director, who was highly respected not only as a scientist, but also for his noble spirit.

As some readers may not be acquainted with the controversy, we will briefly recapitulate the state of

matters.

Flammarion has mentioned in his "Catalogue des étoiles doubles," issued 1878, that he had discovered independently of O. Struve the irregular motion of the component C in the system of Cancri, but explains it otherwise than Struve, who ascribes it to the influence of a fourth invisible body.

Some years later Flammarion gives in his popular book "Les étoiles et les curiosités du ciel" the following statement: that he had written to Otto Struve asking the latter to communicate his latest observations of Cancri in order to complete the material available. Struve did not answer this letter, but sent some months later to the Paris Academy a paper, in which he assigns to himself the discovery of the irregular motion of the companion. C. Flammarion adds some ironical suggestions concerning singular coincidence of circumstances that he and Otto Struve simultaneously studied Cancri, that they both applied the same method and that Struve made his discovery after receipt of Flammarion's letter.

Mr. Miller raises in his "Biography of Flammarion" this quite unfounded suspicion, and accuses Otto Struve of plagiarism and "dishonorable conduct."

The letter of Flammarion to Struve is still preserved and an authenticated copy of the letter of April 29, 1874, quoted by Flammarion, is at hand in extenso.

We can confirm all that has been said by Messrs. Georg and Otto Struve in their reply to Mr. Miller's attack, namely, that the letter as concerns Cancri contains only a request to send new observations of this double star, about which Flammarion writes "c'est celui auquel je tiendrai le plus à cause de son importance comme système triple."

The discovery of an irregular motion is not even mentioned. Besides there was absolutely no need to call Struve's attention to Cancri, as he had observed the star since 1840 and the great leaps in the observations of this component had been indicated in 1855 by Winnecke in the Astronomische Nachrichten.

Although Mr. Miller explains in his second note his assertion, Flammarion had communicated to Struve "full particulars" of his discovery, expressed in the December issue of the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, by a mistake of his secretary, he seeks to find in the words "il ne répondit pas" a proof of dishonorable behavior by Otto Struve.

We find quite insignificant the fact that Flammarion did not receive an answer to his letter of April 29,

1874, but it may be by an omission on the part of Otto Struve, quite excusable owing to the extent of his correspondence, or by some possible neglect in the post.

Furthermore there is no reason to think that Struve intentionally kept secret his latest observations, as in the same letter Flammarion thanks Struve for the communication of observations of Cancri.

We do not examine here to what extent Flammarion was right in concealing from Otto Struve the results of his own studies of Cancri, while the latter obligingly put at the disposal of Flammarion his unpublished observations of this star.

After the contents of the letter of April 29 became known, there is no more need for further testimony to the fact that Flammarion did not inform Otto Struve of his discovery; thus the suspicion of plagiarism, of which a hint is given by Flammarion himself and which is so categorically expressed by Mr. Miller, has no foundation in fact.

PULCOVO

A. A. IVANOFF, Director of the Pulkovo Observatory

THE DISSOLUTION OF INSULIN INTO TWO NEW ACTIVE SUBSTANCES

AT the scientific meeting of the State Institute of Hygiene in Warsaw on November 4, 1926, I read a paper on the separation from insulin of two extremely interesting new substances. This preliminary report can be amplified as follows:

From the insulin produced in our institute the clinical unit being 0.07 mg. by an extremely mild fractionation procedure, for the present two substances could be obtained in a crystalline state, which are being designated in the preliminary way as A and B.

The substance A is contained in the insulin in a larger proportion, the yield corresponding to over half of the initial insulin and unlike the usual insulin it decreases the blood sugar in 70 to 80 per cent. of normal rabbits, but having a high initial blood sugar it decreases the blood sugar by 10 to 44 per cent. Similarly in rabbits with low initial blood sugar it produces either no effect or causes increases from 5 to 20 per cent. This observation has led me to apply the substance clinically on diabetics and non-diabetics in conjunction with Dr. Marceli Landsberg, of Warsaw. From the small number of cases investigated it would be premature as yet to reach a definite conclusion, but so far we had increases of blood sugar or no effect in non-diabetics and marked decreases in diabetics.

