If one suggestion of Engler's is adopted, the violence done to the guiding principle of phylogeny is still worse than if currently accepted views are correct. "Mir scheint die Annahme berechtigt, dass bei der Entstehung einzelliger Organismen gleich anfangs mit verschiedenen Genen ausgestattete Schizophyten, Schizomyceten und Schizophyceen, Myxomyceten, Flagellaten, Dinoflagellaten, Bacillariaceen und Conjugaten entstanden." This appears to propose that all these divisions arose independently from inorganic matter. A plant kingdom, including them, is then no more "natural" than a kingdom of the stones. These various creatures do not disappear from the course in botany, just because they are not plants. To the extent that they are subjects of interest, this is still the most convenient place to become acquainted with them. Also, some knowledge of them is necessary for the understanding of real plants; just as one would begin with Chinese art and literature if his subject of study were Japanese civilization, and as the historian of a war must first picture its background. Anthoceros is not regarded as a fern, however important a knowledge of its life history is for the understanding of theirs. The most of the differences between different texts and different courses are very unimportant. It is, however, very important that common sense, consistency, reasonableness, never be ignored. There is no other one thing so important in systematic biology as the fact that the grouping of organisms reflects and expresses their true relationships. It is inconsistent and unreasonable to begin the course in botany by doing violence to this basic principle. Summary: The living things are not all plants or animals. Nature has been more resourceful, more thorough in trying out the possibilities. Another kingdom, that of the bacteria, using the word in an inexact sense, is likewise world-wide in distribution, probably most numerous in individuals and very important in its human relations. And, beside these three major kingdoms, there are a number of minor kingdoms, not unsuccessful, but much less successful lines of evolution from the primitive beginnings of life. CHICO, CALIFORNIA E. B. COPELAND SCIENTIFIC EVENTS THE NEW OXFORD SCHOOL OF THE Sir William Dunn school of pathology at Oxford University, which has been three years building and has cost £70,000, was handed over on March 11 by the Sir William Dunn trustees, the directors of the Commercial Union Assurance Company, to the uni versity. The opening ceremony was attended by many leading scientists, as well as by practically all the senior members of the university. The new building will be under the direction of Professor Georges Dreyer, who has been professor of pathology at Oxford University since 1907. It has been designed to give the best modern facilities for teaching and research. In the old department there was somewhat inferior accommodation for about twenty-eight students. In the new building there is room for at least fifty, with every modern facility. Though by no means the largest, it is one of the best equipped institutions of its kind in the world. The old department could not house more than ten research workers, some of them with inadequate quarters. Here there is ample accommodation for twenty-five, and each is equipped with a large room, electric light and power and the latest appliances and fittings. The general design of the building aims at simplicity. There are three corridors, one above the other, running the entire length of the building. Research will occupy the eastern and teaching the western wing, and at the rear there is modern accommodation for animals. The study of the effect of light and of X-rays on living matter, the chemistry research and the biochemistry research are each furnished with special apartments. In the basement is a low-pressure chamber, which was designed during the war by Captain H. F. Pierce, now associate in physiology in Columbia University, built in the United States in 1917, and taken to France for testing air pilots. It was acquired by Professor Dreyer at the armistice from the American air force, and has since been used in a number of physiological experiments on the effect of altitude in producing mountain sickness and other disturbances and for other experiments. The school has on the ground floor an ample provision of space for the development of a fine departmental library. Mr. C. D. Seligman, who made the presentation, said in part: The trustees felt strongly that it was far better, in the interests of mankind, to get at the primary causes of disease than to deal with disease when it had manifested itself. It was essential for this purpose that there should be a continued and sustained supply of men and women of the kind whose minds lent themselves to research, and what better place could they have for assembling such minds than the great seats of learning? While the Sir William Dunn Trustees had endowed a school of biochem istry at Cambridge and a school of pathology