Just as in the process of organic evolution we find increasing specialization accompanied by increasing interdependence, just as the growth of highly specialized industries has necessitated careful attention to their coordination, just so the increasing specialization in research makes necessary an increasing degree of contact and mutual assistance between scientists.

To take just one example: Though physics is the most mathematical of the sciences, the average research physicist and the average productive mathematician speak languages unknown to each other. To make advances in one field available for progress in the other there has arisen a chain of connecting links. We have the experimental physicist, the theoretical physicist, the mathematical physicist, the applied mathematician and the pure mathematician. I do not believe there is a single living scientist who could at the same time classify under all six headings. There is possibly one, named Einstein, who might classify under five, and there are very few who could classify in four of these groups.

How can this essential cooperation best be brought about? Certainly no single formula will serve to solve the whole problem, and no solution will be easy because research, to be effective, must be independent as well as coordinated, and these are two almost antagonistic features. Several solutions may, however, be suggested as of proven value and worthy of encouragement.

One of these is the encouragement of research in the so-called border-line fields such as mathematical physics, physical chemistry, biophysics, biochemistry, etc. Not only are such coordinating studies necessary, but they are, in my opinion, the most fruitful fields of investigation. Nature herself is not divided into a physical world, a chemical world, a biological world; she is a unit. These artificial distinctions have been introduced for convenience and because of our inability to see the whole field at once. They have resulted in rapid development in the particular direction and by the particular method of each of the sciences, whereas work in the border-line fields has lagged behind. It is as if the whole field of knowledge were originally a desert. When the rain fell on this desert, the water flowed off in streams and rivulets, each digging its channel deeper and deeper but leaving the intervening space relatively untouched. The best place to dig is now in these intervening spaces.

The necessity of coordinating border-line work is recognized by such far-sighted organizations as the General and International Education Boards and the Rockefeller Foundation which have, for example, supported the great system of National and International Research Fellowships, one of whose guiding principles is the stimulation of research in the border-line fields. In our universities further facility and encour

agement should be given to men to prepare for work in these directions.

Another solution can advantageously be advanced by wise administration of the universities. There seems to be a wide-spread, but ill founded, feeling that all departments of a university should be developed together and kept closely abreast. Perhaps this relieves the administration from embarrassment, but I venture to suggest (though the suggestion is not new) that this is not sound educational policy except for an ideal institution which has unlimited resources. Such a policy dissipates effort, and if every institution followed it we should have the spectacle of a great many universities all very much alike and all with struggling, mediocre departments. Much more effective in advancing knowledge as well as in bringing distinction to the university is the policy of supporting to the available limit certain departments selected because of their already outstanding character, or because of the traditions and purposes of the university, or for any other reason. If these favored departments are chosen in a coordinated group, then the university becomes an active center for the development of that field and the promotion of cooperative effort. For example, one institution may choose to give particular facilities for advanced work in classics. and languages, another in historical, economic and social sciences, another to physical and biological sciences, etc. If we were to examine the record of those universities of limited endowment which have nevertheless been preeminent in the life of the country, we should find that they attained this preeminence through concentration of effort. The words "To him that hath shall be given" apply here as well as elsewhere.

Through concentration of effort in a coordinated group of departments, a university has the opportunity not only to correct the dangers of over-specialization, but also to take a strategic position in fulfilling its obligations to society.

Much can also be done to promote cooperation and coordination through actual methods of organization. This has been strikingly demonstrated in some of the big industrial research laboratories, from which the output has greatly exceeded the individual capacities of the research workers and has been achieved only by coordination of effort. Such organization requires a very wise and far-visioned director who can visualize the big objectives and steer through the mass of petty details which must be worked out in order to attain them.

In a university, where the number of workers is much smaller than in a big industrial laboratory, such army-like organization does not appear feasible or probably desirable. Much is being done voluntarily by scientists themselves in dividing up particular

fields for cooperative investigation, and this is being fostered by research committees of organizations like the National Research Council. However, there is another direction in which more effective organization is possible within the universities themselves!

