The results obtained show that these four strains of Fomes pinicola differ very markedly in (1) the characteristics of growth, (2) the rate of growth, (3) the extra-cellular enzyme activity, (4) the intra-cellalar enzyme activity, (5) the effects produced in mixed cultures, (6) the growth on liquid media and (7) the nitrogen relations.

The wood-destroying properties are now under observation, but since these experiments require long incubation periods, the results will not be available for some time. A detailed discussion of the question of physiological specialization in Fomes pinicola will be published later.

SCHOOL OF FORESTRY,

UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO

HENRY SCHMITZ

SERIES REGULARITIES IN THE SPARK

SPECTRUM OF NITROGEN1

During the past decade the spectroscopy laboratory of the Bureau of Standards has been investigating the arc spectra of the elements as far into the infra-red as modern photographic methods will permit. This work has revealed the fact that certain lines appear on practically all the spectrograms regardless of what elements have been employed as electrodes in the arc. These lines were correctly attributed to the gases of the atmosphere in which the are operated; and subsequent investigations of the spectra emitted by tubes containing oxygen, nitrogen, and argon have established the chemical origin of all the atmospheric lines which have been observed in the red and near infra-red regions. Preliminary wave lengths have already been published for these lines. (Publ. Amer. Astron. Soc., 4, pp. 170 and 363; also, Merrill, Astroph. Jl., 51, p. 236).

It is the purpose of this note to direct attention to the fact that the nitrogen lines which are observed most frequently and belong apparently to the category of sensitive lines, result from combinations of a triple p term with an s term, another triple p term, and with a five-fold d term. According to the alternation law of Kossel and Sommerfeld the spectrum of nonionized nitrogen should exhibit series regularities of even structure, while the spectrum of ionized nitrogen, conforming to the displacement law, should ex

1 Published by permission of the Director of the Bureau of Standards of the U. S. Department of Com

merce.

Term combination

λ Ι. Α.

Δν

larities given in the accompanying table are of odd multiplicity (quintet system), and therefore belong to the spark spectrum of nitrogen. In the table, the first column gives the combining terms of which the inner quantum numbers are designated by subscripts, the second column gives the wave lengths and intensities of the lines, the third gives the vacuum wave numbers, and the fourth gives the wave-number separations of the common triple p term. The separations of all the polyfold terms involved follow approximately Landé's interval rule. Details of a more complete analysis of the spectrum will appear in a subsequent paper.

BUREAU OF STANDARDS AUGUST 14, 1924

C. C. KIESS

THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE

THE SECTION OF GEOLOGY

In addition to the report of the work of the section published in SCIENCE, January 25, the following papers may be noted:

Results of studies of glacial phenomena: Frank Leverett concludes that the boulders found in the Osage Valley in Missouri and for some distance south of the Kansas River represent a distinct projection of the ice sheet considerably beyond the limits formerly set for it. These boulders have been assigned to floating ice in the past. The till is regarded as of Nebraskan age. Similar conclusions were offered by Walter H. Schoewe, of the University of Kansas, who had carried on an independent investigation on part of the same area.

According to W. G. Waterman the glaciers in Glacier National Park are retreating rapidly. Sperry Glacier has retreated about 300 yards in 18 years, but by far the greater portion of this retreat has occurred since 1919.

Luella Owen presented the results of the last geological work of the late G. Frederick Wright. A comparison of the chemical characters of the loess of China with those of the loess of Missouri was made and the conclusion drawn from fossil and chemical evidence that the rock is of glacio-fluviatile origin. A striking illustration of the influence of glaciation on land values in Indiana was presented by Stephen S. Visher, who states that the average value of the land in the unglaciated portion of the state is about one half that of the land in the area covered by the Illinoisan ice sheet, about one third that of the land in the area covered by the Late Wisconsin sheet and about one third of that over which the Early Wisconsin sheet is spread.

A new relief map of Kentucky was announced by W. R. Jillson, who also described the fault pattern of Kentucky. In another paper a description of the cannel coals of the state was given. These coals are all of Pottsville age. The thicker seams are of comparatively limited areal extent, while the thinner ones extend over much wider areas. S. J. Hudnall offered a valuable correlation table for all coal seams in eastern Kentucky.

A description of the Cincinnati anticline by George D. Hubbard was followed by a paper by Lucien Becker, who presented evidence of the continuation of this structure across Mississippi, and of the possible continuance of slow uplift in this region at the present time.