As to the substance B it represents a new hormone of complicated and not easily understood action.

Substance B when injected or given per os causes marked and lasting increases in blood sugar so that we have produced hyperglycemia and glucosuria in normal rabbits at six doses of 0.2 mg. of substance per day. The substance B causes a high-grade dilution of the blood with enormous retention of water and if one takes that dilution into account blood sugar increases amounted to over 800 per cent. The rabbits eventually died, and we are investigating the pathological changes, especially in the pancreas, on which a report will follow later. As the substance B was found in insulin and the latter hormone in a number of organs and therefore probably in food and as it acts per os one naturally suspects that this substance may have something to do with the causation of at least certain forms of diabetes.

STATE SCHOOL OF HYGIENE, WARSAW, POLAND

QUOTATIONS

CASIMIR FUNK

"NARCOSAN" AND DRUG ADDICTION NEWSPAPERS throughout the country holding membership in the North American Newspaper Alliance carried a story, December 15, concerning the discovery by "Dr." A. S. Horovitz of a new remedy for drug addiction known as "narcosan." Since his arrival on these shores in 1913, Horovitz has been continuously identified with attempts to promulgate cures for all sorts of disorders by mixtures of lipoids and vegetable substances of the nature of non-specific proteins. Included in his records are the HorovitzBeebe "cure" for cancer, the Merrell proteogens for the cure of practically everything and more recently "narcosan," originally brought out about 1920 under the name of "lipoidal substances." Horovitz's present effort to promote "narcosan" as a cure for narcotic addiction is supported by a clinical investigation by Drs. Alexander Lambert, ex-president of the American Medical Association, and Frederick Tilney, one of the editors of the Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry. The paper by these investigators appears in the New York Medical Journal and Record for the week of December 17. This paper was rejected by the Journal of the American Medical Association because the Council of Pharmacy and Chemistry rejected the product known as "lipoidal substances" in 1921, because up to the present time the product has not been resubmitted and is apparently still of unestablished composition, and because the clinical investigations are not set forth in such a manner as to indicate even ordinary controls, such as might have been secured by treating an equal number of patients with the nonspecific proteins alone. Furthermore, on their admittance into the hospital, the patients were given a

cathartic mixture consisting of seven ingredients, including some of those in the compound vegetable cathartic pill and a few others. Nevertheless, the paper was promptly accepted by the New York Medical Journal and Record, and simultaneously with its appearance in that periodical, a complete statement, highly exaggerated, was issued by the North American Newspaper Alliance. This statement appeared in three parts: the first, an account of the Lambert clinical investigations; the second, life stories of some of the patients, and the third, a highly sensational account of the life of A. S. Horovitz, omitting, however, all the points in his record to which reference has been made earlier in this comment. As soon as it was learned in the headquarters office that the newspaper publicity mentioned had been released by the North American Newspaper Alliance, a statement was given to the Associated Press defining the position of the American Medical Association headquarters office in this matter. Perhaps time will reveal sufficient basis in the Horovitz discovery to warrant its acceptance; possibly the clinical investigations made by Drs. Lambert and Tilney have been strictly accurate and scientific; maybe something actually worth while will come from this attempt to control drug addiction. Nevertheless, there is a method which has been repeatedly defined by the American Medical Association as the safe and scientific method of introducing a new proprietary. The American Medical Association has established a council which will act promptly in passing on the claims made for such products and on their worthiness. Journal of the American Medical Association.

SCIENTIFIC BOOKS

Colloid and Capillary Chemistry. By HERBERT FREUNDLICH. Translated from the third German edition by H. Stafford Hatfield. New York, E. P. Dutton and Company, 1926. 886 pages, 156 figures.

THIS monumental work has hitherto been available only in the original German, but its value as a classic has long called for a translation. At first it was styled "Kapillarchemie," and capillary chemistry still receives a great deal of attention from the author. However, colloidally dispersed systems cover more than half the pages of this book.

The physicist will enjoy the author's treatment of the interfaces liquid-gas, liquid-liquid, solid-gas, solidsolid and also the chapters on capillary-electrical phenomena and the properties of interfacial layers. Nor will he be disappointed with the attention given to membrane equilibria and the osmotic pressure of lyophilic sols.

The biologist will find much to attract him and so will the industrialist, as well as the regular colloid chemist.

Naturally the author of the famous Freundlich adsorption formula would present an exhaustive treatment of adsorption, and this is justifiable, for adsorption is the backbone of colloid chemistry. The opposing arguments of Langmuir and Polanyi as to the thickness of adsorbed films, monomolecular or polymolecular, are given fully and fairly.

The author's clear thinking is illustrated by the following statement: "In comparing different adsorbents we must remember that the amount adsorbed, which is referred to unit weight of adsorbent, does not permit of any proper comparison. It includes two quantities which must be separated: first the actual specific adsorptive power, that is, the amount adsorbed per square centimeter of surface; and secondly, the specific surface area, that is, the extent of the surface of 1 gram of adsorbent."

It is interesting to note (p. 726) that, in using Debye and Scherrer's method of X-ray study of gels, fibers, etc., it is best to arrange ramie in parallel threads.

In discussing membranes and surface films Freundlich insists that semi-permeability can not be a question of a pure sieve action. "With a sieve action one should be able to arrange the membranes in a series in the order of their permeability. But this is by no means the case; a membrane particularly impermeable to the majority of substances may be more permeable to some substances than is a membrane which is otherwise, in general, permeable."

Enzymes receive extensive treatment under the topic, "The Kinetics of Reactions accelerated by Enzymes." Following this is a discussion of the "Inhibition of Biological Processes by Capillaryactive Substances."

It is rather surprising to learn (p. 825) that precipitates of the hydroxides of aluminum and ferric iron formed rapidly by addition of ammonia to the corresponding salt solutions are amorphous, while the micellae of A1,0, and Fe,O, sols, formed slowly by hydrolysis, are crystalline (shown by Debye and Scherrer's methods).

3

On page 837 the author puts the brakes on Loeb's too-enthusiastic, too-general application of Donnan's equilibrium theory.

The thousands of references given in this great treatise add much to its value. But if one is overwhelmed by the 883 pages one can take refuge in Freundlich's little "Elements of Colloidal Chemistry." HARRY N. HOLMES

OBERLIN COLLEGE

Deep Sea Fishing in New Zealand: Tales of the Angler's ElDorado, New Zealand. By ZANE GREY. New York, Harper Brothers.

MR. ZANE GREY, "the Izaak Walton of the open sea," the leading deep sea angler of the world, has opened a new field, an "Angler's ElDorado," in his experiences in and about the Bay of Islands, on the North Island of New Zealand. This body of water is a fair rival of Santa Catalina, Cape San Lucas and Southern Florida; three great centers of tuna, sailfish and marlins, which Mr. Grey has already explored.

Besides its thrilling interest to anglers, it has much of value to the ichthyologist in its excellent plates and accounts of distribution and habits. All these fishes (some reaching 1,400 pounds) are too large for bottling and only now and then can individuals be properly preserved and mounted. Most studies of them must be made through photographs.

The two species especially treated and figured by Mr. Grey in this work belong both to the genus Makaira or "Marlin-spike-fishes." One of these has been very lately named Makaira zelandica by Jordan and Evermann, on photographs from the Bay of Islandi, the other, as Mr. Grey asserts, is still unnamed and is called by him "the black marlin" to distinguish it from the striped marlin or zelandica. It is closely related to the huge "black marlin" (Makaira marlina) of the west coast of Mexico, but its fins are still lower and the spear shorter. In Jordan and Evermann's recent memoir on "The Giant Mackerellike Fishes" of the world, the New Zealand "black marlin" is provisionally identified with the marlin of South Africa, Makaira herscheli. But this species has longer fins and a longer spear.

