promises to bestow; but it would indeed be unfortunate if the momentary enthusiasm for one department were to obscure the deserts of the other subdivision.

This thought may properly merit emphasis at the present moment when the prestige and popularity of organic chemistry seem to be eclipsed by the younger physical chemistry, perhaps even to the extent of being in danger of real neglect by the oncoming students. Shall they forget such "marvelous achievements of theoretical reasoning and of practical skill" as the commercially successful synthesis of indigo from coal tar products at a time when, as Pope remarked, the manufacture of natural indigo was carried out by methods which the Pharaohs might have criticized as conservative? Can we afford to overlook the fact that the organic chemist deals with manifold substrates which involve the surface relations, intermolecular forces, hydrogen ions and chemical equilibria of physical chemistry? Surely the day of the organic chemist has not yet passed. Physiological chemistry, about which I may perhaps speak with greater assurance, is feeling the effects of the prevailing prejudice created by the new domination. A survey of some of the biochemical literature gives the impression that the broad field of the detailed composition and function of living structures is being envisaged from a somewhat narrow angle one in which colloidal phenomena, ionic equilibria, permeability factors, osmotic and surface forces furnish the chief basis for the outlook. Yet we remain grossly ignorant as to the actual chemical composition of most of the tissues and fluids of both plants and animals. A constructive inroad into these unexplored recesses, an endeavor to discover the unrecognized organic compounds out of which the living cell, the morphologic background of protoplasm, the basis of life, is built up can not fail to be worthwhile. It calls for superior chemical talent; for something more than the ability to analyze products in the conventional terms of protein, fat, carbohydrate and ash. Cytoplasm and nucleus, chromosomes and vacuoles are little more than words to the biochemist. Here is hidden much temporarily neglected wealth remaining to be uncovered.

This appeal for a rejuvenation of interest in what may be regarded as one phase of organic chemistry should not be interpreted in any way as even the slightest disparagement of the rival branches. It is made, rather, with the purpose of showing the limitations of exclusive "fashions" in chemical research; it is uttered with the hope of encouraging a greater integration of the varied aspects of chemistry that now receive isolated independent consideration. Perhaps nothing could be more conducive to this end

than a reform of the current methods of teaching chemistry. The approaching centenary of the first artificial synthesis of a "product of life," Wöhler's production of urea, might not only be a reminder that so-called vital forces are dispensable, but also mark the broader recognition of the essential unity of chemistry.

In the discussion of my major theme a few comments on the preparation of the investigator and the training for chemical research may not be out of place. Among the criticisms to which the academic world is now-a-days being subjected one hears frequently the charge that memory training plays a rôle too exclusively. The late Sir James Mackenzie, an eminent physician familiar with the experimental method, supported the complaint in words that his as "the only 'revenge' biographer has described. which Mackenzie ever permitted himself against the educational system by and through which he had suffered." With his own experiences in mind he wrote:

There are two very distinct qualities of the human mind: memory, and the power of reasoning. The earliest to be developed is that of memorizing, and this can be cultivated with great ease. The power of reasoning is quite different, although, no doubt, memory takes a part. When we look at a great number of students, we discover that this power of memory is greatly developed in a few, and all our educational methods are devoted to its cultivation. Examinations are specially contrived for the purpose of discriminating those with the best memories, and to them all the honors and prizes are given.

The individuals who, on the contrary, possess more of the power of reasoning than their fellows, receive no consideration. There are minds which have a difficulty in remembering isolated facts, but if these facts are related in some consecutive manner, they can not only remember them, but also appreciate their bearing on one another. But this type of mind is slow in acquiring knowledge, and in our present-day methods of education less and less encouragement is given to this type of student. His peculiar powers are never developed, and their presence is never suspected.

"The outcome of the teaching of to-day is to hail the student with superior powers of memorizing as the brilliant student, and the one with the great future. The consequence is that his path from the outset is made easy for him. Bursaries and scholarships fall to his share, and before he has acquired any experience, he is appointed to a teaching post. In the absence of any knowledge acquired from the results of his own observations, he is forced to teach that which he was himself taught, and, as he can not discriminate between truth and superstition, he hands both on to his students. As years pass he comes to believe what he has taught is true and may even grow impervious to new ideas which are contrary to the beliefs he has been expounding."