Interesting examples of ebb and flow springs were discussed by Josiah Bridge, and the conclusion was

reached that the peculiar variations in the flow of such springs is due to natural syphonic action. Walter H. Bucher described the unusual dome structures in Shelby County, Kentucky, as due to large bodies of magma intruded at considerable depth. T. L. Gledhill, in a paper on the nephelite syenites of the Sturgeon Lake District, Ontario, assigned their origin to pneumatolytic action, producing a progressive increase in soda. Soda-rich minerals are found replaeing earlier minerals and the chemical analyses indicate an increase in soda with development of the later rocks.

Kilauea has always been regarded as a volcano of quiet type, but the studies of William H. Sherzer indicate at least four periods of explosive activity.

In his paper dealing with the teaching of elementary crystallography O. C. Von Schlichten emphasized the importance of a proper understanding of the value of internal structure in crystals, since this is the determining factor in external properties and the subject discussed in most of the recent texts on crystallography.

Arthur C. McFarlan offered a revised classification for the Chester species of the genus Archimedes and suggested that a classification be adopted, placing specific values on one axial and one frond type.

It would appear as though J. Ernest Carman had satisfactorily settled the vexed question of the dividing line between the Silurian and Devonian in Michigan. From a study of the Monroe in Ohio he concludes that the Detroit River dolomite and the Sylvania sandstone beneath it are Lower Devonian in age and that the Silurian-Devonian contact is at the base of the Sylvania sandstone. The evidence presented indicates: (1) That the geographical distribution of the several members of the Monroe in Ohio show that there was an early Monroe and a late Monroe advance of the sea separated by a recession in Middle Monroe; (2) The faunas of the Upper Monroe (Detroit River) and Lower Monroe (Bass Island) formations have very little in common-the Bass Island fauna is definitely Silurian, the Detroit River fauna is better interpreted as Devonian; (3) The Middle Monroe (Sylvania sandstone) is stratigraphically and faunally so closely related to the overlying Detroit River that whatever age is assigned to the Detroit River the Sylvania must go with it; (4) a disconformity and a distinct faunal change is located at the base of the Sylvania sandstone; and (5) a pocket of shale at the top of the Bass Island and apparently beneath the Sylvania sandstone contains distinctive Ostracoderms known elsewhere in the world only as basal Devonian.

E. S. MOORE, Secretary

THE EVOLUTION OF INTER

NATIONALISM1

THE evolution of internationalism is an interesting and very important study which will engage the attention of some of the best minds in the world more and more as time goes on. The interdependence of people and races of people is showing itself in new ways every year. The world is not yet overpopulated. In a strictly biological sense it will never be overpopulated by the human species or any other species. The old principle of "the balance of nature" is sure to prevail. The word overpopulation implies something unnatural-something beyond nature's lawssomething that nature herself will correct; in other words, it is an impossible happening. Remember distinctly, please, that this is simply a broad biological deduction!

Yes, nature's restoration of the balance is inevitable. The species that have passed the great inexorable limit law must be reduced; the surplus must starve for lack of food. If the offending form should be the human species, with its wonderful intelligence, with the culture it has laboriously gained, with its high ideals, with its misty sense of spirituality, it will make no difference to nature; she will grind on and restore the balance.

The human species is utterly selfish, like any other species; but this selfishness tends to become more broadly a species selfishness as the years go by and conditions are more broadly understood, having passed through the stages of the selfishness of the individual, of the family, of the community, and, let us hope, of the nation-all successive stages, and all fundamentally based on the self-preservation instinct or desire of the individual, placed there by nature.

Love of kind is a late development, and love of kind in its purest form has been a powerful advocate leading forward to internationalism. But, just as the desire for continued existence with the individual has led to the evolution of the present social complex, to the growth of nations, so the continually increasing difficulties of existence lead onward to the species selfishness-the desire to maintain the human species in control of all resources of the planet on which it finds itself.

Thus, conservation of the world's resources, the movement which is expressed by this conference, attended as it is by many men of many nations, is an

1 Opening remarks of the chairman of the First PanPacific Conservation Congress, Honolulu, Hawaii, July, 1924,

ness.

idea based upon what may be termed species selfishThe human species has a collective mind, and thus has an immense advantage over the other forms that have come into this world, and so, finding itself at war with its surroundings, it has an enormous advantage over other animals in being able to work out plans for the subjugation of nature, in being able to modify many forms of plant and animal life, in being able actually to domesticate many of them, as against the immensely slow working of the forces of adaptation acting with other species.

