to 25 in Washington, D. C., not in Chicago as originally planned.

ACCORDING to the Geographical Journal the second congress of Slav Geographers and Ethnologists will be held this year in Poland between June 1 and 11. Visitors from other countries will be admitted to take part in it. The meetings will take place at Warsaw and five other Polish cities in turn, and two special trains will be at the disposal of the members, in which it is proposed to make a tour through a considerable part of the country. The president is Professor E. Romer, and the secretary, Professor L. Sawicki, the officers of the organizing committee being at 64 Gradzka, Cracow.

A SERIES of free public lectures will be given at the New York Botanical Garden during March and April. These lectures will be given at 3:30 on Sunday afternoons as follows: March 5, "Garden Soils and Fertilizers," Mr. J. G. Curtis; March 12, "Floral Features of Florida," Dr. J. H. Barnhart; March 19, "Through the Western Andes of Colombia," " Dr. Francis W. Pennell; March 26, "The Natural Bridges and Desert Flora of Southeastern Utah," Dr. P. A. Rydberg; April 2, "The State Park at Devil's Lake, Wisconsin," Dr. A. B. Stout; April 9, "With Burroughs and Muir in the Southwest," Dr. Clara Barrus; April 16, "Coffee: The Plant and the Beverage," Dr. Ralph H. Cheney; April 23, "The Tea Gardens of Ceylon and Japan," Dr. H. A. Gleason; April 30, "Children's Gardens," Miss Ellen Eddy Shaw.

THE new laboratory of physics at Columbia University, constructed at a cost of $1,500,000, was formally opened on February 25. The occasion was marked by a dinner in the Faculty Club, on Morningside Avenue, at which Professor Michael I. Pupin, of the department of electromechanics, was toastmaster. The dinner was attended by present and former members of the staff of the department of physics, trustees and representatives of all scientific departments and members of the Optical Society of America and the American Physical Societies then meeting at the laboratory. Dean George B. Pegram, of the schools of mines, engineering and chemistry, spoke in behalf of the department of physics. Samuel R. Williams, professor of physics in Amherst College, spoke for the Ph.D. alumni. Ernest Merritt, professor of physics at Cornell University, responded for other universities, and Dr. Frank B. Jewett, president of the Bell Telephone Laboratories, responded for the industrial esearch laboratories.

THE anti-evolution bill introduced in the North Dakota legislature on February 8 has been killed in committee without a dissenting vote.

MISS ELEONORE WUNDT writes that she would like to receive letters addressed by her distinguished father, Professor Wilhelm Wundt, to American psychologists for use in the biography that she is preparing. Any such letters will be copied by her and promptly returned. They should be sent to Bismarckstr. 31, III, Jena, Germany.

STANFORD UNIVERSITY has dropped its proposed $1,000,000 Luther Burbank foundation fund to perpetuate the experimental work at Santa Rosa and Sebastopol.

THE University of Michigan observatory, under construction at Bloemfontein, South Africa, will be completed through the generosity of Robert Patterson Lamont, of Chicago, who has also donated the Lamont telescope which will be installed in the observatory. The recent donation of $25,000 will be used for the construction of the observatory.

THROUGH the courtesy of Professor Rudolf Florin, of the National Museum of Stockholm, Sweden, the New York Botanical Garden recently received a shipment of about fifty specimens, including forty-two different species of Triassic and Jurassic fossil plants, representing collections from a number of localities in widely separated parts of the world-Brazil, Antarctica, Spitzbergen, Japan, England, Austria, Bavaria and Scandinavia.

THE American Home Economics Association, through the trustees of the Ellen H. Richards memorial fund, announces the offer of a graduate fellow

ship of $500 for the year 1927-28. Applications

should be made in writing on or before April 1, 1927. Full information may be obtained from the office of the American Home Economics Association, Washington, D. C.

THE question of organizing a professional division of mechanics and physics and applied mathematics is being considered by a group of members of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers who met during the 1926 annual meeting. This section would embrace analytical mechanics as applied to rigid, elastic and fluid bodies, including (a) mechanics of materials, (b) kinematics and dynamics of machines, (c) stresses in structures and machines and (d) friction and lubrication; physics, including (a) heat flow, (b) thermodynamics, (e) acoustic and noise problems; and applied mathematics. The following committee was appointed to formulate a definite plan for the division: Chairman, Dr. S. Timoshenko; secretary, A. L. Kimball; H. A. S. Howarth.

