental cases. For prevention, Moscow province is divided into thirteen sanitary districts, with full time medical supervisors, and assistants, and there is a central statistical division, a laboratory and a vaccine institute. There is also a sanitary council for each district and one for the whole province, with district physicians, factory physician and others, all under the control of the provincial and district zemstvo assemblies, working under a sanitary code which was in force before the revolution.

The principal developments of Russian public health have been along medical and bacteriologic lines, in the control of the more acute communicable diseases and in the field of vital statistics. The statistical bureaus of the central council of public health and of the larger cities are better equipped with funds and with highly trained specialists than our own. The bacteriologic and chemical laboratories are also highly developed and in charge of high grade men with leisure and inclination for productive research. Sanitary engineering is somewhat neglected, but when the time comes its development will be fruitful. The most important future development of public health in Russia, as elsewhere, Winslow believes, must be along educational lines in venereal diseases, tuberculosis and infant mortality, and the largest single task is the last. The great strategic point in the Russian health situation is the remarkable development of social medicine along curative lines and the close connection between curative and preventive work. The opportunity for developing educational preventive work in connection with such a system is practically unlimited.

NATURAL HISTORY COLLECTION FOR THE WELSH MUSEUM

WE learn from the London Times that a valuable collection of insects, shells and minerals has been presented by Lord Rhondda to the National Museum of Wales. The collection was formed by the late Mr. Robert H. F. Rhondda was led to purchase the collection by the result of over fifty years' work. Lord Rhondda was led to purchase the collection by the reports submitted by the specialists who examined it, Miss Bowdler Sharpe and Mr. J. Davy Dean, and the majority of the specimens being exotic, the collection will supplement the specimens already in the museum, which are mostly British.

The Times states that Mr. Rippon was a talented artist and musician, as well as a great naturalist, and both wrote and illustrated his work on "Icones Ornithopterorum." He devoted a great amount of time to the care of his collections, and Dr. W. E. Hoyle, director of the museum, states that as a consequence the

condition of his specimens leaves little to be desired. The insects in the collection number over 100,000, and the shells 52,000. Mr. Rippon's great wish was that his collections should not be broken up, but that they should have some home where they could be of public or private use.

The Rippon collection will enable the National Museum of Wales to teach natural history in a way it could not attempt without such ample resources. It will also enable the student to examine exotic types and be of great aid to the specialist in the determination of species. So complete is the series that such gaps as occur, either in the insect collection or the shell collections, can be easily filled as opportunity offers in the future. Many of the larger and more curious shells and insects are familiar through the pages of standard works on general natural history. No illustration in any book could, however, do justice to the wonderful coloring of some of these exotic insects. An idea of the extent of the collections in the Lepidoptera alone will be gained when it is stated that in the Papilionidae (the Swallow-tails) there are over 3,000 specimens, and in the Nymphalidæ (or Fritillaries) there are over 5,000. Dragon-flies, May-flies, crickets, grasshoppers, the wonderful stick and leaf insects of the tropics, the many and curious flies belonging to the order Diptera, the beetles or Coleoptera which number over 40,000 specimens, the ants, bees and wasps or Hymenoptera are too numerous to do more than mention.

The shells, or Mollusca, are exceedingly numerous and well represented in all the large and beautiful forms from the coral reefs of the Pacific, among which may be mentioned the Cones, Cowries, Olives, Woodcock shells, Volutes, and many others. There is an example of the rare Orange Cowry, used by the natives of Fiji and New Caledonia as a badge of royalty, and many Volutes for which high prices have been given. Many large and beautifully colored bivalve shells crowd the cabi

nets.

The collection of minerals comprises about 3,000 specimens many of which are from such widely distant parts as Siberia, Japan, South

America, etc., all carefully named according to Dana's Manual.

THE BRITISH MUSEUM AND THE WAR

THE British government has been induced to abandon the intention to use the British Museum at Bloomsbury for the purposes of the Air Board and the Natural History Museum at South Kensington for other government departments. Lord Sudeley directed attention to the proposed appropriation of these buildings in a question asked in the House of Lords on January 9, and, in reply, Earl Curzon said that, as regards the British Museum, he was glad to state that for the accommodation of the Air Ministry it was no longer necessary to appropriate that building. As to the Natural History Museum, it had been found, after detailed examination, that any attempt to convert the galleries into public offices would involve the closing of the building to the public, extensive internal rearrangements, and the consumption of an enormous amount of labor and material and very considerable delay. In these circumstances it had been decided that there was no necessity sufficiently urgent to warrant the use of the museum as had been contemplated. Nature remarks:

This decision has given much satisfaction to all who cherish regard for national prestige and understand the intellectual stimulus or practical value of the collections in our national museums. What astonishes us, however, is that Sir Alfred Mond, the First Commissioner of Works, and a son of the late Dr. Ludwig Mond, should have placed himself in such an indefensible position by putting the scheme before the government. It is difficult to comprehend also why, before deciding to requisition the building, the government did not inquire as to whether such action was imperatively needed, and consult the trustees and other responsible authorities as to what its consequences would be. If that had been done, a storm of protest would have been saved, and Earl Curzon would not have had to confess in the House of Lords that there was no real necessity for the proposed occupation, which would, indeed, have been more like the act of an invader than of a government entrusted with the care of national interests in every direction. The trustees of the museum, at