It is quite true that in the course of ages this evolutional adaptation has given the vastly older forms of life a very great advantage over the human species. Hundreds of thousands of species of insects, for example, are far better adapted to continued existence upon the earth than is the human species; but the birth of intelligence, of the human mind when it is put to collective use, places man in control and enables him, in spite of his poorly adapted physique, to assume the commanding place. There are, of course, regions where the war against nature is less strenuous than in others, regions in which the fighting and resistant qualities have not been demanded as in other regions. Compare the conditions which were met by my own ancestors, when they landed on the frightful coast of New England three hundred years ago, with those met by the first visitors to some of these friendly islands of the Pacific. With the former, life was a keen struggle; with the latter, the environment of nature was friendly, smiling, welcoming.

The time has never been, however, when the interests of man everywhere have not been theoretically interdependent; and in the later years we have seen the great coming-together movement, the mutually helpful movement, take form and grow more and more rapidly. It is a movement which is daily becoming more necessary for the well-being of the human species. Just how important this is-just how necessary it is for the best minds of all nations to come together in international conservation conferences like this becomes more appallingly obvious year by year as the world's population continues to increase at such a rate that ninety years hence it will have reached four billions.

In my own country, the United States, out of a total land area of 1,903,000,000 acres, 478,000,000 acres were in cultivation in 1910. One hundred million people are supported comfortably now, and 135,000,000 can be supported eventually if our agriculture is efficient. With the steadily increasing population (even without immigration) the present productivity must be increased 50 per cent. if our people in the very near future are to have the present food stand

ard. This may be brought about by the irrigatio of 30,000,000 acres of desert, by the drainage o 60,000,000 acres of swamps, by the utilization o 82,000,000 acres for dry farming; and part of ou 150,000,000 acres of forests may have tillable land Then, too, the food resources of our lakes, stream and ocean coast waters can be increased. The enor mous loss to our agriculture from injurious insect and plant diseases can be and must be very great decreased. To-day we are planting thousands upo thousands of acres for the benefit of the insect rather than of ourselves. And the appalling wast that is still going on! That largely can be stopped

Professor E. M. East, of Harvard, in a recent book entitled "Mankind at the Crossroads," points ou that in a little over a century the earth may b inhabited by 5,200,000,000 people, and in such a case he prophesies, "the world would be filled with a seeth ing mass of discontented humanity struggling fo mere existence." East argues that the fertile region of temperate Asia and the major part of Europe an already overpopulated; that "North America is enter ing a stage when exportation of food is no longer possible; Australia will reach the same stage within a few decades, and temperate South America wil follow Australia before the present generation passes on." His conclusion is, "Within half a century pre sumably, within a century certainly, each country must prepare to live upon the fruits of its own agricultural efforts."

Is this too dismal a picture? If so, what can be done to prevent this future? Scientific birth control has been advocated. To the biologist, that is a plan of many merits, which, could it ever generally be agreed upon and enforced, without doubt would make for the improvement of the human race and greatly would retard the arrival of the dreaded years of dis astrous overcrowding.

But, aside from birth control, the sum of human intelligence, the cooperation of the best brains, the pushing of human inventiveness, will result not only in better conserving the world's resources for the benefit of humanity, but in increasing them in ways that are not dreamed about as yet. This is the idea that must be stressed from now on. This is the controlling idea of this conference. This is the idea which will bring the thinkers of many nations together with increasing frequency in the years to come. This is the idea which, in its fullest action, will preserve for the human species its present commanding place on this planet, let us hope for many centuries

THE PAN-PACIFIC FOOD CONSERVATION CONFERENCE

THE Food Conservation Conference held at Honolula July 31 to August 14, 1924, under the auspices of the Pan-Pacific Union, was an event of more than ordinary interest to every country bordering on the Pacific.