PRESIDENT COOLIDGE has approved a request for $50,000 for the continuation of research work being conducted by the North Central Station of the United

States Bureau of Mines in cooperation with the University of Minnesota Experiment Station and School of Mines. The sum will be used to investigate processes for producing high-grade manganese alloys from lowgrade ores, which occur abundantly in Minnesota.

ACCORDING to the Experiment Station Record, the Peruvian Agricultural Institute of Parasitology has recently been organized by the National Agricultural Society of Peru to study the insect pests and fungus diseases which affect the crops of the coastal region, especially cotton and sugar cane. Dr. C. H. T. Townsend has been appointed in charge of this institute and is engaged in the selection of a site and the erection of the necessary buildings. It is expected that one of the earliest studies will be made of the cane borer, said to be the only insect which seriously damages sugar cane in Peru.

THE Belgium correspondent of the Journal of the American Medical Association writes that the Academy of Medicine has appointed a committee to make arrangements for the commemoration of the life and works of Dr. Paul Heger. The committee plans the publication of a memorial volume in his honor. In addition, it announces that a special fund will be created and placed at the disposal of the occupant of the chair of physiology at the University of Brussels, with a view to rendering personal aid to investigators or to make possible the carrying out of researches that are difficult under present economic conditions.

THE Journal of the American Medical Association states that the senate committee on foreign relations has approved a bill introduced by Senator Wadsworth, New York, providing for the erection and maintenance of the Gorgas Memorial Laboratory in Panama, to be paid for in part by the United States to the extent of an annual expenditure of $50,000. The bill contemplates that South and Central American governments will contribute annually for the maintenance of the laboratory, and that the government of the United States shall be represented on the board or council directing the administration of the laboratory.

A MEETING was recently held in the office of Dr. Charles Campbell, deputy minister of mines, to discuss with representatives of the United States Bureau of Mines methods of cooperation among the bureau and department of mines and the National Research Council of Canada. The work of the United States bureau was outlined by Dr. Dorsey Lyon, chief metallurgist and supervisor of experiment stations, and his assistant, B. C. Ralston; that of the Dominion Department by John McLeish, director of the mines branch, and members of his staff, and that of the research council by J. M. Morrow and F. E. Lathe. Definite arrangements were made for the close cooperation of the two governments in carrying out investigations on all the subjects discussed, similar

to that now existing between the United States Bureau of Mines and the British government on fuel research.

THE Experiment Station Record states that arrangements are being completed to open a rabbit experimental station at Ontario, Calif., on the grounds of the Chaffee Union High School. The use of a tract of 5 acres of land with the necessary fencing and water is to be given the U. S. Department of Agriculture for the purpose, and it is expected that $15,000 will be raised by the National Rabbit Federation to erect the necessary buildings and other improvements and provide the running expenses for at least one year. The purposes of the station will be the study of the economic production of rabbits for meat and fur, breeding and feeding methods, diseases and parasites, and the utilization of rabbit offal and manure as fertilizer. It is hoped to open the station in March with D. Monroe Green of the U. S. Biological Survey in charge.

A CORRESPONDENT writes that Miss Dorothy Garrod, of Oxford University, whose discovery at Gibraltar of the cranium of a child belonging to the Neandertal race was reported at the Oxford meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science last August, has now discovered the lower jaw of the same individual and also an additional portion of the cranium. In France, D. Peyrony, of Les Eyzies, has discovered at the type station of La Madeleine (Dordogne) the sepulture of a child. He states that the body had been richly decorated at the time of burial. It belongs to the Magdalenian Epoch, which is the last stage of the Paleolithic Period.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NOTES

THE campaign conducted by the Johns Hopkins University half-century committee for endowment funds for the university and the hospital, closing December 31, 1926, resulted in total contributions of $7,022,019 from 3,992 subscriptions.

FUNDS for the further development of the University of Pennsylvania's medical facilities have reached the $1,235,000 mark with the receipt of new gifts amounting to more than $135,000. A total of $3,050,000 is sought.