at Oxford, the Rockefeller trustees had endowed a school of biochemistry at Oxford and a school of pathology at Cambridge. ACTS OF CONGRESS RELATING TO SCIENTIFIC WORK FOLLOWING is a list of some of the acts of the last congress relating to scientific work: H. R. 17138-Authorizing an appropriation of $50,000 to enable the secretary of agriculture to cooperate with the South Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station in investigating the dairying and livestock industries and the problems pertaining to the establishment and development of such industries, including cropping systems, soil improvement and farm-management studies related to such industries, and for demonstration, assistance and service in developing agriculture of the Sand Hill region of the Southeast. (Appropriation lost through failure of second deficiency bill.) S. 1640-Authorizing the secretary of agriculture to establish and maintain a national arboretum on land within or adjacent to the District of Columbia for purposes of research and education concerning tree and plant life; authorizing the president to transfer to the jurisdiction of the secretary of agriculture by executive order any land now belonging to the United States located along the Anacostia River north of Benning Bridge, to be used for arboretum purposes; authorizing an appropriation of $300,000 for the purchase of additional land for arboretum purposes, with a restriction that the purchase price of any part of said land shall not exceed the full value assessment of such property last made before purchase thereof plus 25 per cent. of such assessed value; and authorizing the secretary of agriculture to create an advisory council in relation to the plan and development of the national arboretum to be established under this act, to include representatives of national organizations interested in the work of the arboretum. The act provides that the arboretum shall be administered separately from the agricultural, horticultural and forestry stations of the Department of Agriculture, but that it shall be so correlated with them as to bring about the most effective utilization of its facilities and discoveries. (Appropriation for land purchases lost through failure of second deficiency bill.) S. 4153-Authorizing an appropriation of $820,000 for the acquisition of squares 576 and 578 in the District of Columbia as an addition to the United States Botanic Garden. (Appropriation lost through failure of second deficiency bill.) S. 4910-Granting approximately 54,000 acres of public lands to the State of New Mexico for use of the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in conducting educational, demonstration and experimental work with livestock, grazing methods and range forage plants. S. 5722-Authorizing an appropriation of $876,398 for the construction of new conservatories and other necessary buildings for the United States Botanic Garden. S. J. Res. 120-Authorizing acceptance by the secretary of agriculture of a gift of about 1,760 acres of land in Teton County, Wyo., to be known as the Izaak Walton League Addition to the winter elk refuge maintained by the Biological Survey at Jackson Hole, Wyo., to be used for the grazing of, and as a refuge for, American elk and other big game animals. MEETING OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES FOLLOWING is the program of scientific papers to be presented at the annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington on April 25 and 26. Monday, April 25, at 10:00 A. M. FRANCIS G. BENEDICT and CORNELIA GOLAY BENEDICT: W. J. V. OSTERHOUT: Some aspects of protoplasmic surfaces. FLORENCE R. SABIN and CHARLES A. DOAN: The effect of tubercle bacilli and the chemical fractions obtained from analysis on the cells of the connective tissues in rabbits. F. E. DENNY (introduced by John M. Coulter): The effect of small amounts of chemicals in increasing the life activities of plants. A. V. HILL (by invitation): The measurement of the heat production of nerve (illustrated). R. W. WOOD: Physical, chemical and biological effects of high frequency sound-waves (illustrated). GEORGE A. BAITSELL (introduced by Ross G. Harrison): Additional evidence as to the intercellular formation of connective tissue. April 25 at 2:00 P. M. L. E. DICKSON: Generalizations of Waring's problem on powers. R. A. MILLIKAN and I. S. BOWEN: Relationships in the spectra of the elements of the first row of the periodio table (illustrated). F. E. WRIGHT: The polarization of light by reflection from rough rock surfaces, with special reference to the material exposed at the moon's surface. WALTER S. ADAMS and ALFRED H. Joy: High dispersion stellar spectra and some results of a study of y Cygni. WALTER S. ADAMS and ALFRED H. JOY: The relationship of spectral type to period among variable stars. F. K. RICHTMYER (introduced by J. S. Ames): The variation of the adsorption of X-rays with wave length. K. T. COMPTON and P. M. MORSE: Theory of the normal cathode fall. E. C. WATSON (introduced by