(Wilson, R. M.: "The Beloved Physician, Sir James Mackenzie." New York, 1926, p. 24.)

A reaction against the type of education that Mackenzie thus assailed has asserted itself through the wide-spread introduction of the so-called "laboratory method" of teaching in which the student is being left more and more to his own devices. This is the essence of the inductive method. It promotes keenness of observation and critical judgment; it presupposes the open mind. As so often happens with our enthusiasm for the new, the inductive method has been driven in some places beyond its greatest effectiveness. Freedom to start on a voyage of discovery in the student laboratory does not invariably lead to the desired shores. The ways of the pioneer discoverers have usually been long, and their progress slow. After all, there are facts, multitudes of facts, long since described, which could be rediscovered by each generation of students if this laborious process seemed worth while. Why require it?

Without a background of facts thinking becomes a difficult, if not a futile task. A rich store of fundamental facts is the indispensable equipment of what Pasteur so expressively termed the "prepared mind." Many persons are privileged to make chance observations; only the prepared mind profits by them. "Curiosity alone," Bigger has written, "will not make more than a laboratory dabbler, a dilettante of science. Many other qualities must be added to make a worthy researcher. Knowledge, both wide and deep, of his subject and of related sciences is needed to fit him for his work and to help him to surmount the difficulties with which the paths of science are so liberally sprinkled." (Bigger, J. W.: Irish J. M. Sc., Jan. 1927, 6, 19.) Didactic instruction, so largely discredited at the present time, may yet regain some measure of favor as an economical procedure for ascertaining essential facts. The test tube and the reagent bottle are not the alpha and omega of a chemist's training.

Waste of time is no more tolerable in student days than in after life. The candidate for a career in research should be spared from wasting time in useless laboratory work. Peabody recently remarked that "the popular conception of a scientist as a man who works in a laboratory and who uses instruments of precision is as inaccurate as it is superficial, for a scientist is known, not by his technical processes, but by his intellectual processes; and the essence of the scientific method of thought is that it proceeds in an orderly manner toward the establishment of a truth." (Peabody, F. W.: J. A. M. A., March 19, 1927, 88, 877.) The student may often be started on an effective course far earlier than our standard

ized school systems now permit. A recent writer on school education has remarked:

The teaching of science in our schools, which has been improving so slowly during the last twenty years must be stimulated and some scientific method of selecting and coordinating the science subjects to be taught must be introduced. It would seem rational that mathematics should be the earliest science dealt with, followed by physics, chemistry and mechanics, and that wholly subordinate importance should be attached to the biological sciences, because the elementary stages of these latter subjects are necessarily largely descriptive and insusceptible to broad treatment as illustrative of scientific reasoning and method. That our schools do not keep in view the fundamental scheme which correlates all the natural sciences is obvious; it becomes especially evident when the large amount of time often devoted to botany is contrasted with that allotted to physics and chemistry. (Pope, W. J.: "The National Importance of Chemistry." In "Science and the Nation," Cambridge, 1917, p. 20.)

Appropriate coordination of preparatory studies is an important desideratum in the early training of the successful investigator; for it will help him to know things and forces not in isolated instances, but in their truer natural relations.

Chemical research has become a dignified profession that has abundantly justified itself. Those who are devoted thereto have the duty of encouraging its efforts, of safeguarding its future, and of promoting its personnel. Critical comments, such as some of the foregoing remarks involve, should not be construed as an outburst of pessimism. Change is the essence of progress which even the optimist may endeavor to safeguard.

YALE UNIVERSITY

LAFAYETTE B. MENDEL

WILLIAM MARC CHAUVENET WILLIAM MARC CHAUVENET was born in the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, March 4, 1855. His father, the distinguished astronomer and mathematician, was at that time superintendent of the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. William Chauvenet died in St. Louis on December 11, 1926, in his seventy-second year. When his father was appointed first chancellor of Washington University, the family moved to St. Louis. William was educated at the Smith Academy and the Wabash University in St. Louis. After leaving college he was appointed as an assistant on the U. S. Geological Survey in 1880 and was under Raphael Pumpelly at Newport, R. I. After remaining there a year or two he was ordered to report to the professor of geology