GIFTS totaling more than $365,000 were accepted for the University of Michigan by the Board of Regents at the February meeting. These included $225,000, to be paid in amounts of $45,000 a year for five years, from three anonymous donors, to establish a laboratory for research and investigation of cancer and other forms of growth.

By the will of the late George French Porter, of

Chicago, the University of Chicago is to receive $200,000, the Field Museum and Yale Uniersity $25,000 each.

DR. WILLIAM MATHER LEWIS has resigned the presidency of George Washington University to become president of Lafayette College, at Easton, Pa.

DR. B. M. DUGGAR, of the Missouri Botanical Garden and Washington University, St. Louis, has been appointed professor of applied and physiological botany at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Duggar will take up his residence at Wisconsin in September.

DR. SAMUEL R. DETWILER, associate professor of anatomy at Harvard University, and Dr. Philip E. Smith, associate professor of anatomy at Stanford University, have been appointed professors of anatomy in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University.

DR. FRANK E. BURCH, St. Paul, has been appointed head of the eye, ear, nose and throat department, University of Minnesota School of Medicine, to succeed the late Dr. William R. Murray.

HOWARD O. TRIEBOLD, formerly holder of the American Cracker Manufacturers fellowship under the direction of Dr. C. H. Bailey, in the division of agricultural biochemistry at the University of Minnesota, has been appointed instructor in the chemistry of milling and baking in the department of agricultural and biological chemistry at the Pennsylvania State College.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE THE INCREASE IN SCIENTIFIC PERIODICALS SINCE THE GREAT WAR

In looking back to the period of the great war, it seems for the most part like a nightmare, but there were some bright spots, one of these being the peacefulness in the field of publication of scientific serials. Many journals took a vacation, some slowed up publication by dropping out or combining numbers, others ceased altogether. Even in 1919 when the war was supposed to be over, the amount of such material coming into the library of the Department of Agriculture was so small, that one person could look over the current mail and make all the necessary cards from which the "Botany, current literature" lists were compiled; and there was still plenty of time for other matters. Now in 1926 the indexing for the list consumes practically all the time of one person and a large part of the time of a second, and as for review and abstract journals, they are a task in themselves.

The growth in size of the "Botany, current literature" lists may, I think, be fairly taken as a measure of the increase of publication in that particular field using that phrase to include scientific serials contain

ing botanical material. In 1919 when the issuing of the lists began, the average size was eight to nine pages, fourteen pages being an unusually large list. In 1924-25 the average was twenty-two pages and with the shorter page now in use, it runs to thirtythree pages. Such an increase in publication would hardly have been looked for as a result of the war, in fact one would have expected quite the contrary. Some journals have changed name or form, and there are of course some casualties, but new recruits have, I think, more than filled up the ranks.

When I look over the mail that comes into the Department of Agriculture library each day, in its motley array of languages, I begin to doubt the wisdom of the principle of self-determination and almost to wish that the war had left the map of Europe as it found it. There are not only new publications from the older countries, but all these newly established states are plunging into publication, seemingly in all fields of science and what is more appalling to the indexer, each in its own language. Sometimes they are considerate enough to publish summaries in some of the well-known languages, as German, French or English, but just as often they do not. Translators are not available and dictionaries are woefully inadequate, particularly for the scientific terms. Some one has asked how we manage with these unfamiliar languages. One method used reminds me of a story. A small colored girl was being taught to read by means of a picture primer, her teacher placing her hand over the picture, pointed to a word and asked, "What is that, Sally?" Quick as a wink Sally replied "Ox." The teacher was suspicious as Sally had been rather slow in the uptake. "How do you know it's ox, Sally?" she asked. "Seed its tail," was the reply. That is often the method one has to pursue, one translates the title as best one may, looks over the text for old friends, rusts, smuts, weed flora, and familiar names of plants or sometimes familiar scientific terms taken over bodily from some better known language and decides that it belongs in the botanical catalogue and therefore in the "Botany: current literature" list. Every day one gives thanks for Latin. If it were not for the Latin scientific names and Latin descriptions, where would one be? As a listener at the discussion on nomenclature at the International Conference of Plant Science at Ithaca, I felt like protesting against the recommendation to give up the requiring of Latin in descriptions of new species, for, in many cases, the Latin is the only lifesaver one has in this flood of foreign languages. Do not encourage them to describe their plants in Russian, Czecho-Slovakian, Bulgarian, etc.!

In looking over the list of scientific serial publications indexed for "Botany: current literature," I find

that beginning with 1920 there are one hundred and fifty new titles of publications in sixteen different languages, twenty-three of these are Russian and eight Czecho-Slovakian. The activity of a country like Russia is astonishing when we consider through what an upheaval it has been and how hard have been the days of its reconstruction. One wonders how scientists have been able to work and publish under such conditions. In my impressions as to the amount of publications from Russia I am borne out by Miss Katherin G. Upton, who handles the Russian material for the library. These come not only from Russia proper but from Siberia, Central Asia, Turkestan, White Russia, Caucasus and Ukraine. The Botanic Garden at Leningrad besides continuing to publish the Acta Horti Petropolitani, Bulletin and Bolezni rastenii (its journal of plant pathology) has begun two new publications, the "Notulae systematicae" from its Herbarium and "Notulae systematicae" from the Cryptogamic Institute. When I mentioned the large number of publications coming out of Russia to Mme. Haffkin-Hamburger, the Russian delegate to the American Library Association Conference held at Atlantic City in October, her modest reply was "But we are so pig (big)." But their bigness, another handicap taken in connection with other conditions, makes the fact the more surprising.

Then one has to consider the publications which we have not been able to get hold of which are of interest to the indexer of botanical literature. There are some fourteen of these which have been announced in various review journals.

If the increase of publications is to continue what is to become of the maker of catalogues and lists such as the "Botany: current literature"? Shall we be swamped and have to give up entirely, or can we work out some selective method which will yet be satisfactory to the omnivorous user of such catalogues and lists?

We have heard much recently of the necessity of Americans becoming more internationally minded. I should suggest as one means to that, the indexing of foreign scientific publications.

BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY, WASHINGTON, D. C.

ALICE C. ATWOOD

HOOKE'S LAW AGAIN

A CAREFUL reading of Dr. Paul E. Klopsteg's rejoinder1 fails to show me the need of modifying my statement that the instruction sheet referred to "conveys the impression that accurate measurements should show strict proportionality between strain and 1 SCIENCE, November 5, 1926, p. 449.

stress." In fact my claim is virtually admitted in Dr. Klopsteg's own statement, "This graph, which is a straight line, shows that the elongation is, within the limits of experimental error, proportional to the stretching force."

It may be that my view of laboratory instruction is "unusual," but I hold that laboratory instruction should instruct and not tolerate inaccurate information. Science demands truthful statements. A scientific statement that is nearly true is about as valuable as an egg that is nearly good. I accept the opinion that my objection "must for the sake of consistency apply also to the measurement of acceleration of gravity by means of the simple pendulum." Yes, let the instructor warn the student that the vibrations are not isochronous and that the obedience of gases to Boyle's law is about as perfect as the obedience of our citizens to the Volstead law.

It is fairly obvious that if the tested wire is taken from a spool the initial increment of length when a stretching force is applied is partly an elastic lengthening and partly a result of straightening the wire. This latter effect diminishes with increasing loads while the elastic lengthenings produced by equal increments of load increase, as I have demonstrated. The net result is that the lengthenings are very nearly proportional to the forces. This is not mere hypothesis, this I have observed.

Since some may think that all my measurements were made with fine wires, I quote the following from my original paper:

In order to be perfectly sure that the phenomena which I have described were not confined to fine wires, I made careful measurements with larger wires. The loads placed on these were gradually increased to a maximum of 18 kg. and without exception the results obtained were similar to those which I have reported. The reasons, however, why I preferred to use fine wires are first, because in these the thermal effects vanish more rapidly, and second, because the loading and unloading can be done in shorter time, and thus the aftereffect is more completely eliminated.

The measurements with a steel wire will be found in my original paper and are similar to those made with brass and copper. Iron told the same story. Since the figures with brass and copper with diminishing load are interesting I give here the ratio of elastic lengthening in mm to load in kg in the case of a brass wire .66 mm in diameter: