UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NOTES A GIFT to the Yale library of $100,000 in memory of Albert DeSilver, '10, has been announced. The fund has been given to carry out the wish which Mrs. John Bradley Lord, of Greenwich, Conn., expressed shortly before her death in February, 1926, that a fund be established at Yale in memory of her son, Albert DeSilver. The income is to be used for the purchase and care of books and periodicals in the field of chemistry. AN anonymous gift of £10,000 has been received by the University of Wales for the encouragement of research. DR. A. WARREN STEARNS has been appointed dean of the medical school of Tufts College. He succeeds Dr. Stephen Rushmore, who has resigned to enter private practice. DR. PAUL WHITELY, of the University of Chicago, has been appointed associate professor of psychology at Colgate University. Dr. Donald A. Laird, director of the laboratory of psychology, has been promoted to be professor of psychology and chairman of the department. DR. EARLE B. MILLER, of the University of Wisconsin, has been appointed professor of mathematics and physics at Illinois College, Jacksonville. DR. E. H. KETTLE, professor of pathology and bacteriology in the Welsh National School of Medicine, has accepted a professorship of pathology in the University of London. Dr. Bronislaw Malinowski, reader in the university, has been appointed to the university chair of anthropology, and Dr. W. H. Linnell has been appointed to a readership in pharmaceutical chemistry. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE A NEW AGRICULTURAL PROFESSION ABOUT twenty years ago the consulting agriculturist giving advice to farm owners for a consideration was almost unknown in the United States, although at that time Mr. George T. Powell, the well-known fruit grower, was one of the first pioneers in this profession. Then came various other "agricultural ex perts," "farm advisers," "consulting agriculturists" and "farm doctors," as they styled themselves-all more or less (principally less) competent-and most of them not staying in business very long. Soon after began the development of extension work and the county agricultural agent system paid for by federal, state and local funds. This system not only has been of great service to American agriculture but has had the effect of stimulating the farmer's desire for more information and advice especially adapted to his own particular farm conditions. Overwhelmed as extension workers and county agents have been with constantly increasing demands for special service, it has been well-nigh impossible for them to devote any large proportion of their time to any one individual or company without offending other farm owners who felt that they were entitled to an equal amount of service. Yet it is evident that, if a farmer needs technical assistance, he must not only be given preliminary plans but also be assisted to work them out to a successful conclusion in full detail. Only one who has actually done it realizes the amount of time and work entailed in preparing a complete farm operating plan, including rotations, seed, fertilizer and spraying schedules, production and cost estimates and an operating budget. But when it comes to taking over the management of one or more farms only the professional agricultural consultant is free to devote himself to such work. In following the development of the profession of consulting agricultural engineer, it is interesting to note the trend of state and federal agricultural agencies toward "service at cost." Thus county agent work itself has been partially supported by fees paid by the farmers themselves. Extension specialists making special inspections for farmers now have their traveling expenses paid by those whom they serve. An increasing number of agricultural bulletins is being sold instead of distributed free. Cow-testing associations formed by the agricultural colleges employ their own testers. And more recently in Illinois a group of farmers organized by the Agricultural College has hired its own salaried farm cost accountant to keep its members' books. So it is natural that the federal and state extension divisions should see in the consulting agricultural engineer a means of augmenting their own efforts with a saving of their time and appropriations. Where calls for special service are received some of these government agencies are now referring such inquiries to competent agricultural consultants. And as the demand for such professional services increases, it is believed that the agricultural colleges will help to meet it by offering special courses to train men for the profession of consulting agricultural engineer. A PROBABLE ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM THE article in your issue of July 1 in regard to tests being made by Dr. Parker D. Trask on seabottom muds for the presence of oils is of interest to me, as I have for many years believed that oil shales and mineral oils were the result of deposition formed, not on the sea-bottoms, but on the bottoms and shallows of brine lakes. My reasons for this belief are as follows: Oil fields are quite frequently found contiguous to salt deposits, and the water which succeeds the oil in most wells is salt water. In some brine lakes, such as Great Salt Lake, Utah, there is a great deal of marine life, but of very small size. In Great Salt Lake there is an abundance of very small shrimp or crayfish, and in certain of the marshes on the lake shores these small creatures seem to die in large numbers, so much so that the marshes in places give off an almost unbearable odor, much similar to the smell of drying cod fish. The natural presumption is that the bodies of these small creatures do not decompose in the ordinary way but become pickled in the brine and are more or less permanently preserved. Where conditions have been favorable and a mud bed formed, having the preserved remains of this small marine life imbedded in them, this mud might very readily have been changed into beds of shale carrying a large percentage of oil. Petroleum may possibly be a distillation from such shale, and being fluid may have moved about over a considerable area. Mud banks would normally form at the mouths of rivers flowing into the brine lakes and the rivers would be continuously carrying into the lakes large quantities of organic matter, which would be acted on by the brine and deposited with the mud. Some forms of vegetable life seem to grow freely in water containing a very high percentage of salt. Such vegetable matter probably would not decompose in the ordinary way. It seems quite possible that the difference in the composition of mineral oils from dif ferent locations may be due to the different proportions of animal to vegetable matter in the original deposition. I have not the slightest doubt but that if Dr. Trask will test some of the muds near Salt Lake City he will find them to be rich in oil. These marshes are of considerable extent in places, and the mud might prove to be a source of oil of some commercial importance. While brine lakes are not very numerous at the present time, in earlier geological periods they seem to have been quite numerous, and in some cases of vast extent, as is clearly indicated by the very extensive salt deposits to be found in many parts of the world. JOHN ROGER QUOTATIONS THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST IN the struggle for existence that life represents, the survival of the fittest appeals to many thinkers as the outstanding ideal. They argue that it makes for strength and progress in the race if the unfit-the weaklings and the degenerates—are eliminated through their inability to meet the strenuous conditions of rigorous living. Consequently not a few persons challenge many features of the modern program for public health and preventive medicine as well as allied social schemes for human comfort on the ground that these tend to counteract and discount the advantages that selection through inherent fitness is alleged to represent. As a recent writer has expressed it, by protecting us from our enemies, the bacteria and the viruses; by removing the sources of disease; by showing us how to avoid unfavorable conditions and to find favorable ones; in short, by bringing us and our environment into harmony, the "civilizers" are promoting the survival of the unfit; they are progressively filling the human race with the weak and the degenerate, who must hand on their weakness and degeneracy to their descendants. Such arguments can not be lightly dismissed. The modern investigations in genetics have, indeed, shown that it is quite possible to produce a population composed of the congenitally defective "the halt, the blind, the weak, the variously deformed and degenerate." The biologist of to-day refers these possibilities back to the transmission of defective "genes," the hereditary substance carriers that determine development. In a stimulating address before the National Tuberculosis Association at Indianapolis in May, Professor Jennings,1 of the Johns Hopkins University, 1 Jennings, H. S.: "Public Health Progress and Race Progress. Are They Incompatible?" SCIENCE 66: 45 (July 15) 1927. sustained the thesis that defects in genes become as open to remedy as defects in nutrition. After all, the underlying problem is largely one of chemistry. The genes are chemical compounds. The consequences of a defective thyroid secretion are remedied by introducing synthetically produced thyroxin with the food. In principle it is clear, says Jennings, that defects in the store of chemicals given us by heredity may be supplied by other means; that undesirable things in the store of genes may be cancelled or corrected; that reactions among them which take an undesirable turn may be altered, set right. All these things, he adds, are seen to be mere matters of technic: one needs but to know how. Of course, the correction of defects attributable to hereditary weaknesses does not necessarily abolish the latter. However thoroughly the natural effects of his "poor constitution" may be offset and his own life made more satisfactory alike to himself and to society, the defective individual continues to be a potential producer of the unfit. Shall he therefore be prevented from surviving? Not infrequently physical shortcomings go hand in hand with conspicuous mental capacities. The artist is by no means always an athlete. Shall the progress of the race be safeguarded by preventing the application of scientific ingenuity whereby the hereditarily weak may secure the enjoyment of a full, useful, happy, long life? To such queries Jennings has offered a cogent reply. The mere survival of a genetically defective individual does nothing to increase the degeneracy of later generations-provided he does not propagate. Not survival alone, but also propagation, Jennings rightly adds, is required for the perpetuation of defective genes. Without propagation, survival is harmless, so far as race deterioration is concerned. The implications of these statements are fairly obvious. In their relation to the modern activities in the field of public health and social betterment they place burdens of responsibility where they have been only lightly considered heretofore. The public health worker, Jennings remarks, must become genetically minded, eugenically minded. If by