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THE twentieth annual Electrical and Industrial Exposition opened on October 12 at the Grand Central Palace, New York City.

THE semi-annual meeting of the Upper State Psychologists will be held at Colgate University on Oc

52 tober 21 and 22. The second morning there will be a trip and special clinic at the Utica State Hospital for the Insane. Walter S. Hunter, professor of genetic psychology at Clark University, will be the main speaker.

THE New England conference of the American Association of Museums opened at the New Eastland Hotel, Portland, Maine, on October 6.

THE first meeting of the Johns Hopkins Medical Society for the academic year 1927-28 was held on October 10 in the auditorium of the school of hygiene. The meeting was dedicated to the memory of Lord Lister. There were to be several short talks on various phases of Lister's life and work, leading up to the principal address of the evening by Dr. John Stewart, professor of surgery, Dalhousie University Medical School, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Professor Stewart was senior house officer under Lister in London. Dr. W.

G. MacCallum, who represented the National Academy at the Lister Centenary Celebration, described that celebration in one of the briefer talks. Dr. E. K. Marshall, Jr., spoke on Lister's contributions to physiology and Dr. W. W. Ford addressed the meeting on Lister's contributions to bacteriology.

AN International Physical Congress was recently held at Como, Italy. Among well-known scientific men who took part were Rutherford and Aston, of England; von Laue, Franck, Gerlach, Stern, Sommerfeld and Born, of Germany; Cabrera, of Spain; Bohr, of Denmark; Debye and Schrödinger, of Switzerland; Cotton, of France; Corbino, Majorana and Volterra, of Italy; McLennan, of Canada, and Langmuir, Millikan and Wood, of the United States. Topics dealt with included radioactive atoms and rays, molecular dissociation, magnetic susceptibility of alkaline vapors, magnetic properties of palladium and platinum, sound-waves of 300,000 cycles a second and cosmic

rays.

THE Eighth International Horticultural Congress opened its first session on September 20 in Vienna, under the presidency of the Chancellor, Dr. Sepel. The meeting marked the one hundredth anniversary of the Austrian Horticultural Society. Sixteen countries were represented by 400 delegates, according to the London Times. Among the questions to be discussed at the congress were the conclusion of an inter

clature and exact regulation of the naming of novelties (not newly discovered botanical species), with the introduction of national registers for such novelties; an international agreement on a uniform system of colors, and the necessity of affording legal protection for creators of floral varieties who, it is proposed, should be named for at least a period of three years whenever, in trade catalogues, mention is made of the novelty for which they are responsible.

THE first imperial agricultural research conference opened in London on October 1, with 170 representatives from all the Dominions of Great Britain, India and most of the colonies and dependencies. The conference is the outcome of last year's imperial conference and is primarily a business establishment and clearing house of information for coordination of the work of local research institutes.

AN International Congress of Hygiene will be held in Paris under the presidency of Professor Léon Bernard, from October 25 to 28. According to the British Medical Journal the following questions will be discussed: Relation of insurance to public health, introduced by Kuhn, of Copenhagen, Holtzmann, of Strasbourg, and Brian, of Paris; factors in the recrudescence of smallpox and the means of combating them, introduced by Ricardo Jorge, of Lisbon, Jitta, of the Hague, and Camus, of Paris; hygiene of education camps, introduced by Sacquépée, of Paris. Addresses will also be delivered by Professors Madsen and Ottolenghi.

THE Rockefeller school of biochemistry in the University of Oxford will be opened by the Right Hon. Viscount Cave, Lord Chancellor of England and Chancellor of the University, on October 21.

THE United States Civil Service Commission announces competitive examinations for chemical engineer at a salary of $3,800; associate chemical engineer at a salary of $3,000, and assistant chemical engineer at a salary of $2,400, applications for which must be received not later than November 8. The duties of appointees will be in connection with original research and development, or design and construction that is being conducted by the different bureaus in chemical engineering.

THE new sixteen-room psychological laboratory at Colgate University has been opened. The laboratory is divided into two parts, the first being a main laboratory of ten rooms for general applied and industrial experiments, and a special sleep laboratory of six rooms located away from the noise of the campus.

THE Committee on scientific research of the American Medical Association has made a grant of two

hundred and fifty dollars to Dr. Warren C. Hunter, of the department of pathology, University of Oregon, for further study of the problem of local cellular immunity in renal epithelium.

DEAN C. F. BAKER, of the College of Agriculture at Los Banos, Philippine Islands, who died about three months ago, has left to the National Museum his collection of insects and some manuscripts, as well as a card index of Indo-Malayan entomology up to date, including about 100,000 references. The collection comprises more than 1,450 schmitt boxes of mounted specimens, as well as a large amount of unmounted material.

ON September 24 fire destroyed the old Oak Hill club house situated on the site of the new men's college of the University of Rochester. The building had been abandoned preparatory to demolition, but the basement was being used for the storage of geological exhibition cases and specimens from the old geological museum on Prince Street. Three exhibition cases that had been placed on the first floor of the club house were burned. Four more exhibition cases and two hundred boxes of geological specimens in the basement were not harmed by the fire. The lowest layer of boxes were half submerged in water, however, and their contents were necessarily dried and repacked. The water did not injure the specimens or obliterate the labels. The cost of repacking the specimens and the loss of the three exhibition cases were covered by insurance. The material menaced by the fire was no part of Ward's Natural Science Establishment, which institution has become incorporated into the University of Rochester.

WE learn from the Journal of the American Medical Association that Dr. John Whitridge Williams, professor of obstetrics, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, has announced that a birth control clinic, supported by prominent physicians and others, will be opened this fall or winter on Broadway near the Johns Hopkins Hospital. It will differ from birth control clinics in most places in that propaganda will not be dispensed, and persons will not be accepted unless sent to the clinic by a physi

cian. It will be purely an association of medical men and will be operated by them. Dr. Bessie L. Moses will be in charge. Dr. Moses is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins and an extern at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and was formerly connected with the Woman's Hospital in Philadelphia. Among those interested besides Dr. Williams are Dr. William H. Howell, director, the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health; Dr. Adolf Meyer, professor of psychiatry, and Dr. Raymond Pearl, director of the institute for biological research.

THE Soviet Academy of Sciences has reported that it has discovered the resting place of a large meteorite, estimated to weigh nearly half a million tons, which fell in a remote district of Yenesei Province, The site of the fall Siberia, in the summer of 1908. occupies over a mile in diameter in almost inaccessible terrain in a marshy forest. The meteorite fell in pieces, so that the ground is pitted with deep funnels from 50 to 100 feet in diameter. The forest for over fifteen miles around the place was completely leveled and the fallen tree trunks scorched. The fall, nineteen years ago, was registered on the seismographs at Irkutsk, 900 miles away, and in the towns of Kirensk and Ilimsk, about 250 miles distant.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NOTES

MISS GWENTHALYN JONES, of Chicago, has made a gift of $200,000 for the endowment of a professorship in mathematical physics at Princeton University. The chair will be named after her uncle, Thomas D. Jones, of the Princeton class of 1876.

THE University of Chicago will receive $750,000 for the establishment of a free school of mechanic arts by the will of the late Edward T. Jeffery, banker and railroad executive.

VANDERBILT HALL, the new dormitory of the Harvard Medical School which has just been completed, will be dedicated on October 14, when George E. Vincent, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, will deliver the principal address.

DR. WM. RANDOLPH TAYLOR has been promoted to a full professorship of botany at the University of Pennsylvania. He recently returned from a fourth trip devoted to a study of Alpine lakes in the high mountains of British Columbia, completing a group of observations on Alpine algae peculiar to such situations, which have not previously been studied in America.

JOSEPH B. REYNOLDS, associate professor of mathematics and astronomy at Lehigh University, has been

promoted to be professor of mathematics and theo

retical mechanics. Dr. Reynolds spent the academic year just past, on leave, studying at Princeton University.

IN the department of physics at New York University the following promotions and additions have been made: Dr. H. H. Sheldon, from associate to professor of physics; Dr. W. A. Schneider, from instructor to assistant professor; Roger Estey, from graduate assistant to instructor; Edward O. Salant will work as a National Research Fellow in the department of

NEW appointments at Cornell University include those of Robert E. Loving, of the University of Richmond, acting professor of physics; W. W. Nicholas, formerly National Research Fellow, acting assistant professor in physics, and John R. Johnson, of the University of Illinois, assistant professor of organic chemistry.

AT the medical school of Western Reserve University, Dr. Howard H. Beard has been promoted to an assistant professorship of biochemistry and Edward Muntwyler has been appointed demonstrator of biochemistry.

DR. HARVEY A. ZINSZER, acting professor of physics at Mississippi State College for Women, has been elected professor of physics and acting professor of mathematics at Hanover College, Hanover, Indiana.

DR. CHARLES SPARLING EVANS, Ph.D., Princeton, has been appointed associate in geology at Bryn Mawr College.

M. A. STEWART, formerly instructor in biology at the University of Rochester, known to entomologists

DEFINING SOIL COLLOIDS

ONE of the most popular and widely studied and discussed problems at the present time in the domain of soils is soil colloids. And yet there are probably no two people interested in the subject who agree completely as to a definition of soil colloids. The concepts and definitions of soil colloids seem to vary enormously. Some people call soil colloids only soil particles of the very smallest size which have an upper limit of not more than .000005 millimeter, while other people call colloids soil particles whose upper limit is .005 millimeter and even .008 millimeter. It behooves us, therefore, to have a correct and standard definition of soil colloids.

instructor in biology at the Rice Institute.

DR. HOBART A. REIMANN, who recently finished his research work as a fellow in medicine of the National Research Council at the University of Prague, has been appointed assistant professor of medicine at Peking Union Medical College, Peking, China.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE THE EFFECT OF X-RAY ON TRYOSINASE THE organic pigment melanin is considered to be the result of the interaction of tyrosine and tyrosinase. When mushrooms or potatoes are ground up with water the water contains a considerable quantity of the enzyme. This can be demonstrated by adding a few drops of the water extract to a dilute solution of tyrosine. This colorless mixture during the first few hours passes through various deepening shades of wine to become black after twenty-four hours. When either potatoes or mushrooms are X-rayed before their extraction with water, this extract invariably shows a decided increase in its powers of melanin production. This increase is in direct proportion to the strength of the X-ray dose. As far as the work has been carried exposures of 30, 60, 90 and 120 minutes at 30 KV., 22 ma., 26 cm. target distance result in increasing depths of color when added to a

correct definition of soil colloids?

There are two apparent standards that present themselves—one is the size of the particles and the other the activity or energy manifestations of the particles.

In choosing one of these two standards, it is absolutely necessary to choose one that has or presents a natural transition or demarcation point which divides the soil material quite distinctly into colloidal and non-colloidal.

The activity or energy manifestations of the soil particles seems to meet the essential requirement of possessing a natural transition point which will divide soil material into colloids and non-colloids. For instance, such energy manifestation or phenomena as adsorption of water vapor, base exchange, heat of wetting, etc., are possessed only by the soil colloidal material and not at all or very little by the non-soil colloidal material.

A thorough examination of all the energy phenomena manifested by the soil particles that of the heat of wetting in water appears to be the most logical to adopt as a standard criterion for defining colloids.

The liquid to use in the heat of wetting measurement and hence, in the definition of the soil colloids is water. By using water all objections that might

be raised as to the specificity of the heat of wetting between soil material and different liquids, are overcome, because water, besides being the most natural and universal reagent, it is the chief natural agent by which soil colloids have been formed. Water is mainly responsible for the formation and physical condition of the soil colloids.

If the heat of wetting phenomena is accepted as a criterion for distinguishing colloids from noncolloids then soil colloids could be defined as any soil material dried at 110° C. that will give heat of wetting in water irrespective of size of particles.

It has been found experimentally that nearly all the soil material classified as clay, and some of the very finest silt, give heat of wetting. This would include soil particles as large as .008 mm. and even larger in some soils. Above the very finest silt there is hardly any measurable heat of wetting. All the organic matter that gives heat of wetting would also be classed as colloids.

According to the above definition of soil colloids then, any soil particles which give heat of wetting, which may be .008 mm. or larger in size would be classified as colloids. Such a definition and classification would be strongly objected to by those who believe that only material of the finest size, such as .000005 mm., should be classed as colloids. But what will these people say when they realize that particles of .008 mm., or larger and having the same composition as those of .000005 mm., also exhibit energy phenomena the same as those of the smaller size, only of a slightly lower degree? Are we not justified then in classifying the larger particles under the same category as the finest? The present classification of soil colloids, which is based upon an arbitrary size of particles, is illogical. A true classification should have for its basis a natural transition point, such as is possessed in the heat of wetting phenomenon, which shows definitely that above a certain size of particles the phenomenon of heat of wetting is not at all manifested.

If the phenomenon of heat of wetting is adopted as a criterion for defining soil colloids, then we not only have what appears to be a logical and correct definition, but also, by the aid of such a definition, we can determine the colloidal content of soils, in less than 15 minutes as compared to more than 10 days by other definitions. This is accomplished by the rather remarkable relationship that has been discovered to exist between the percentage of colloids as determined by the heat of wetting method, and the percentage of material that stays in suspension in a liter of water at the end of fifteen minutes. The heat of wetting method used for determining the colloids is by means of the ratio:

SCIENTORS APPEAR IN THE SOUTHWEST

A NUMBER of years ago some prosperous real estate operators awakened to the fact that they were being hampered in their chosen field by a motley array of amateurs of a low order. Something needed to be done and that quickly if real estate were to continue as an active field in which men of culture and refinement could profitably perform. Accordingly a few of the more erudite among them formulated an imposing set of platitudinous rules which would not interfere with "business as usual," but which would permit disbarment of unwelcome competitors. These gentlemen also had the wisdom to coin a new word— "realtor"-with which to dignify their new profession. Both the code of ethics and the new name were approved enthusiastically and are still in use, to the great benefit of all members in good standing.

Having seen what wonders a code of ethics accomplished for the barratrous real estate agents of the southwest, the scientists in that region have taken heart, and with true western optimism have adopted unanimously a set of trade rules of their own that should go far toward making the profession respectable-at least in the eyes of the public.

Many of us here in the economical East had no idea that science was in such a bad way in the far West. Of course we had our suspicions, but that investigators were muleting each other of ideas and jobs, when they were not doing dishonest work for miserably inadequate pay, had never occurred to us. But the rules speak for themselves and show only too clearly just how deplorable everything is. Those interested in scientific slumming will find the reforms duly and dully set forth in SCIENCE1 all nicely numbered and ab'd for ready reference.

1A Code of Ethics for Scientific Men."' SCIENCE, Vol. LXVI, No. 1700, pp. 103-104, July 29, 1927.

When once these rules are put in force, we can rest assured that the southwestern scientist in good standing will be courageously doing fine work, regardless of all sorts of prejudices. He will not be maliciously criticizing his colleagues nor will he have stolen their mental offspring or their means of subsistence. In fact he will be wholly respectable, scientifically speaking. His pay will be adequate and he will enjoy administrative authority of a sort. His publications will be prompt but not too prompt and the public will be in his confidence, for he will have learned that the public pays the bills. He will be conversant with politics, religion, and economics, but it will be useless to approach him on literature, history or philosophy, for these have been left to the charlatans as unworthy of ethical scientists.

With all this careful charting of the course of the true scientist the rules committee unfortunately neglected the all-important matter of a distinctive name and appropriate insignia for these new paragons of scientific virtue.

As any realtor could have told them, rules are all right as far as they go, but the important thing is for the paying public to be able to discriminate between those who have a framed copy of the rules and those who have not. The southwestern scientists, having aped the realtors to the extent of adopting a code of ethics, should go the rest of the way and grasp the substance of reform by choosing a

A DAYLIGHT METEOR

I READ with great interest the note of William L. Bryant, entitled "A Daylight Meteor," which appeared in the issue of SCIENCE of July 22, 1927. Several years ago, about four o'clock in the afternoon of a beautiful October day, while walking in the open country just north of the city of Stamford, Conn., I

2 Lest I be accused of transgressing Rule 10 of the southwestern code I hasten to admit having read a series of letters, appearing in Nature a year or so ago, in which the question of a proper designation for men of science was discussed. Although I am not conscious that Scientor was among the suggested appellations, it may well have been, and ethically I can claim credit only for appreciating its appropriateness for the group of men in question.

chanced to see at an elevation of about 30° above the horizon a veritable "ball of fire" moving in a northerly direction with an exceedingly high velocity. The brilliance of the moving body, which I immediately assumed to be a daylight meteor, was fairly dazzling notwithstanding the fact that the sun was shining brightly in the western sky. During the brief interval that the meteor was visible its trajectory appeared to be nearly horizontal. Unlike the luminous body observed by Mr. Bryant, the daylight meteor which I chanced to see did not leave a train of sparks in its wake. Unfortunately, I was alone at the time when this phenomenon occurred and hence was unable to compare my observations with those of an independent observer.

FREDERICK H. GETMAN

QUOTATIONS

SCIENCE FOR CITIZENSHIP

Or the importance of science in any modern system of education there can here be no question: but there is danger of a certain confusion of thought. The value of the practical application of science was fully brought out during the war; it has been apparent in many of the problems which have arisen since the war; while scientific men have repeatedly and justifiably urged upon the public and the government the fundamental importance of the promotion of scientific research for all departments of the administration and life of the community and the British Empire. This insistence upon the value of science, aided by a confusion between instruction in science and a technical training, has obscured its true function as an element in the training of the average individual in preparation for his duties as a member of the community. Now that science enters so widely and so intimately into every department of life, especially in all questions relating to health and well-being, it is essential that both the individual who ultimately through the vote will control policy, as well as those by whom that policy will be framed and carried out, should have a general knowledge of the scope and aims of science, as well as of scientific method and the mode in which science envisages and attacks its problems. It is, however, beyond question that it should be a general knowledge on broad lines: a specialized training in some highly technical branch of science is neither needed, nor indeed is it desirable. The educationist need feel no alarm.

As a medium of culture, the history of scientific discovery opens up to the imagination vistas of man's endeavor which place it in the front rank of humanistic studies. Through a general familiarity with the