The generic Makaira must be used for the "marlinspike-fishes," which differ from the sailfishes, Istiophorus, in the very low dorsal. Tetrapturus, the spearfishes, a third genus, is intermediate, having a low dorsal also, but with the posterior spines relatively elevated, almost as long as those in front. No species of Tetrapturus is known from America, but species occur in the Mediterranean, in Hawaii and in Japan. DAVID STARR JORDAN

SCIENTIFIC APPARATUS AND

LABORATORY METHODS

"A F S," A NEW RESIN OF HIGH REFRACTIVE INDEX FOR MOUNTING MICROSCOPIC OBJECTS

A LARGE percentage of objects mounted on glass slides for examination through the microscope depend

for their visibility upon the difference in refractive index of the object and the material in which it is embedded. The greater this difference, the greater is the contrast in the object and the finer is the detail which can be resolved. Also, the higher the refractive index of the embedding material the greater is the depth of focus (penetration) of any objective lens.

If an object has a refractive index of 1.43 (air = 1) it becomes invisible when mounted in material of the

same index. It becomes increasingly more contrasty (visible) as the surrounding substance has its index reduced, but the limit in this direction is 1 or a dry mount. Therefore, for this and some other reasons, dry mounts have never been satisfactory. As the refractive index of the surrounding medium is increased above 1.43 the object becomes more and more contrasty. A great deal of research has been conducted in the past to discover a material suitable for mounting purposes and of high index and there is a large literature on the subject. Many chemicals have been investigated and almost the entire series of natural gums, resins and alkaloids. Up to the present time, however, and except for special purposes the microscopist has been limited to two or three natural resins or mixtures of resins, the refractive index of which is very low. He is, therefore, greatly handicapped at the start of his effort, which, in most cases, is to see as much as he can with his microscope. Of the common mountants, Canada balsam has come into almost universal use because it can be procured easily, is chemically stable and is easily manipulated. Long ago it was pointed out that the exudation of the American sweet gum tree, Liquidambar styraciflua, was superior to balsam, but it has not come into general use. This resin is sometimes called "styrax," but it should not be confused with an oriental product of that name used in pharmacy. Its refractive index is 1.58; Canada balsam is 1.53.

Even the liquid amber is not sufficiently high for many objects; in fact, it is desirable to have a series of mounting mediums, one end having the maximum attainable refractive index.

After making exhaustive experiments in many directions the assistance of Mr. Paul Ruedrich was solicited and we began a line of search through the synthetic resins. One of particular promise has been discovered and is noted in our records as "A F S."

It is composed of analine, formaldehyde and sulphur. A range of refractive index from 1.68 to almost 2.0 has been obtained and after two months' standing it appears to be entirely stable. The discovery was made on October 8, 1926. It is a well-known fact that substances closely related to this resin are the

most stable in organic chemistry and have come into wide industrial use within recent years. It can not of course be definitely proved to be stable until after years of observation, but present indications are that it will be. Certainly it will keep unaltered for a period of months. This substance is a yellow resin which can be used in a thick viscous condition or thinned down with aniline or other solvents. It is used in the same manner as Canada balsam and does not offer some of the difficulties encountered with that substance. It may be hardened in the air, in an oven or with stronger heat. Although yellow in color it effectively transmits the apple-green rays for which most microscopic objectives are corrected.

A comparison of the utility of mounting mediums is afforded by the "index of visibility" which is the amount of difference between the refractive index of object mounted and that of the medium used. Thus, if the silica of diatoms be used for illustration, its index of refraction being 1.43, its index of visibility in Canada balsam becomes 1.53-1.43.10. In liquid amber it is 1.52-1.43.15. This means, practically, that 50 per cent. greater utility is obtained from a given microscope if the object be mounted in the latter. In this "A F S" synthetic resin the visibility becomes 1.68-1.43.25, while in a solidified form it becomes 1.88-1.43.45; all intervening values may be had. Thus a diatom in "A S F" becomes four and a half times or 450 per cent. more visible than it would be in Canada balsam. The same principles apply with all objects, either stained or unstained.

Likewise, increase in depth of focus being directly proportional to the index of refraction of the mounting medium, this factor, so important in photomicrography, becomes almost twice as great in "A F S" as in balsam.

From the optical properties of this material and its ease of manipulation I am forced to the belief that it will enable the human eye to see that which no eye has seen before.

night before being prepared for the food. This amount of food is sufficient for about 30 half-pint milk-bottles. We have been using this culture medium for the last few years, and find it quite satisfactory. In fact, it is practically just as good as the bananaagar food for D. melanogaster or D. immigrans, and is apparently better than the banana for D. virilis. The greatest advantage of the food is, however, that it is much cheaper than the banana food, costing only about one third of the latter in Kyoto at least. Thus, in Kyoto:

SPECIAL ARTICLES

ON THE ORIGIN OF SUN-SPOT VORTICES Ir is well known that sun spots are the visible manifestations of great cyclonic storms in the surface gases of the sun. It is also known that the gases earried around in the sun-spot vortices carry with them great electric charges, apparently of negative sign. In his estimate of the magnitude of the elements of a given sun spot, Carl Störmer1 concluded that the negative charge over the sun spot area was equivalent to 5.5-1015 electrons over each square centimeter.

The origin of these great cyclones and the source of the charges carried by the revolving gases have never been explained. The only known way by which such a charged area could be isolated upon a good conductor, such as the sun is supposed to be, is by electrostatic induction from a charge upon some other body in the vicinity of the conductor, and aside from this possibility the only conclusion possible in the present state of our knowledge is that the whole surface of the sun is charged to a potential as great, or nearly as great, as the sun-spot area.

There are other reasons for believing the sun to be

charged to an enormous negative potential. It is known that the sun has a magnetic field many times as strong as the magnetic field of the earth, and the only known way in which such a field could be maintained is by electrical currents flowing around the sun, presumably caused by negative charges carried around by the sun's rotation.

Another argument for a negatively charged sun is the apparent impossibility of explaining the slight density of gases at the base of the solar corona except by electric repulsion. The corona has every appearance of a gaseous atmosphere several millions of miles in height, yet the gas pressure at its base has been estimated by astronomers as low as 10-13 atmosphere, a lower pressure than we are able to produce in our best air pump vacuum.

The explanation most frequently proposed for this low atmospheric pressure is that the coronal gases are supported by radiation pressure, though it has been shown that this assumption is impossible. According to careful measurements, the total radiation of the sun if it were completely absorbed would be capable of supporting a pressure of about 2.3 milligrams to the square centimeter near the sun's surface. The corona was photographed by Maunder2 in 1898 to a height of at least five million miles above the sun's surface. In order to be supported by radiation pressure the total weight of a column of coronal gas five million miles high and one square centimeter in cross section could weigh only 2.3 milligrams on a body where gravitation is twenty-seven times as great as upon the earth, and provided it absorbed the total solar radiation.

But the solar radiation is only slightly absorbed by the corona. From measurements made on the brightness of the corona it seems to be about one eighthundred-thousandth that of the sun. This must mean that all the light absorbed and re-emitted and all the light reflected in the corona is about one eight-hundred-thousandth of the total solar radiation.

Schwarzschild,3 in a theoretical analysis of radiation pressure, showed that the pressure of sunlight upon particles of the dimensions of gas molecules would be insignificant as compared with the sun's gravitation attraction. He accordingly proposed the hypothesis that the solar corona consists of free electrons, and he calculated that such an atmosphere would reflect light of all wave-lengths with equal facility (which is not true of other gases) and that it would partly polarize the reflected light, both of which phenomena appear in the corona. The one objection

2 Arrhenius, "Kosmische Physik," p. 119.

3 Sitzungsber, d. K. Bayer, Akad., Math.-Phys. Kl., 31, 293-338 (1901).