his activities he promotes, in the congenitally defective, propagation as well as survival, his work does indeed tend toward a measure of racial degeneration. The control of the instincts that lead to propagation is a formidable problem. The subject is one that can not be thrust aside merely because it calls for considerable delicacy in presentation and, as yet, undevised tact in its furtherance. In any event the control of our environments will not be summarily abandoned. We still know too little about the details of heredity to assume that protective and defensive actions or selective control of the environment are inevitably threatening to human welfare in the long run. We may properly watch for defective genes and stop the propagation of their bearers; but, as Jennings concludes, the proposal to abandon control of the environment-the cessation of the process of adjusting ourselves to the conditions -is not a serious contribution to the practice of life. -The Journal of the American Medical Association. SCIENTIFIC BOOKS Catalogue of the Birds of the Americas and the Adjacent Islands in Field Museum of Natural History. Part V. Tyrannidae. By CHARLES E. HELLMAYR. Field Museum, Chicago, April 11, 1927. Pp. 517. THE admirable synonymic and bibliographic catalogue of birds of the Western Hemisphere should be known to all zoologists. Begun years ago by Charles B. Cory, and continued after his death by C. E. Hellmayr, it stands as a model worthy of imitation by others than ornithologists. What a splendid thing it would be if in the course of time the whole fauna and flora of the Americas could be catalogued in this fashion! It is of course true that in many groups the genera and species are still so imperfectly known that no reasonably complete presentation of the fauna is possible. Yet there are other organisms than birds which could very well be listed in such a manner as to illustrate principles of geographical distribution, and give us a fairly adequate idea of the leading facts. Such, for instance, are the butterflies. Looking through the bird volumes, noticing the distribution of the species and subspecies, one is continually reminded of parallel facts in relation to the butterflies. If these latter could be listed in a similar fashion, and the two series compared, it is certain that interesting biological generalizations would emerge. A list of the terrestrial molluscs would be no less instructive. The method of the catalogue is to give the full synonymy and bibliography of each genus, species and subspecies, citing type localities, and giving the range as exactly as possible. In footnotes are added many critical comments, including brief diagnoses of subspecies, and often of genera. To the general naturalist, special interest attaches to those birds which are peculiar to islands off the American coast. Several such are included among the Tyrannidae. The genus Nesotriccus (N. ridgwayi Townsend) is confined to the small Cocos Island, off the Gulf of Panama. It is however related to Eribates (E. magnirostris Gould), a genus only found in the Galapagos Islands. The scarlet or vermilion flycatchers (Pyrocephalus), well known on the mainland, are represented by two subspecies in the Galapagos group, or five according to the former finer division of Ridgway (1894). One is peculiar to Chatham Island, while the other exists on nine islands. The isolated Juan Fernandez has a peculiar species (Spizitornis fernandezianus Philippi) of a continental genus. The Falkland Islands possess a Muscisaxicola (M. macloviana Garnot) which is only subspecifically distinct from the mainland representative; and the same sort of thing occurs in the Island of Fernando Noronha, off Brazil, the Elaenia (E. ridleyana Sharpe) obtained there being only a large insular race of a continental species. The genus Elaenia is rich in peculiar insular types in the West Indies, and has one on the Tres Marias Islands, off Mexico. Myiarchus is similarly rich in West Indian endemics, while the genus Tolmarchus is confined to the West Indies, with special forms in the Bahamas, Cuba, Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Porto Rico and Haiti. The monotypic genus Hylonax (H. validus Cabanis) is restricted to Jamaica. T. D. A. COCKERELL SCIENTIFIC APPARATUS AND LABORATORY METHODS A SIMPLE DEVICE USEFUL FOR DRAWING SYMMETRICAL OBJECTS THE method commonly employed in drawing a bilaterally symmetrical object such as an insect is to make a drawing of one half of the object, either freehand or by use of a camera lucida, trace this on semi-transparent paper, and then retrace from the latter to outline the other half of the drawing. For several years I have used the device described below and have found it much more satisfactory than the tracing-paper method. Inquiry among entomologists, to whom it should be especially useful, has yet revealed no one familiar with it. The device consists essentially of two rectangular pieces of glass. A convenient form may be made by removing the emulsion from two 5" x 7" photographic plates and fastening these together in planes at right angles. They can be held rigidly in position by placing a narrow strip of adhesive plaster or binding tape along the angle where the edges meet and gluing across the upper corner a portion of the lid of a small pasteboard box, as shown in the accompanying figure. Draw one half of the object and make a straight line constituting the median line of the final drawing. Then place one section of the glass upon this line, look diagonally through the glass from above the part drawn and outline the image on the opposite side. CITRUS EXPERIMENT STATION, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE, CALIF. RALPH H. SMITH AN AIR-TIGHT STOPPER FOR BOTTLES CONTAINING VOLATILE LIQUIDS OR FOR LARGE MARIOTTE APPARATUS THE difficulties involved in securing air-tight seals with rubber stoppers are a matter of common experience to those working in the laboratory. This is particularly true where large Mariotte apparatus are employed or where volatile liquids are enclosed in bottles from which corks may be easily blown out. An expansible stopper is shown in the illustration which overcomes some of the uncertainties frequently accompanying the use of an ordinary stopper. The stopper was improvised for use on a metal Mariotte apparatus supplying a shallow evaporation tank. It was found to be so well adapted to the purpose that it has seemed desirable that some note should be made of it. As shown in the illustration the stem of a bolt with a large flat head is passed through a one-hole rubber stopper. A substantial washer is then placed over the stem of the bolt and above this a cylindrical metal sleeve which serves to carry the wing nut away from the mouth of the bottle affording greater freedom in tightening down on the rubber stopper. After such a stopper has been pushed into place, a few turns of the nut compress the rubber longitudinally and bring about a lateral expansion which holds the stopper in place and gives a sufficiently tight seal for any ordinary purpose. BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY FRANK M. EATON THE FINDING OF PLEISTOCENE MATERIAL IN AN ASPHALT PIT AT CARPINTERIA, CALIFORNIA IN February, 1927, on the Lucien Higgins ranch in Carpinteria in southern Santa Barbara County, California, a steam-shovel which was taking out road material over a deposit of asphalt disclosed some bones. These were brought to the attention of Mr. Norton Stuart, curator of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. Mr. Stuart at once began an investigation of the field and after several unsuccessful attempts to locate the source of the earlier finds, at last discovered a mass of material which extends to a depth that has not yet been measured. Here Mr. Stuart found a great number of bones of birds, mammals and rodents, together with pine cones, leaves and other plant material. Mr. Stuart was able to identify some of the bones as those of Teratornis, others as those of a horse, close to Equus occidentalis, and the cones as those of the Monterey Pine, Pinus radiata. The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History then invited Mr. Chester Stock and Mr. Ralph Chaney to examine the material which had been discovered, and has arranged with the Carnegie Institution to continue the excavation and the study of the material disclosed. The discovery of this interesting material exemplifies the value of a local natural history museum on whose staff are men who can grasp the significance of such local discoveries. RALPH HOFFMANN, Director SANTA BARBARA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY PLEISTOCENE FAUNA AND FLORA ALTHOUGH bituminous deposits along the coast of southern California, between Santa Barbara and Ventura, have been known for a number of years, the early mining operations for asphalt in this region apparently never brought to light the presence of fossil remains in these accumulations. Recently the discovery of vertebrate and plant materials of Pleistocene age in an asphalt bed south and east of Carpinteria, made as a result of excavations for road materials, has directed the attention of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History to this locality. The deposit in which the fossil organisms are found has been described and referred to by several authors. It was considered in some detail by Eldridge in his extensive report on the asphalt and bituminous rock deposits of the United States. In 1907 Arnold2 showed the extent of this deposit on the geological map of the Summerland Oil District, Santa Barbara County, California, and discussed its occurrence in the report on the geology and oil resources of the Summerland region. Through the kindness and cordiality of Mr. Ralph Hoffmann, director of the Santa Barbara Museum and Mr. Norton Stuart, curator, the Carnegie Institution of Washington and the California Institute of Technology have been invited to explore the locality and to cooperate with the Santa Barbara Museum. The geological section is well exposed in the seacliff one half to three quarters of a mile southeast of Carpinteria and is essentially that described by Eldridge. The Pleistocene deposits containing the vertebrates and plants lie unconformably above highly inclined Tertiary (Miocene) shales and sandstones, resting upon a surface apparently developed as a result of marine planation of the older rocks. The Pleistocene formation is practically in horizontal position and reaches a thickness in cliff-section of 10 to 12 feet. It consists of sharp sand and some gravel and has been thoroughly impregnated by petroleum. The sand is sometimes cross-bedded. Eldridge records the finding of an occasional shell in this stratum. Overlying the bituminous sand and gravel is a white or brownish sand which is at least two and one half feet thick and may be somewhat thicker. This sand has not been penetrated extensively by petroleum and, as compared with the underlying formation, may be regarded as practically free of such penetration. That the unimpregnated sand accumulated after a second period of erosion during which a part of the bituminous sand was removed and the bed containing the remains of land organisms 1 Eldridge, G. H., 22nd Ann. Rpt. U. S. Geol. Surv., Pt. I, pp. 444 445, pl. 58, 1901. 2 Arnold, Ralph, U. S. Geol. Surv. Bull., pp. 33-35, pls. 1 and 3, 1907. |