R. A. Millikan): Spacial distribution of the photo-electrons ejected by X-rays. CHARLES E. ST. JOHN: Revision of Rowland's tables of solar spectrum wave lengths. DE THIERRY (by invitation): Application of law of similitude to hydraulic laboratory research. DAYTON C. MILLER: Report on ether drift experiments at Cleveland in 1927. C. G. ABBOT: Periodicity in solar radiation. PAUL R. HEYL (introduced by G. K. Burgess): A redetermination of the Newtonian constant of gravitation. EDWARD KASNER: Differential invariants of irregular elements. Evening, at 8:30, in the Central Hall FRANK B. JEWETT and HERBERT E. IVES: Some recent advances in the art of distant electrical communication. Following this address, to which the members of the scientific societies of Washington are invited, the rooms adjacent to the Central Hall will be open for the inspection of the scientific exhibits. April 26 at 9:30 A. M. R. H. CHITTENDEN: Biographical memoir of William Henry Brewer. (To be read by title.) EDWIN H. HALL: Thermionic emission and the "universal constant' A. H. F. BLICHFELDT: On the minimum values of positive quadratic forms. W. H. CREW and E. O. HULBURT (introduced by J. S. Ames): Pressures in discharge tubes. FRANCIS B. SILSBEE (introduced by G. K. Burgess): Current distribution in supra conductors. K. T. COMPTON and C. C. VAN VOORHIS: Heats of condensation of positive ions and the mechanism of the mercury arc. W. A. NOYES: Magnetic hydrogen atoms and non-magnetic hydrogen molecules. W. A. NOYES: The relation of the octet of electrons to ionization. JOHN C. MERRIAM: Exhibit of research results in the Grand Canyon. CHARLES W. GILMORE (introduced by John C. Merriam): Footprints of unknown vertebrate animals in the Carboniferous and Permian of the Grand Canyon, Arizona. DAVID WHITE: The age of the Hermit shale in the Grand Canyon, Arizona. CHESTER STOCK and RALPH W. CHANEY (introduced by John C. Merriam): Fauna and flora of a new Pleistocene asphalt deposit near Santa Barbara. JOHN C. MERRIAM: Significance of geologic range, or life period of animal species. NEIL M. JUDD (introduced by W. H. Holmes): The architectural evolution of Pueblo Bonito. April 26 at 2:00 P. M. D. F. HEWETT (introduced by David White): Late Tertiary thrust faults in the Mojave Desert. ARTHUR L. DAY: Boring for natural steam in California. ARTHUR L. DAY: Recent volcanic activity in Japan. DOUGLAS JOHNSON (introduced by David White): Sealevel surfaces and the problem of coastal subsidence. HARRY FIELDING REID: The fundamentals of isostasy. SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS DR. J. J. ABEL, professor of pharmacology at the Johns Hopkins University, will be presented with the Willard Gibbs medal at the second annual meeting of the Mid-West regional division of the American Chemical Society in Chicago on May 27 and 28. DR. SIMON FLEXNER, director of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, gave a series of three lectures on epidemiology under the Herter Foundation of the University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York, on April 18, 20 and 22. PROFESSOR JAMES W. JOBLING, of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, was elected president of the American Association of Pathologists and Bacteriologists at the recent Rochester meeting. AT the Richmond meeting of the American Chemical Society, Professor Richard Willstätter, until recently head of the department of chemistry at the University of Munich, now lecturing in the United States, was elected an honorary member. The society restored to honorary membership Dr. Wilhelm Ostwald and Dr. Walter Nernst, who had been dropped from the rolls during the war. SIR FREDERICK GOWLAND HOPKINS, professor of biochemistry at the University of Cambridge, received from the University of Aberdeen, at the graduation ceremonies on March 23, the honorary degree of LL.D. Ar the June convocation of the University of Durham, the honorary degree of D.C.L. will be conferred upon Sir James Berry, president of the Royal Society of Medicine and consulting surgeon to the Royal Free Hospital. DR. CHARLES F. JENKIN, professor of engineering at Oxford University, and Dr. A. C. Seward, professor of botany at the University of Cambridge, will receive honorary degrees from the University of Edinburgh at the graduation ceremony on June 1. DR. JOHANNES THIENEMANN, director of the bird station at Rositten, has been elected a corresponding member of the American Ornithologists' Union and of the Danzig Society of Natural History. PROFESSOR WILLIAM THALBITZER, Danish naturalist and Arctic explorer, has been awarded the Loubat prize of the Swedish Academy of Science. THE Council of the Geological Society of London has this year awarded the proceeds of the DanielPidgeon Trust Fund to Mr. William Elgin Swinton, who proposed to undertake the comparison of British Mesozoic reptilia with those from similar deposits on the continent of Europe. DR. ARTUR HANTZSCH, professor of chemistry at the University of Leipzig, celebrated his seventieth birthday on March 7. DR. WALLACE W. ATWOOD, president of Clark University, has been presented with a diploma by the Institute of Technology of Breslau, Germany, conferring upon him the rank and rights of honorary senator. The testimonial said the diploma was given because of his distinguished work in development of economic geography and his efforts for the reestablishment of scientific relations between America and Germany. MRS. CARL AKELEY, of New York, has been awarded the Royal Decoration of Honneur Extraordinaire by King Albert of Belgium for her work in completing the expedition of her late husband, Carl Akeley, into the Belgian Congo to get gorilla specimens for the American Museum of Natural History. AT the meeting of the Alabama Academy of Science held in Birmingham on April 8 and 9 the following officers were elected for the year 1927-28: President, John R. Sampey, Howard College, Birmingham; first vice-president, John Y. Graham, University of Alabama; second vice-president, Harry F. Thomson, Birmingham; secretary-treasurer, James L. Brakefield, Howard College, Birmingham. The president appointed Dr. Wright A. Gardner, Alabama Polytechnic Institute, councilor to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. DR. HOWARD A. EDSON, scientific and administrative head of the office of vegetable and forage diseases of the U. S. Bureau of Plant Industry, has been appointed chief examiner of the United States Civil Service Commission by President Coolidge. He succeeds Herbert A. Filer, who died recently. DR. WILLIAM MONTGOMERY MCGOVERN, anthropologist and explorer, has been appointed assistant curator of South American ethnology in the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago. E. L. CHAPPELL has left the research laboratory of applied chemistry of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to continue special studies on corrosion of water piping for the National Tube Company in the New York area. DR. JOSEPH S. ILLICK has been appointed State Forester for Pennsylvania. For the last seven years he has been chief of information and director of research for the forestry department. PROFESSOR LAURENCE M. GOULD, of the department of geology at the University of Michigan, has been named senior member and director of the George Palmer Putnam Expedition which will visit the Arctic regions this summer. The field work of the expedition will include extensive surveys in conjunc tion with a detailed mapping of the chief geographic characteristics of the area north of Baffin Island. DR. N. L. BRITTON, director-in-chief of the New York Botanical Garden, has returned from a ten weeks' collecting trip in Porto Rico. MRS. AGNES CHASE, associate botanist in the grass herbarium at the U. S. National Museum, sailed for Europe on March 26. She intends to visit Berlin, Paris, Geneva and Vienna, returning about June 15. The primary object of the trip is to study types of Paspalum in connection with a monograph of this grass genus now in preparation. DR. GILBERT GROSVENOR, president of the National Geographical Society, sailed from New York on April 13, for a five weeks' visit to Spain and Morocco. DR. HARLOW SHAPLEY, director of the Harvard Col lege Observatory, gave a lecture entitled “Beyond the Milky Way" at Cornell University on March 12. PROFESSOR WALDEMAR LINDGREN gave four lectures on mineral deposits, with especial reference to those of magmatic affiliations, at Queen's University on March 8, 9 and 10, under the auspices of the Willet G. Miller fund. On April 9, Professor J. H. Priestley, of the department of botany, University of Leeds, England, delivered an address to the Royal Canadian Institute on the subject "Light and the Growth of the Plant." SIR JOHN RUSSELL, director of the Rothamsted Experiment Station, England, will lecture at the Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station in May. DR. FRANCIS CUYLER VAN DYCK, emeritus professor of physics at Rutgers University, died on April 11, aged eighty-two years. DR. DAVID HOUGH DOLLEY, professor of pathology in the school of medicine at St. Louis University, has died at the age of forty-eight years. DR. JULIUS S. HORTVET, for twenty-seven years chief chemist of the Minnesota State Dairy and Food Department, has died, aged sixty-three years. THE death is announced of Dr. D. MacEwan, emeritus professor of surgery in Univeristy College, University of Dundee. ARTHUR BERNARD DEACON, a recent graduate in anthropology from the University of Cambridge, died on March 12 at Malecule, in the Hebrides, where he had gone on an anthropological expedition. Mr. Deacon was twenty-four years old. PROFESSOR HERMANN WICHELHAUS, formerly head of the department of technology at the University of Berlin, has died, at the age of eighty-five years. DR. GEORGE OSSIAN SARS, retired professor of zoology at the University of Oslo, well known for his work on oceanic zoology, died on April 10, at the age of ninety years. THE American Electrochemical Society is to celebrate its silver jubilee at the coming spring meeting, to be held at the Hotel Benjamin Franklin, Philadelphia, on April 28, 29 and 30. Professor Edgar F. Smith, of the University of Pennsylvania, will preside at the session commemorating the founding of the society. Most of the charter members now living expect to attend the meeting. Interesting papers have been received describing the progress made in the past twenty-five years in the electric furnace, aluminum, cyanamid, chlorine and other industries. There will also be a review of the general progress in the entire field of electrochemistry. An outstanding feature of one of the meetings will be the address by Peter Debye, of the University of Zurich, on "The Dielectric Constant of Electrolyte Solutions." Professor Hugh S. Taylor, of Princeton University, will preside at this session. THE Illinois State Academy of Science will hold its twentieth annual meeting on April 29 and 30 at Joliet, Illinois. The preliminary program contains a list of more than sixty papers to be presented before the various sections of the academy. A JOINT meeting of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, the Wisconsin Archeological Society and the Midwest Museums Conference was held at the University of Wisconsin on April 7, 8 and 9. At the close of the meeting the following were elected to serve as officers of the Wisconsin Academy for a term of three years: President, Samuel A. Barrett; vice-president for sciences, Storrs B. Barrett; vice-president for arts, Arnold Dresden; vicepresident for letters, E. K. J. Voss; secretarytreasurer, Chancey Juday. THE Journal of the American Medical Association reports that the fourth International Military, Medical and Pharmaceutical Congress will be held at Warsaw, Poland, in May. About 3,000 delegates representing forty countries will participate, but the United States will not be represented officially because of the failure of Congress to pass the second deficiency appropriation bill; it will be represented unofficially by representatives of the U. S. Public Health Service who may be in the proximity of Warsaw at the time of the congress. A sanitaryhygienic exhibit will be held in connection with the congress, which will consist of sections on (1) military field sanitary equipment; (2) scientific hospital equipment; (3) sanitary equipment of dwellings; (4) chemical and pharmaceutic material; (5) physicians' and dentists' office equipment, and (6) veterinary equipment. Details may be obtained from the American commercial attaché, Aleja Ujazdowska 36, Warsaw, Poland. THE Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain is holding its seventy-second annual exhibition in September and October of this year. This is said to be the most representative exhibition of photographic work in the world, and the section sent by American scientific men heretofore has sufficiently demonstrated the place held by this country in applied photography. It is hoped that the scientific section will be well represented in 1927, and, in order to enable this to be done, with as little difficulty as possible, A. J. Newton, of the Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, N. Y., has arranged to collect and forward American work intended for the scientific section. This work should consist of prints showing the use of photography for scientific purposes and its application to spectroscopy, astronomy, radiography, biology, etc. Photographs should be received not later than June 11. THE Massachusetts Institute of Technology announces ten research fellowships of $1,000 each for the year 1927-28, open to graduate students who desire to undertake the investigation of fundamental problems in the field of automotive engineering. Applicants for these fellowships must present evidence, not only of high scholastic standing, but also ability to carry on research. Further information regarding these fellowships may be obtained from Professor H. M. Goodwin, dean of graduate students, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. IN cooperation with the Pittsburgh Experiment Station of the United States Bureau of Mines, eight research fellowships in mining and metallurgy are offered by the Carnegie Institute of Technology for the coming year. The fellowships are open to graduates of colleges, universities and technical schools who are properly qualified to undertake research investigations. Each fellowship carries a stipend of $750. The purpose is the solution of problems which are of special importance to the mining, metallurgical and allied industries. Several of the fellowships will be financed by industrial groups or corporations. SECRETARY JARDINE has reappointed as members of the Northeastern Forest Research Council, for a period of four years, Professor R. S. Hosmer, of Cornell University, and Dr. J. C. Kendall, of the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station. He has also appointed S. H. Thomson, president of the Federal Land Bank, of Springfield, Mass., in place of C. H. Keith, of the New England Box Company, and |