Departments of a somewhat more flexible nature than those to which we are accustomed and which could, more than now, be built around one or two outstanding men in the department, could give these men an opportunity for organization and concentration of effort which is now rarely possible. This would, of course, require careful selection of men. In this matter of organization of departments around the most productive and outstanding men, of taking for granted that they will have research assistants to increase the efficiency of their labors, of selection and recognition of men on the basis of merit and promise rather than seniority, and of wise procedure in the selection of men to fill important posts, America is far more backward and bound by tradition than are those European countries in which scientific achievements have been most rapid. It may surprise you, for instance, as it did me, to learn that in America, the land of wealth and opportunity, there is no university which is able to offer a salary equal dollar for dollar to salaries which universities even in war-ridden Germany will offer to secure the outstanding men. As is the tendency in other things American, our tendency to standardize, which is so useful in some directions, is interfering with our ability to recognize, secure and do our best. This situation in our universities is, I believe, a grave one if we set as our ideal the best possible achievement.

In these remarks I have attempted to suggest some of the accomplishments and opportunities of research and to indicate some of the directions in which we may hope to bring about even more fruitful service of science to society in the future. ·

This, gentlemen, is the situation. It is a situation that calls for serious thought and constructive action. The things which I have been able to say are not new, but I sincerely hope that you may find in them reasons sufficient to enlist your sympathy and active support of any movement which has for its purpose the better service of science to our country and to humanity.

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

KARL T. COMPTON

SOME PROBLEMS IN BOTANICAL

CLASSIFICATION1

THE systematic botanist (or taxonomist as he is often called) has a double duty. First, he must give

1 Extract of address before the June staff meeting of the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, N. Y., June 6, 1927.

each apparently new plant a name which other workers in plant science may use in describing their experiments with the plant or in drawing conclusions regarding plant distribution and so on. This name must designate the plant's relationships with approximate accuracy and is based on a close study of gross morphological characters. By that I mean such characteristics as shape of leaves, color of flower, number of flower parts and their arrangement-in fact such physical properties, to use a chemical phrase, as can be determined fairly readily with the naked eye or by aid of a small lens. The degree of resemblance of the total of these characters, and especially as regards those of the flower and fruit, between plants has served as the criterion in judging the degree of relationship of the plants. This type of taxonomic work will probably always be based on the same method. It is worth noting here that there still are enormous areas of the earth's surface, the vegetation of which remains comparatively unknown despite the flood of taxonomic publications during nearly two centuries, and these areas offer an attractive field for what I may call this "preliminary naming."

Second, he must revise his conceptions of plant groups in accordance with the progress of work in other botanical fields and such discoveries as are constantly being made that tend to show more clearly the exact relationships of the plants involved.

Of chief interest to us is this second phase namely, the correlation of taxonomic work with other botanical work and the revision of opinions that necessarily results from many-sided, intensive investigations. (The preliminary naming of the cultivated fruits and vegetables of the north temperate zone has long since been completed.) Taxonomists have perhaps been a little slow in the utilization of other workers' results; but the last decade has seen started a considerable number of new lines of systematic investigation based on the work of plant physiologists and chemists, geneticists and cytologists.

It is, I believe, the correlation between the work of the geneticist and cytologist and that of the systematic botanist that offers the most promising line of attack on the age-old problem of clearing up the relationships of cultivated plants. This problem is of vital interest to us at this station.

In the Division of Horticulture, we have been particularly interested in fruits and vegetables, and, at present, some typical questions of considerable moment are: What are the true species of apple-or, in other words: What are the fairly stable natural groups of the genus Malus? What species are we working with in our attempt to breed better fruits? What are the characteristics of each of these entities? As you may readily perceive, the answers to these

questions are fundamental to a clear portrayal of breeding problems, and if these answers can be made 1 with some degree of completeness, the formulation t of breeding experiments with apples will proceed with greater facility and with increased probability of reaching favorable results. The same questions may be asked in regard to each group of cultivated plants and will have the same bearing on experimental work with them.

ed

This taxonomic problem we are now attacking by a new method which has already shown promise in the case of the allied genus of Roses. The preliminary announcement of this work by Hurst just four years ago constitutes the first attempt to untangle a complex group of cultivated and wild forms by reference to cytological evidence.

At this point it may elucidate the situation somewhat if I review briefly Hurst's discoveries in Roses.

The inception of his work seems to have been more or less accidental. He says that one day while comparing the taxonomic characters of certain species of roses at Kew, he was struck by the fact that a species he knew to have 28 chromosomes showed the combined characters of two distinct species having 14 chromosomes each, while one containing 42 chromosomes showed the combined characters of three distinct species of the smaller number of chromosomes, and one with 56 showed the combined character of four of the others.

Further investigation of about 400 forms of Rosa have revealed 5 distinct species of 14 chromosomes each and have shown about 50 different taxonomic characters associated with each. Hurst thinks there may result over 200 commutations and permutations of these characters, and he has identified a large number of these.

Now to consider some of the possibilities arising from the uniting of germ-cells of different constitution-that is, of those containing chromosomes of different make-up, or of different numbers. It seems from such evidence as is at present available that a union of germ-cells will not take place if their constitution is too divergent. However, it also seems patent that, provided the germ-cells are very largely similar in content, a union may take place even though the number of chromosomes differ. ample, germ-cells of a species of Rose containing 14 chromosomes will sometimes unite with germ-cells containing 21 chromosomes (of another species of Rose, manifestly). In the subsequent body or somatic division of cells (as has probably already suggested itself to you) the 35 chromosomes may not divide evenly; and certainly in reforming germ-cells there can be no even division of an odd number.

For ex

The plants which arise from such combinations of

germ-cells and all their descendants naturally vary a great deal in their characteristics. It is my personal belief that 99 per cent. of the difficulties which confront both taxonomists and plant breeders are due to these plants whose exact constitution can not be predetermined nor indeed determined with at all complete accuracy by use of any of the older methods.

With the foregoing considerations in mind I started this spring to attempt to unravel the species of apple by aid of such cytological and genetic evidence as might be obtainable. Dr. Bernhard Nebel, of Halle a. S., kindly took upon himself the cytological work involved. There has been almost no cytological work done on the so-called species or hybrids of Malus, nor indeed on apples at all, except for a few recent papers on the relation of chromosomes to fertility of pollen.

It is too soon to speak with much confidence as to what has been found or as to what bearing these discoveries may have on the problem; and what I have to say now may upon careful study have to be modified considerably. However, these seem to be the results and their significance at present.

Several of the plants which I believe to be good species, that are fairly stable associations of genetically closely allied plants, show 14 chromosomes in the nucleus, others show 28. These plants also show nearly regular nuclear divisions. This would seem to indicate that apples may show (as roses undoubtedly do) that good fundamental species will have either 7 or some multiple of 7 as the basic number of chromosomes. Whenever we find, as in the case of Malus Scheideckeri, a variable number of chromosomes and very irregular division, I think we may assume that we are not dealing with a good species but with one of the variable types of hybrids. Our work is not yet far enough along to discuss further results.

It may be interesting, however, to point out some purely speculative possibilities.

If 7 pairs of chromosomes is the fundamental number in apples, then there are probably several good species containing sets of 7 pairs each possessed of somewhat different characteristics. A union of germ-cells between two such species might give rise to another good species and undoubtedly has done so. Moreover, apple species of 21, 28, or 35 chromosomes may exist-according to one investigator-and combinations between these have probably produced other good and valid species. But a combination between a species with 14 chromosomes and one with 21 might and probably has produced a very variable series of offspring.

Just how far these possibilities may fit with the facts as shown by results of experimental work done on apples is now a part of the problem.

I refer to "experimental work done" because for a number of years it will be necessary to utilize all of the data obtainable from experiments that have been tried with other aims in view. This is due to the facts, first, that no attempts have as yet been made by geneticists to breed apple species for the specific purpose of determining their taxonomic position in relation to each other; and, second, that apples are so slow in maturing that it takes half a life time to get three generations. Perhaps I should have put the statement the other way about and said that man lives so short a time that he can manage to see only 3 or 4 generations of apples in his life. Of course, these statements also apply, with more or less aptness, to other perennial fruit crops. The vegetable crops offer a more satisfactory field in point of their shorter individual lives and greatly increased number of generations per given time. These, too, we hope to investigate in the same way.

This whole situation leads much farther than the naming of types of plants. It promises, I believe, a tremendous advance in taxonomic accuracy for the very reason that it may give us a clear-cut definition of a species. Heretofore, a species has always been a concept and no two taxonomists have agreed entirely in their specific concepts. The more variation there is in a group of plants, the greater the diversity of concepts existing among specialists on that group. In cultivated plants, because of the tremendous variations induced by men by selection, crossing, and removal of natural competition and other difficulties in what might be called the "normal life struggle" of the plant, this diversity has been increased many fold. The remarkable thing, it seems to me, is that there exists as much agreement in specific concepts as there is. This new method seems to promise an approximation, at least, to mathematical accuracy. Given a definite number of pairs of chromosomes and a perfectly regular method of cell division allied with a distinct group of other morphological characteristics and we have a good species. Given an indefinite number of chromosomes and irregular division, we haven't a good species but a hybrid of sorts, characterized in every case investigated thus far by considerable variation in gross morphological characters.

If, as I have assumed, the greater part of the difficulties lie in the varying concepts regarding those plants which are not good species according to my definition of a moment ago, then a clarification of the status of those plants by reference to their cytological behavior will go a great ways in stabilizing nomenclature of plants in general. Perhaps, I should have said "higher plants," for I fear this investigation of chromosomes will be of little use to the bacteriologists who have yet to find such things in their

whole category of delightful pests. However, the bacteriologists by their use of physiological reactions have gone further, I believe, in attaining accuracy in delimitation of related forms than the systematic botanists who deal with seed plants and trust to their eyes alone to determine differences and likenesses.

This may lead to some difficulties in terminology involving among other things the uses of such words as hybrid, cross, variety, form and species. It seems to me that the term hybrid will have to be held merely for those results of crossing in which the ensuing nuclear divisions exhibit irregularity of behavior coupled with varying degrees of sterility. And it is to be noted that so far as known at present some degree of sterility is always associated with this irregular chromosome behavior. It seems likewise evident that when the result of a cross is an organism with perfectly regular nuclear division and complete potential fertility, it must be reckoned a good species regardless of whether it has been found wild or is known only under cultivation.

I believe I have exhausted my time and possibly your interest. My own interest, I have to confess, is white hot. I feel that we are in view of some striking advances in taxonomic work and it is a rare pleasure to be in at the very beginning of the adventure.

G. P. VAN ESELTINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION, GENEVA, N. Y.

SCIENTIFIC EVENTS

THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF

ENTOMOLOGY

In

THE Fourth International Congress of Entomology is to be held in August, 1928, at Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. Previous congresses have met at Brussels (1910), Oxford (1912) and Zurich (1925). Every important interest-educational, scientific and economic-will be provided for in the program. vitations have been forwarded through the state department to foreign governments to send representatives and later invitations will also be sent to the individual entomologists. A program will be arranged in which some of the leading entomologists of the world will take part. It is planned that in the forenoons throughout the week papers of general interest are to be read before all members of the Congress. In the afternoon sections will be formed dealing with (1) taxonomy, distribution and nomenclature; (2) morphology, physiology and genetics; (3) ecology; (4) medical and veterinary entomology; (5) economic entomology with its subdivisions relating to forest, fruit, vegetable and cereal insects, bees, insecticides