and mineralogy at the University of Wisconsin, Roland D. Irving, who sent him to examine the geological formations on the North Shore of Lake Superior. He was engaged on this work in this locality for two years, living in a tent with Indian guides. His experiences on this work were most interesting. About 1883 or 1884 he went into partnership with his older brother Regis, who had a laboratory at Seventh and Pine Streets in St. Louis. The firm name was Regis Chauvenet & Brother. When his brother Regis went to Colorado as president of the State School of Mines at Golden, William remained in St. Louis and although Regis withdrew in a few years from the firm, William ran the laboratory under the old name of Regis Chauvenet & Brother until his death. William made many examinations of mines in the United States and deposits at Trinidad and those on the Orinoco River in South America. He was a most versatile man and, aside from his mining and chemical work, was a poet of no ordinary ability and his water color paintings were excellent. His circle of friends and acquaintances was world wide, and no more charming companion could be found than he.

HERMANN VON SCHRENK

SCIENTIFIC EVENTS

JUBILEE OF THE PHYSIOLOGICAL
SOCIETY1

THE Physiological Society (Great Britain) celebrated its jubilee by a dinner in London on May 13. The society was founded in 1876, and its jubilee was in 1926, but owing to the amount of business resulting from the purchase of the Journal of Physiology from Mrs. Langley, it was not possible to arrange for the celebration in that year. The four surviving original members of the society are: Sir David Ferrier, Sir E. Ray Lankester, Sir W. Thiselton-Dyer and Sir E. Sharpey-Schafer, who presided at the dinner. The toast of the society was proposed by Major Elliot, parliamentary under-secretary for health for Scotland, who pointed out the practical benefits that had been obtained as the result of physiological research. The chairman, Sir E. Sharpey-Schafer, in his reply, described how the society was founded as a dining club to defend the members against the attacks of the antivivisection societies, and it thus represented the only

good that had resulted from the anti-vivisection agitation. Later in the history of the society it became customary to visit one laboratory or another before the dinner, to see demonstrations of work in progress. The development of the society is shown by the present practice, namely, that demonstrations have pre1 From Nature.

cedence over other communications, and that all business, except that of a special general meeting summoned for some specific purpose, is transacted after the dinner which is held with most meetings of the society.

Sir Charles Sherrington proposed the toast of the guests, with which was associated the names of Sir Ernest Rutherford, Professor G. Fano, of Rome, Professor Gley, of Paris, and Viscount Knutsford. Sir Ernest Rutherford pointed out the relation between physics and physiology, in which a physical instrument was perfected for some special recording device such as the Einthoven string galvanometer, and was afterwards used in physical laboratories because of its delicacy and accuracy. He recommended a training in physics as a preliminary to research in physiology. Professor Fano made a delightful congratulatory speech in English and Professor Gley conveyed the best wishes of his French colleagues in a stirring address in French. Viscount Knutsford referred particularly to the gain to humanity by Schafer's method of artificial respiration, and to the Research Defense Society, which does its best to educate the intelligent public as to the benefits obtained from experiments on animals. He suggested that physiologists ought to do their share by joining that society, by furnishing accurate information and by speaking on the subject. Professor Leonard Hill proposed a vote of thanks to the chairman, who, he pointed out, had sent apostles to Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, United States, China and many other parts of the world to promulgate the doctrines of physiology. On May 14 there was an ordinary meeting of the society in Cambridge, with the business dinner meeting in Trinity College. On the following day Professor and Mrs. Barcroft gave a garden party in the fellows' garden of King's College, kindly lent by the provost and fellows of the college.

AN ENTOMOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE

PACIFIC

THE conditions on many of the islands of the Pacific are rapidly changing. Mountains which were formerly covered by native forests are being denuded, or the original vegetation is being replaced by introduced species. With the changing conditions in plant life and the increase of commerce there are accom

panying changes in the insect fauna. If entomologists are ever to know the insects of the Pacific area no time can be lost. It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of a thorough knowledge of the native insects of this region either from a purely scientific or an economic point of view.