There were more than 140 delegates present, representing practically every country of the Pan-Pacific Union. Countries that were particularly well represented were New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands, East Indies, Siam, China, Japan, the Philippines and the United States. Several of the delegates were men well known internationally; among these may be mentioned the Honorable George M. Thomson and the Honorable Mark Cohen, of New Zealand; Sir Joseph Carruthers, ex-premier of New South Wales; Dr. Hippolyte Damiens, administrator in chief of Indo-China; Dr. Rodrigo Rodrigues, governor of Macao; Dr. Hugh M. Smith, advisor in fisheries to the King of Siam; Dr. Koliang Yih, Chinese consul general at San Francisco; Dr. Ken Harada, secretary League of Nations; Dr. K. Kishinouye, professor of fisheries, Imperial University of Tokyo; Dr. Rokuiehiro Matsujima, first president of the International Bar Association; Sanford B. Dole, first president of the Republic of Hawaii, and Dr. David Starr Jordan, international authority on fisheries.

Among the delegates and others in attendance from America may be mentioned the following: Dr. E. W. Allen, chief, Office of Experiment Station, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.; Dr. Carl L. Alsberg, director Food Research Institute, Cartegie Corporation, Stanford University, California; John Pierce Anderson, Red Wing, Minnesota; Miss Louise A. Anderson, Red Wing, Minnesota; M. De Arango, chemical engineer, 67 Wall Street, New York; Dr. E. W. Brandes, pathologist in charge sugar plant investigations, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.; Dr. F. A. Bushe, representing University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado; Dr. Mary Page Campbell, California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco; Harry Chandler, representing Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce; Dr. Royal Norton Chapman, associate professor of animal biology and entomology, University of Minnesota; Dr. T. D. A. Cockerell, professor of zoology and entomology, University of Colorado; Hon. John C. Cope, Portland, Oregon; M. Viscount G. de la Jarrie, director of Bureau of French Colonial Information, New York; Miss Alice Eastwood, curator of botany, California Academy of Sciences; Dr. Henry A. Erikson, chairman, department of physics, University of Minnesota; Dr. Barton Warren Evermann, delegate representing the California Academy of Sciences, the Pacific Division of the American Association for the

Advancement of Science and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce; Dr. Fred Denton Fromme, professor of plant pathology and bacteriology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, Virginia; Dr. T. C. Frye, professor of botany, University of Washington; Dr. Ross Aiken Gortner, chief, division of biochemistry, University of Minnesota, representing the university and the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station; Dr. Lawrence E. Griffin, professor of biology, Reed College, representing Chamber of Commerce, Portland, Oregon; Dr. J. Arthur Harris, head department of botany, University of Minnesota; Dr. William B. Herms, head division of entomology and parasitology, University of California; Dr. L. O. Howard, chief, Bureau of Entomology, U. S. Department of Agriculture; Dr. Claude S. Hudson, consulting chemist, Bureau of Standards, Washington, D. C.; B. J. Hulse, Chamber of Commerce, Los Angeles, California; Dr. J. B. Johnston, dean, College of Science, University of Minnesota; Dr. David Starr Jordan, representing Stanford University; Eric Jordan, Stanford University; Dr. Charles L. Marlatt, chairman Federal Horticultural Board, Washington, D. C.; Dr. Francisco Maguel, Mexico City, representing the Republic of Mexico; Dr. E. D. Merrill, dean, College of Agriculture, University of California, representing Philippine government; Dr. Shirley P. Miller, department of anatomy, University of Minnesota; Dr. Frederick C. Newcombe, emeritus professor of botany, University of Michigan; Dr. Herbert Osborn, research professor of zoology, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio; Hon. W. H. H. Piatt, Kansas City, representing American Bar Association; Dr. James B. Pollock, associate professor of botany, University of Michigan; Roy R. Reppert, entomologist, Extension Service, Texas; Dr. Hiram Newton Savage, civil engineer, Berkeley, California; Dr. William A. Setchell, professor of botany, University of California; Professor Josephine E. Tilden, professor of botany, University of Minnesota, and head of the University of Minnesota Pacific Expedition; Dr. Koliang Yih, Chinese consul general, San Francisco, and Ralph N. Van Zwaluwenburg, United Sugar Company, Los Machis, Sinaloa, Mexico.

Dr. L. O. Howard, chief of the Bureau of Entomology, Washington, D. C., was permanent chairman of the conference; Dr. Charles L. Marlatt, chairman of the section on plant quarantine, plant entomology and plant pathology; Dr. Hamilton P. Agee, director of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Experiment Station, chairman of the section on sugar industry; Dr. L. A. Henke, professor of agriculture, University of Hawaii, chairman section on animal husbandry; Dr. P. J. S. Cramer, director experiment station, department of agriculture, Netherlands East Indies, chairman section on crop production and improvement;