and appliances. According to the number of papers as announced, each section may be subdivided or several sections may be united. Time will be arranged for an all-day visit to the Geneva Experiment Station where the forenoon will be spent in looking at the exhibit of spraying machinery and insecticides, in te examining the methods and machinery used in controlling the European corn borer, and in observing a demonstration of airplane dusting. The afternoon will be devoted to a general program. In addition, the summer meeting of the New York State Hortiof cultural Society will be held at Geneva on the same day, which will serve to give the visiting foreign entomologists more ideas of the general interest of American farmers in entomology. Certain afternoon excursions will also be made to nearby places of entomological interest, while immediately after the meetings some general excursions are planned to Niagara Falls, to entomological museums of eastern cities, and to the laboratories of the U. S. Bureau of Entomology devoted to the study of the gipsy and browntail moths, the corn borer and the Japanese beetle.

it's

THE WALTER RATHBONE BACON

SCHOLARSHIP

UNDER the terms of the will of the late Virginia Purdy Bacon, of New York, the Smithsonian Institution receives a bequest to establish a traveling scholarship as a memorial to her husband, Walter Rathbone Bacon.

The secretary of the Smithsonian Institution has established rules which are to regulate the award of the Walter Rathbone Bacon scholarship for the study of the fauna of countries other than the United States of America. The amount available is the interest on the capital invested (about $3,000 a year), the incumEbent to hold the scholarship not less than two years.

RESS!

the S

Applications for this scholarship, addressed to the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, should be submitted not later than January 1, 1928. The application should contain a detailed plan for the proposed study, including a statement as to the faunal problems involved; the reasons why it should be undertaken; the benefits that are expected to accrue; the length of time considered necessary for the carrying out of the project; the estimated cost, and the scientific and physical qualifications of the applicant to undertake the project.

The scholarship will be awarded for a term of two If at the expiration of the term it is desired years. to extend the time, the incumbent shall make application a sufficient time in advance, accompanied by a statement as to the necessity for such extension.

All collections, photographs, records and equipment become the property of the institution.

The incumbent shall not engage in work for remuneration or receive salary from other sources than the institution or its branches during the period of occupancy of the scholarship.

THE LINTHICUM FOUNDATION PRIZE THE faculty of law of Northwestern University, administering the income of the Charles C. Linthicum Foundation, announces that the sum of one thousand dollars and a bronze medal, as a first prize, and two sums of one hundred dollars each, as second prizes, with honorable mention, will be awarded to the authors of the best essays or monographs submitted by March 1, 1929, on "Scientific Property," i.e., the extension of the patent or copyright laws so as to recognize a right, in the discoverer of a scientific principle, to some share of the profits that may accrue to an inventor who makes use of that discovery to devise an "art, machine, manufacture or composition of matter" (as the statute defines it) and thus obtains a patent. The law has hitherto not recognized such a right.

The subject of the award in 1927 was "The Law of Radio-Communication," and the prize was awarded, on June 16, 1927, to Stephen Davis, Esq., member of the bars of Oklahoma and New York, and formerly solicitor to the United States Department of Com

merce.

The present offer was originally opened only to members of the legal profession in the United States or Canada, but has now been enlarged to include all countries of the world.

The award will first be made public in June, 1929, on the occasion of the annual meeting of the Alumni Association of the Law School.

Further information may be obtained by addressing the Linthicum Foundation, Northwestern University Law School, Chicago. The work submitted may be one already published in print at the time of submission. Manuscripts submitted must be typewritten on paper of size of legal cap or typewriter or commercial note, and in the English language. A work submitted in French, German, Italian or Spanish may be examined, at the discretion of the faculty; but, if awarded the first prize, it must be translated into English for publication, at the expense of the author.

THE ENGINEERING INDEX SERVICE PLANS have been completed in a comprehensive scheme for indexing the engineering literature of the world, to be initiated the first of the year, with the new weekly engineering index service of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

This task is so extensive as to include the preparation of index items for the 1,500 technical publications