An entomological survey of the Pacific is being

planned by a group in Hawaii. The Bishop Museum and the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association have each pledged financial support over a period of five years, and it is likely that the Association of Hawaiian Pineapple Canners will join with them. local committee has been organized with Dr. C. M. Cooke, of the Bishop Museum, as chairman, assisted by John E. Russell, chairman of the experiment station committee of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association, Charles R. Hemenway, chairman of the board of regents of the University of Hawaii, Charles S. Judd, executive officer of the Board of Agriculture and Forestry, and A. L. Dean, director of the Experiment Station of the Association of Hawaiian Pineapple Canners. This committee, no one of whom is an entomologist, has secured Dr. C. F. Baker, dean of the Agricultural College of the University of the Philippines, to be the scientific head of the survey. Dr. Baker will have his headquarters in Honolulu. The present plans contemplate one or more field parties which will send all collections to Honolulu where some material will doubtless be identified, but much of it will be sorted and sent to specialists to work up. According to the present plan Dr. Baker will devote all his time during the first year to the work of the survey, and in subsequent years divide his time between that and the University of Hawaii. A. L. DEAN

ALASKAN EXPLORATIONS

THE U. S. Interior Department has announced that plans have recently been approved for further geologic and topographic surveys by the U. S. Geological Survey during the coming field season in the Alaska Range in the vicinity of Mount Spurr. This is part of one of the large unexplored regions of Alaska lying between the head of Cook Inlet and the Kuskokwim basin. Although its eastern edge borders on the coast, the rugged glaciated mountains that occupy most of the area are almost untraversable and are separated from the shore by a high marshy lowland that is difficult to cross and that so far has discouraged exploration of the inland region.

This project is part of the general program of mapping our northern territory that has been carried forward by the Geological Survey for the last 30 years as rapidly as funds and personnel have been available and that has resulted in the publication of accurate maps and definite knowledge of the mineral resources of a large part of Alaska. The object of this party is to map as much as possible of the tract of country lying between the region north of Mount Spurr, which was surveyed during the field season of 1926, and the areas covered by earlier surveys in the vicinity of Tuxedni Bay and Lake Clark. The work will be done

by a surveying party in charge of S. R. Capps, geologist, with R. H. Sargent, topographic engineer, and four camp hands. The party will probably reach Anchorage early in June and then, together with the necessary pack horses, supplies and provisions for four months, will embark on a launch and a barge, proceed to the west shore of Cook Inlet, and land on the beach near the West Foreland. From that time as long as forage for the horses lasts or until snow flies, which will probably be about the middle of September, the party will be entirely out of communication with the rest of the world and will travel into the mountains, carrying with them their entire store of supplies and equipment and mapping the land forms and geology as they go.

It is expected that as a result of this expedition information will be obtained concerning several thousand square miles of the public domain, about which at present almost nothing is known.

DEDUCTION OF TRAVELING EXPENSES TO SCIENTIFIC MEETING FROM TAXABLE INCOME

PROFESSOR A. SILVERMAN, head of the department of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, has won a decision from the Federal Board of Tax Appeals making traveling expenses to conventions deductible as expenses ordinary and necessary to the teaching profession. The text of the decision follows:

UNITED STATES BOARD OF TAX APPEALS ALEXANDER SILVERMAN, Petitioner,

บ.

COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Respondent. Docket No. 10389. Promulgated May 12, 1927.

Amounts expended by petitioner, a professor of chemistry and a member of the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh, in connection with the carrying on of his profession, in attending scientific meetings and conventions, constitute an ordinary and necessary business expense.

S. Leo Ruslander, Esq., and A. E. James, Esq.,
for the petitioner.

D. D. Shepard, Esq., for the respondent. This proceeding results from the determination of a deficiency in income tax for the year 1921 of $55.88 by reason of disallowance of a deduction of $558.75 claimed by petitioner as ordinary and necessary business expense for the taxable year in carrying on his duties as a professor of chemistry and a member of the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh. The facts are found as stipulated.

FINDINGS OF FACT

The petitioner is a resident of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He keeps his accounts on the basis of actual receipts and disbursements. Prior to and during the year 1921 he was

at the head of the Department of Chemistry of the University of Pittsburgh, with the title of Professor of Chemistry, and has for the past twenty-one years been a member of the faculty of that university.

As the head of the department of chemistry, it was expected of and incumbent on him as such to keep abreast in his particular field of work and in touch with other scientists in the same field, which was done among other ways by the preparation and publication of papers, by the reading of technical periodicals and by the attendance at such conventions where consideration of subjects of a scientific nature were presented and discussed.

The petitioner attended like conventions prior to 1921, did so attend in 1921 and has since so attended, such action on his part being expected and necessary, as it was of others similarly employed at the university, for the purpose of keeping thoroughly informed in his field of work and in touch with other scientists, and in order to advance the interests of the university, though his contract of employment does not specifically make mention of any such activities and there was no provision made for repayment to him of expenses so incurred.

In the taxable year mentioned, petitioner, for the purposes and objects mentioned, attended the American Ceramic Society at Columbus, Ohio; the American Chemical Society at Rochester, New York, and a meeting of the same society in New York City, and, in so doing, incurred and paid reasonable and actual expenses for hotel rooms, meals and railroad fare to and from said conventions, the sum of $558.75, no part of which sum has been repaid him by the university, nor by any person, society or organization, whatever. Each of the three trips mentioned occupied a week and petitioner was in attendance the full length of each convention, and for each convention prepared and delivered a paper or papers. By reason of the fact that petitioner was a member of the council of the American Chemical Society, he was in attendance prior to the general convention seasons.

OPINION

LITTLETON: The Board has held that expenditures of the character and made under circumstances involved in this proceeding are deductible as ordinary and necessary business expense. M. D. Shutter, 2 B.T.A. 23. We have also held that expenditures made by a professional cartoonist for periodicals and other current literature and in attending political conventions, when properly proved, were proper deductions as ordinary and necessary business expense. J. N. Darling, 4 B.T.A. 449.

The Board is of the opinion from the facts in this proceeding that the petitioner is entitled to the deduction claimed.

Judgment will be entered on 15 days' notice, under Rule 50.

FOREIGN WORKERS AT THE U. S. FOREST PRODUCTS LABORATORY

THERE has assembled at the U. S. Forest Products Laboratory within recent months the largest group of foreign research men ever gathered at the federal

laboratory at one time. Foresters and chemists from England, Australia, Sweden, Finland and Mexico have been detailed to the laboratory by their various. governments and employers for periods ranging from thirty days to two years.

Mr. Wilhelm Rosen, a graduate of the Technological Institute of Stockholm, Sweden, and fellow of the Scandinavian-American Foundation, has just finished nine months of research on the distillation of softwoods in the Forest Products Laboratory's chemical utilization section. Mr. Eric Ostlin, also a fellow of the Scandinavian-American Foundation, will conclude observations of Forest Products Laboratory methods within a few weeks. In his native country, Mr. Ostlin, who is an expert on forest mensuration, has been directing a general forest survey which the Swedish government started ten years ago.

Messrs. J. E. Cummins and H. S. Dadswell are on detail from the Australian Council for Scientific and Industrial Research to engage in general forest products research at the Madison laboratory for a period of two years.

Mr. W. G. Campbell, who is a fellow of the Commonwealth (British) Foundation, has concluded a two years' stay at the laboratory, during which time he has been engaged in research on the fundamental chemistry of wood. He expects to accept an appointment with the Forest Products Laboratories of England on his return to that country.

Sr. Hermenegildo Barrios, a member of the first class to graduate from Mexico's new forestry school, has spent a year in studying the methods of various Forest Products Laboratory sections.

Mr. Uno W. Lehtinen, of the Finnish State Forest Service, has just concluded a month of study at the Forest Products Laboratory. Mr. Lehtinen, who is a graduate of the Yale Forest School, has spent three years in this country and is to return to Finland soon. He is expected to take an important position in the forest products research laboratory which his government is to organize.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS

PROFESSOR A. A. MICHELSON, of the University of Chicago, has been elected an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Professor Albert Einstein (Berlin), Mme. Curie (Paris), Professor W. Nernst (Berlin) and Professor M. G. Mittag-Leffler (Djursholm, Sweden) have also been elected honorary members of the academy.

DR. L. W. AUSTIN, physicist of the radio research laboratory of the U. S. Bureau of Standards, has been awarded the 1927 medal of honor of the Institute of Radio Engineers. The medal carries the citation: