ian Institution in Washington on April 22, 23 and 24. The program includes accounts of war activities in different branches of science and reports of the results of several important scientific researches by members of the academy and others. The Hale lectures will be given by Professor John C. Merriam, of the University of California. His subject is "The beginnings of human history from the geologic records."

PROFESSOR COMFORT A. ADAMS, of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the nominee of the directors of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers for president for the year beginning August 1. SURGEON-GENERAL SIR ALFRED KEOGH, G.C.B., has been appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honor for services in connection with the war.

DR. BENJAMIN F. ROYER, Harrisburg, acting commissioner of health of Pennsylvania, will deliver the memorial address on the late commissioner, Dr. Samuel G. Dixon, at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, on April 9.

DR. H. L. RUSSELL, dean of the college of agriculture of the University of Wisconsin, has been appointed by the Food Administration to take charge of the division of butter and cheese, in succession to Mr. George E. Haskill.

PROFESSOR CLARENCE A. WALDO, Ph.D., late of Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., retired last commencement from the Thayer professorship of mathematics and applied mechanics, as professor emeritus and is now living at 401 West 118th St., New York City.

JAMES ZETEK, professor of biology and hygiene at the Instituto Nacional de Panama, has been appointed entomologist of the Board of Health Laboratory, Ancon Hospital, Canal Zone.

DR. HARRY B. Yocoм, professor of zoology at Washburn College, has been commissioned first lieutenant in the Sanitary Corps and ordered to report for duty to Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas.

DR. JOHN W. KIMBALL, instructor in chemistry and physics at the dental school of West

ern Reserve University, has been called to Washington to undertake chemical work for the Army. Dr. Kimball has been granted leave of absence from the university and will leave immediately to take up his new work.

PROFESSOR ELMER P. KOHLER, of the department of chemistry of Harvard University, has gone to Washington and will give his whole time, at least until the beginning of the next academic year, to chemical research for the national government. He will be at the experiment station of the Bureau of Mines as assistant to the director in charge of research problems.

FRANCIS C. FRARY, research chemist of the Aluminum Company of America, has been commissioned as captain in the ordnance reserve corps and assigned to research work in the trench warfare section, Engineering Bureau office of the chief of ordnance, Washington, D. C.

JOHN G. FRAYNE, an instructor in physics at the University of Minnesota, has enlisted in the signal corps of the army and will be sent to France.

DR. B. FRANKLIN ROYER, who has been chief medical inspector of the Pennsylvania State Department of Health for a number of years and who has supervised the work in the Harrisburg office during the long illness of Dr. Samuel G. Dixon, has been appointed acting health chief, pending the selection of a permanent successor to the late commissioner.

DR. ROBERT A. LYSTER, lecturer in public. health and forensic medicine at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and county medical officer for Hampshire, has been elected editor of Public Health.

PROFESSOR FREDERIC J. CHESHIRE, director of the department of technical optics at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, has been reelected president of the Optical Society of Great Britain.

MR. CLYDE L. PATCH, of the Victoria Memorial Museum, Ottawa, lectured on "Local Snakes, Frogs and Salamanders: their relation to agriculture," on February 5, under the auspices of the Ottawa Field Naturalists Club.

He discussed twenty-five different species and described observations made in eastern Ontario. The lecture was illustrated with living specimens and lantern views.

re

THROUGH the courtesy of the regents and secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, ception was tendered there on the evening of February 28 by the Chemical Society of Washington to the five hundred chemists temporarily residing in Washington for war duty. Addresses of welcome were made by Dr. Frederick B. Power, president of the society, and by Dr. George P. Merrill, head curator of geology of the Smithsonian Institution, after which brief addresses were made by Professor Frank W. Clarke, Dr. Charles L. Parsons, Major Samuel J. M. Auld, the British chemist cooperating with this government in the Gas Defense Service, Chancellor Samuel Avery, of the University of Nebraska and Professor Wilder D. Bancroft. A large proportion of the guests were in uniform and included many of academic distinction.

G. A. LEBOUR, for many years professor of geology at the University of Durham, died on February 7, at the age of seventy-one years.

THE death is announced of C. I. Istrati, professor of organic chemistry and dean at the University of Bucharest and president of the Roumanian Academy of Sciences.

DR. A. W. E. ERLANDSEN, professor of hygiene at the University of Copenhagen, has died at the age of thirty-nine years.

OWING to greatly increased activities in the Public Health Service, there is urgent need of the services of medical officers for field duty in connection with the sanitation of numerous civil sanitary districts. The salaries of the positions in question vary from $1,800 to $2,500 per annum, depending on the qualifications and experience of the appointees. Men who have been disqualified physically for the Medical Reserve Corps are eligible for appointment, provided they are not suffering from complaints which will seriously interfere with the performance of their duties. It is especially desired to secure the services of competent sanitarians and those who have had previous

experience in health work. There are also numerous vacancies for sanitary engineers, scientific assistants, sanitary inspectors and others. Applications for appointment to these vacancies should be made to the Surgeon-General, U. S. Public Health Service, Washington, D. C., and in order to avoid unnecessary correspondence should include complete data concerning age, nativity, experience and training, and other necessary information.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL
NEWS

A GIFT of a large tract of land has been made to Harvard University by Mr. Andrew Carnegie, President A. Lawrence Lowell, Mr. Henry L. Higginson and ten others. The tract, which comprises 2,344,000 square feet, is adjacent to the Soldiers' Field. There are no 'buildings on the land, and, according to university authorities, no plans have been made for the immediate use of the property.

GIFTS reported at the recent Corporation meeting of Yale University, included one of $5,000 from Mrs. James Wesley Cooper, of Hartford, for the establishment of a publication fund in memory of her husband, who graduated from the college in 1865 and who was for over thirty years a member of the corporation, and $5,000 in memory of the late William A. Read of New York by his widow, to assist the work of the Yale University Press. Two bequests were also announced: $10,000 from the late Samuel J. Elder, for the college, and $5,000 from the widow of Amory E. Rowland, for the benefit of the Sheffield Scientific School.

By the will of Mrs. Eliza C. Farnham $1,200 is left to the Howard College for two Horace Farnham Scholarships.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR HERBERT L. SEWARD, '06 S., of the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University has been granted leave of absence to become head of a new school being organized by the Navy Department to train engineers for the naval service. The leave of absence granted by the corporation begins on May 1, but Professor Seward will continue in charge of the engineering instruction of the

Yale Naval Training Unit for the rest of the

year.

DR. W. F. G. SWANN has accepted a professorship in the department of physics at the University of Minnesota, the appointment to take effect on August 1, 1918.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE SCOTT ON THE CANONS OF COMPARATIVE ANATOMY

IN a recent number of this journal (N. S., Vol. XLVII., No. 1204) my esteemed friend, Dr. D. H. Scott, the distinguished foreign secretary of the Royal Society has published a review of my recent volume on "The Anatomy of Woody Plants." He objects, with delightful British vigor, to the Canons of Comparative Anatomy described in the seventeenth chapter. His criticisms, in fact, of the volume mainly involve these canons, which he regards as highly controversial and based on deductive evidence. Dr. Scott naturally has his own opinions on many anatomical subjects, and these are often different from my own. The question, however, as to whether the Canons of Comparative Anatomy are deductive or inductive appears to be not a matter of opinion but a matter of fact. Inductive reasoning, which is ordinarily defined as the drawing of general conclusions from particular facts, was brought into prominence nearly three hundred years ago by Sir Francis Bacon, an eminent Englishman. I must urge that the Doctrine of Conservative Organs is based on purely inductive reasoning. In accordance with that doctrine it is stated that root, leaf and reproductive axis retain ancestral anatomical features approximately in the order named. This is an induction from the facts that the reproductive axis of the Calamites and Equiseta, the reproductive axis and root of the Araucarian and Abietineous Conifers, the reproductive axis and root of Ginkgo, the reproductive axis and root of the higher Gnetales, all retain notable the features of organization of older or extinct allied forms. It appears to me that Dr. Scott confuses the origin of the Canons of Comparative Anatomy with their application. The Canons are derived inductively by the comparison of older

with modern forms, and are employed deductively to elucidate the relations of modern forms among themselves.

The soundness of the general principles of the seventeenth chapter of my volume on anatomy has a very sincere and flattering testimony in the attitude of a small coterie of critics of the anatomical work of "Jeffrey and his school." These critics use the canons in every case, but if I may be forgiven a pun are unable to aim straight. The most recent instance of this defect is furnished by an article on the vessels of Gnetum in the January number of the Botanical Gazette. This author calls attention to the fact that vessels of the lower Ephedra type having end walls with many large open bordered pits are found in the root, reproductive axis, and seedling of Gnetum. He argues very properly from this that the Gnetum type of vessel has come from that found in Ephedra and persists in the conservative organs of the first-named genus. This conclusion is correct as far as it goes, but when the author states that the type of vessel found in Gnetum is different from that found in the Angiosperms he shows a surprising ignorance, since in DeBary's classic text-book of comparative anatomy published over forty years ago a number of cases of angiosperms with the Gnetum type of vessel terminated at either end by a single large-bordered pore have been cited. I might go on to enumerate a number of other equally sincere and flattering testimonials to the soundness of the Canons of Comparative Anatomy, although not to the accuracy of their utilizers, from recently published works. If imitation is the sincerest flattery, I am indeed flattered. A number of lines of work being carried on in my laboratory, and among these, notably an investigation on a large amount of material of Comanchean and Laramie Cretaceous Conifers, will, I think, add much strength to these generalizations.

A frank and friendly criticism such as Dr. Scott has written always helps to clear up differences of opinion by bringing forth clearer and more forcible statements from either side.

E. C. JEFFREY

THE JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE AS A WAR
PLANT

IN the March number of the Scientific Monthly, Professor T. D. A. Cockerell publishes an interesting article entitled "The Girasole, or Jerusalem Artichoke, a Neglected Source of Food." It will be interesting to add that the French Academy of Agriculture has by no means overlooked this important plant, the French name of which is topinambour. For the last two or three years the Comptes Rendus des Séances de l'Académie d'Agriculture has contained frequent references to the value of this crop, most of the communications having been made by M. Schribaux. In the last number, which comes to my desk today, M. Schribaux presents an interesting communication from M. Thiry, director of the Agricultural School of Tomblaine near Nancy. He says that in a normal year only about a hundred hectares are planted in Lorraine, but he believes that the plant is capable of rendering great services. In his own family they have regularly raised and eaten the topinambour since at least 1860. All of the agricultural land in Lorraine is not well adapted to its cultivation, only light lands being best adapted. In general, they feed the tubers to the horses, giving a little to the pigs, but never to the cattle, for they think that this diet gives the milk a bluish tinge. He states that the crop is more productive than potatoes, and they often raise at Tomblaine thirty thousand kilograms to the hectare. He uses the variety called patate by Vilmorin. It has more regular tubers, and while not less productive is more delicate than the ordinary variety. He has eaten them in his house for a long time, since he tasted Jerusalem artichokes in England, and he has fed them to the children of the refugees whom he has taken in. Last year the people of Nancy wished to eat them, since potatoes were out of their reach, but at that time they were beginning to germinate and were not edible. He thinks the plant is a very remarkable one, and that in fertile earth well worked it will repay the labor of the farmer with great interest. Whether the climate is severe or dry, and even when the earth

is poor and weedy, the crop will still be satisfactory, and it lacks the diseases of the potato. He believes it to be a war plant of the first order. He thinks that a serious effort should be made to propagate this vegetable in all France. L. O. HOWARD

WASHINGTON, D. C.

POISONING TREE PARASITES WITH CYANIDE OF POTASSIUM

SOME three years ago there was discussion in this journal of the method of killing insect parasites of fruit trees by placing cyanide of potassium under the bark. Success was reported from such inoculation of peach trees. Others reported that cyanide of potassium mixed with other poisons, when used in the same manner, caused the death of the tree within two or three years.

Three years ago, in the spring, I bored half inch holes in each of six apple and pear trees and filling these holes with powdered cyanide of potassium, " chemically pure," plugged them up. Four of these trees were apparently dying from scale, the other two were infested but not dying. During the summer all six became free from scale and the four dying ones began to recuperate. In the fall both the apple and the pear trees bore good fruit which was palatable and harmless. All the trees are now healthy and vigorous after three years, and there are no areas of dead bark around the inoculation holes.

This seems an indication that inoculation with cyanide of potassium, when used without admixture of other drugs, is not necessarily injurious to apple and pear trees. Its effectiveness as a parasite exterminant is rendered doubtful, however, by the fact that the scale died on all my other trees which were not inoculated. One of these trees was practically dead at that time, having lost all but two of its branches, but it is now vigorous. I lost two good trees from scale before this. Scale had been becoming more and more troublesome in northern Ohio for a number of years, but three years ago many infested trees became entirely free or almost free from the pest, and in this whole region there was marked improvement in the orchards, which

are not yet back to their former bad condition. MAYNARD M. METCALF

THE ORCHARD LABORATORY,
OBERLIN, OHIO

SYSTEMATISTS AND GENERAL BIOLOGISTS

MAY I endorse the suggestion by Dr. L. O. Howard? He says that he does not know whether determination of species is important to the experimental embryologist. When, as zoological recorder for Echinoderma, it was my duty to read a large number of papers by those workers, I formed the opinion that it certainly was important, and wrote:2

It is well to urge on those gentlemen the need for an accurate determination of the material with which they work. They are too much inclined to infer the universal from the particular, and to overlook the fact that species and even local races differ from one another in their reproduction and development, just as much as in their habits and perhaps more than in their structure.

This plea was strongly supported by Viguier.3

Accurate discrimination of species is no less necessary for the field naturalist. J. H. Fabre, always ready to gird at the museum worker, had to confess that he had confused under the one name Eumenes pomiformis three species of mason-wasps, so that it was not possible for him "to ascribe to each of them its respective nest" (I quote from the selection just published under the title "The Wonders of Instinct," London, Fisher Unwin).

Most geologists have by this time learned that, for lack of the precautions advocated by Dr. Howard, many of their fossil lists are not worth the paper they are printed on. Recent advances in stratigraphical geology are almost entirely due to the keener appreciation of minute specific differences.

In a word, every kind of biologist should find in the despised taxonomist a valuable, indeed an indispensable, ally; and in our museums he should recognize a depository where the evidence for his conclusions may be preserved for future generations of workers. LONDON F. A. BATHER

2 Zool. Rec., for 1901.

1 SCIENCE, January 25, p. 93.

a 1903. Ann. Sci. Nat. Zool., ser. 8, Vol. 17, p. 71.

SCIENTIFIC BOOKS

Lectures on Heredity. By H. S. JENNINGS, Ph.D., LL.D., Johns Hopkins University; OSCAR RIDDLE, Ph.D., Department of Experimental Evolution, Carnegie Institution; and W. E. CASTLE, Ph.D., Harvard University. Delivered under the auspices of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Washington, D. C. 1917. Pp. 82. Bound in buckram, 50 cents.

This is the second annual series of lectures presented before the Washington Academy of Sciences and reprinted in collected form from the Journal of that academy.

The study of genetics has become so highly specialized that workers in the different fields have ceased, except in rare instances, to make a serious effort to coordinate their work with that of others.

Dr. Jennings's classical work on the nature of variations in lower organisms deals with one of these highly specialized branches, and students of other branches should appreciate the service rendered by Dr. Jennings in his painstaking comparison.

"Having satisfied myself as to the nature of the variations that arise in the creatures that I have studied, I have looked about to see what other workers have found; and to determine whether any unified picture of the matter can be made."

After claiming that the idea of genotypes must be admitted as a general condition, the author concludes that this result "is not final, that it does not proceed to the end.”

In a uniparental organism, from which all question of the recombination of existing diversities is eliminated, Dr. Jennings finds that "the immense majority of the hereditary variations were minute gradations. Variation is as continuous as can be detected."

The points at issue between the "genotypic mutationists" and the upholders of gradual change are clearly and concisely stated. Setting aside the question whether the evidence held to support the gradual change theory is conclusive or not, he proceeds directly into territory of the mutationists and shows that the "multiple allelomorphs" found in Droso