SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS THE University of Pennsylvania held a special convocation on the occasion of the Franklin Institute centenary, when President J. H. Penniman conferred the honorary degree of doctor of science on the following delegates: Sir William Henry Bragg, London; Dr. William Charles Lawson Eglin, chief engineer of the Philadelphia Electric Company and president of the Franklin Institute; Dr. Charles Fabry, Paris; Sir Charles Algernon Parsons, British engineer; Dr. Edwin Wilbur Rice, Jr., honorary chairman, of the General Electric Company, and Dr. Pieter Zeeman, Amsterdam.

OFFICIAL representatives of the United States have been appointed by the Department of State for the third Pan-American Congress at Lima, Peru, from December 20 to January 6, as follows: Dr. Leo S. Rowe, president of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, chairman; Dr. Albert Sauveur, professor of metallurgy at Harvard University; Professor Marshall H. Saville, Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, New York; Dr. A. A. Michelson, president of the National Academy of Sciences; A. W. Whitney, chairman, American Engineering Standards Committee, New York; Dr. John D. Long, assistant surgeon general, United States Public Health Service; Dr. Vernon Kellogg, secretary of the National Research Council, Washington, D. C.; James Brown Scott, president of the American Institute of International Law, Washington, D. C.; Dr. Samuel McCune Lindsay, professor of social legislation, Columbia University; Dr. Rufus B. Von Kleinsmid, president of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Calif.

DR. ROBERT J. WILSON, director of the bureau of hospitals, Department of Health, New York City, was presented with an illuminated autograph token of esteem by the employees of that bureau and the bureau of laboratories, on his recent retirement as director following twenty-eight years of service.

PROFESSOR W. E. S. TURNER, secretary of the Society of Glass Technology, Sheffield, England, was the guest of honor at a dinner given by the members of the Pittsburgh section of the American Ceramic Society at the University Club on September 4.

DR. SAMUEL BENJAMIN JONES, a West Indian, who received his medical education in the United States, has been awarded by King George the order of Member of the British Empire in recognition of meritorious services rendered in combating a smallpox epidemic in the British West Indies in 1923.

DR. E. O. HULBURT, formerly associate professor of physics at the University of Iowa, has been ap

pointed superintendent of the division of heat and light of the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D. C.

ELWOOD MEAD, professor of rural institutions at the University of California, has been appointed commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, U. S. Department of the Interior.

H. G. SCHURECHT, ceramic engineer at the Mellon Institute, Pittsburgh, has accepted a position with the Bureau of Standards.

GEORGE H. CONANT, formerly of the department of botany at the University of Wisconsin, has resigned to take charge of the division of botany of the General Biological Supply House, Chicago, and Dr. D. L. Gamble, assistant professor of zoology at Cornell University, has resigned to take charge of the division of zoology.

DR. THURMAN B. RICE has been appointed director of the laboratory of bacteriology and hygiene of the state board of health of Indiana, to succeed Dr. Alfred G. Long.

THE following appointments have been made by the Eastman Kodak Co., Rochester, N. Y.: Dr. R. H. Lambert, Ph.D. (Mass. Institute of Technology), in the research laboratory; Dr. Cyril J. Staud, Ph.D. (Mass. Institute of Technology), in the organic research department; Dr. Otto Sandvik, Ph.D. (Northwestern University), in the department of physics. Mr. Merrell Seymour has accepted a position in the photographic department of the research laboratory.

DR. WILHELM DEECKE, professor of geology and paleontology and director of the Geological Institute of the University of Freiburg, has resigned his position as director of the Geological Survey of Baden.

DR. JOHN K. SMALL, head curator of the museums of the New York Botanical Garden, returned on July 30 after a three weeks' visit to Florida, mainly in search of irises (with special reference to finding the fruits), papaws and plants of other critical genera and species.

N. E. HANSEN, agricultural explorer of South Dakota, is leaving on his sixth trip to Siberia in search of fruits and plants adaptable to the climate of the Northwest.

DR. HERBERT J. WEBBER, professor of subtropical horticulture and director of the Citrus Experiment Station of the University of California, has gone to South Africa, where he will spend the next year under a commission from the government of the Union of South Africa to study and prepare a report on the citrus and cotton growing industries of that country. His headquarters will be at the Department of Agriculture, Pretoria, Transvaal. Before leaving Europe

he will make a short study of orange-growing methods in Spain.

DR. B. E. LISCHER, professor of orthodontics at the Washington University Dental School, gave a series of lectures on orthodontics at the University of California from August 25 to September 4.

A PORTRAIT bust in bronze of Louis Pasteur was dedicated on September 16 at the American Institute of Baking. The bust was presented by Helge Jacobsen, director of Carlsberg Glyptotek; Vagn Jacobsen, director of Carlsberg Brewery, and the Carlsberg Fund, Poul C. Poulsen, director, Copenhagen, Denmark.

DR. JOHN MARTIN SCHAEBERLE, formerly astronomer at the Lick Observatory, has died at the age of seventy-one years.

DR. CHARLES W. MOULTON, head of the department of chemistry at Vassar College, died on September 13, aged sixty-five years.

DR. ALBERT HAWORTH, recently appointed lecturer in pathology at the University of Leeds, England, died on September 8, at the age of thirty-six years.

DR. ALFRED BERGEAT, professor of mineralogy and director of the Mineralogical Institute of the University of Kiel, has died, aged fifty-eight years.

DR. KOLOMAN v. SZILY, emeritus professor of physics at the Budapest Polytechnic School and formerly the general secretary of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, has died at the age of eighty-six years.

THE thirty-fifth annual general meeting of the Institution of Mining Engineers of England will be held at the Conference Halls of the British Empire Exhibition on Thursday and Friday, October 2 and 3. Sir John Cadman will relinquish his third term of office as president on October 2, when he will be succeeded by Dr. J. S. Haldane, director of the Mining Research Laboratory and honorary professor in the University of Birmingham.

THE Zoological department of the Vienna Museum of Natural History opened recently a collection of insects having a bearing on medicine, according to the Vienna correspondent of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The whole exhibit, divided into six groups, shows which of these organisms exerts a disease-producing action on human beings or animals (1) by means of the secretions of its glands, (2) by means of hairs, (3) by poisonous appendages, (4) by sucking the blood, (5) by parasitism, or (6) by transmitting disease germs. The entire life cycle of these organisms, as far as it is known, is shown in a series of specimens arranged so as to reproduce the natural conditions, and short but concise explanations are placed in each receptacle. The organisms

that are too small to be well visible with the naked eye are represented in colored photographic enlarge ments. Once a week expert guidance is provided. The entire collection comprises about 6,000 specimens.

THE Pasteur Institute has set up in the island of Los, near Konakri, in French Guinea, a "farm" for the breeding and preservation of apes and monkeys required for medical experimental purposes. This is a large, well-watered, woody fertile tract of land near a forest inhabited by chimpanzees and several species of monkeys. A director has been appointed, and the necessary outbuildings constructed. These include aecommodation for sick animals.

In order to determine the suitability of foreign trees for introduction into this country, arboretums in which groups of such "immigrant" species can be tried out are being established by the United States Forest Service in several of the forest regions. At Wind River 60 miles from Portland an arboretum of this sort has now some seventy-five different alien species of trees growing in small-sized groups or clumps. These trees are carefully watched by members of the Pacific Northwest Forest Experiment Station, which has a branch station at Wind River, and their growth and general development and ability to become acclimatized are studied. Local records of climate and soil conditions are also maintained.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NOTES

THE Tulane University of Louisiana School of Medicine, New Orleans, has announced plans for the establishment of a chair of tropical medicine, made possible by a bequest of $60,000 from William E. Vincent.

In addition to the sum of $110,000 bequeathed to the Western University Faculty of Medicine, Ontario, by Dr. Friend R. Eccles, $200,000 will become available after the lifetime of two relatives.

AN anonymous donor has given funds to the University of Chicago for the maintenance of a research fellowship in preventive medicine for two years.

NEW appointments at the Johns Hopkins University include Dr. F. O. Rice, formerly of the University of Liverpool, in physical organic chemistry, and Dr. F. Russell Bichowski, research associate at the University of California, in thermodynamics.

AT the University of Virginia the following appointments have been made: Dr. Bruce D. Reynolds, Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins, '24), assistant professor of zoology, Dr. Arthur F. Benton, national research fellow at the California Institute of Technology, assistant professor of chemistry, and Dr. A. A. Pegau,

Ph.D. (Cornell), acting assistant professor of geology. Resignations include Dr. Graham Edgar, professor of chemistry, Dr. J. T. Lonsdale, assistant professor of geology, Dr. W. S. Keister, assistant professor of public health, and Dr. B. B. Hershenson, assistant professor of physiology and biochemistry.

DR. NICHOLAS M. ALTER, instructor in internal med

icine at the University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, has been appointed professor of pathology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver.

THE vacancy in the University of Texas College of Pharmacy, caused by the death of Dr. Raoul R. D. Cline, has been filled by the appointment of William F. Gidley, professor of pharmacy at Purdue University.

DR. GEORGE N. BAUER, formerly professor of mathematics at the University of Minnesota, and recently president of a Minneapolis bank, has been appointed associate professor of mathematics at the University of New Hampshire.

DR. RAYMOND O. FILTER, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, and Dr. Homer B. Reed, professor of psychology and education at Grinnell College, have each been appointed to an assistant professorship of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh.

AT Pomona College, Dr. Paul Atwood Harvey has been appointed assistant professor of botany, and Francis G. Gilchrist, instructor in zoology.

DR. CHESTER HAMLIN WERKMAN, research bacteriologist at Iowa State College, has been appointed assistant professor of microbiology at Massachusetts Agricultural College, to succeed Dr. Itano, who has returned to Japan.

Dr. D. P. D. WILKIE, lecturer in clinical surgery, has been appointed to the chair of surgery at the University of Edinburgh for a period of ten years.

DR. JULIUS WATJEN, prosector at the hospital of Barmen, has been appointed professor of pathology and director of the laboratories of the Pathological Institute of the University of Berlin.

book by the present writer, for their conservatism. in still accepting the same primary divisions of the plant kingdom which were in use fifty years ago, and asks whether this is due to ignorance or merely to indifference. In view of the fact that this system of classification (which divides the plant kingdom into four main groups, the Thallophytes, Bryophytes, Pteridophytes and Spermatophytes) is employed in most of the texts in common use to-day, one is tempted to suspect that there may be other reasons for its persistence than those which Professor Campbell suggests. Two of these reasons the writer desires to mention here.

First, such a method of presenting the plant kingdom to an elementary student has important pedagogical advantages. The author of an elementary text must, of course, be cognizant of the results of modern research, but his chief problem is to present these results without overwhelming the beginner by an array of discouraging complexities. It is now clearly recognized, for example, that the so-called Thallophytes are a very heterogeneous assemblage of plants and include a large number of diverse groups which represent more or less independent evolutionary lines and may not be closely related to one another. All Thallophytes, however, have certain fundamental characters in common, and stand at an evolutionary level quite distinct from that of the higher groups. The teacher who wishes to acquaint a beginner in botany with the salient features of the plant kingdom. as a whole and who is allotted but a short time in which to do so will have the best chance of success if he treats the Thallophytes as a single great, though admittedly heterogeneous, group, emphasizing the resemblances among them rather than the differences, and pointing out the main features whereby they may be distinguished from the other major divisions. Similarly, the Bryophytes, Pteridophytes and Spermatophytes are probably not strictly monophyletic groups, but each nevertheless has certain points in common by which it may be readily distinguished and its position in the plant kingdom fixed.

We may fairly expect the elementary student to become familiar with four major groups, but if we ask him to learn twenty or thirty of these we must plan to devote to this end the bulk of the entire course. Elementary college courses of this type, commonly in vogue half a century ago, no longer meet the need for progressive botanical instruction, and one is inclined to ask whether their occasional survival is the result of conservatism or merely of bad pedagogy. There is a widespread conviction to-day that elementary botany should stress the plant as a living organism rather than simply the product of an evolutionary process, and our major effort must therefore be first to acquaint beginners with the im

portant principles of morphology and physiology. The comparatively limited instruction in classification for which the first-year student has opportunity should not primarily aim to teach him phylogenythe province of more advanced courses-but rather to familiarize him with the main features of the plant kingdom as it now exists, explaining briefly those great steps in evolutionary progress which have brought plants to where they are to-day. Has not an over-emphasis of phylogenetic detail been one of the reasons for the fact that botany to-day fills a much less conspicuous place in college curricula than its intrinsic importance warrants?

Secondly, an elementary text can not well present a given conclusion as fact until it has achieved essentially universal acceptance. Professor Campbell seems to imply that there is agreement as to the main facts of plant relationship; but certainly the conclusions which he cites and assumes to be established with regard to the interrelationships of the so-called embryophytes (Bryophytes, Pteridophytes and Spermatophytes) will by no means find unanimous consent to-day. Most botanists would probably agree that "comparative morphology . . . is the safest clue to relationships," but to base conclusions chiefly upon the structure of the reproductive parts alone, as does Professor Campbell, disregards a very important source of phylogenetic evidence and has often resulted in erroneous conceptions. Much attention, particularly during the past twenty years, has been devoted to another branch of comparative morphology, that which deals with the vegetative parts of the plant body, and the modern student of evolution draws his conclusions from both these important sources. This broader method of phylogenetic investigation has led to the conception of the plant kingdom as divided into two main groups, the non-vascular plants (Thallophytes and Bryophytes) and the vascular plants (Pteridophytes and Spermatophytes). Certainly between these two major divisions there are such profound differences in structure and function that it is hard to see how a student of evolutionary history can look upon the embryophytes as a very homogeneous group. Surely between mosses and ferns there are such fundamental divergences, if one is willing to consider all the facts, as to warrant the statement made by the writer, which Professor Campbell finds "astonishing," that "in passing from the Bryophytes to the Pteridophytes . . . we cross the widest gap which exists in the continuity of the plant kingdom." For years botanists have been unsuccessfully endeavoring to establish a bridge over this gap, and the author's reference, cited by Professor Campbell, to the most plausible connection (through the Anthocerotales) by no means implies that the gap is other than a very wide one indeed. It is hard to ar

rive at an estimate of opinion in such a matter as this, but the writer feels confident that a very considerable group of botanists will by no means regard as "an unscientific and outgrown system of classification" that which places liverworts closer to algae than to angiosperms, but will look with suspicion upon any system which is based largely upon the study of only one group of organs.

All these problems of phylogeny look more complex to-day than they did in the first flush of evolutionary enthusiasm, and we realize that their solution must involve a thorough study of anatomy, genetics, paleobotany and other branches of botanical science; and that it can not be based, as so often in the past, merely upon evidence derived from the reproductive structures alone. When facts from all sources have been sifted and botanists have agreed as to the fundamentals of plant classification, then it may be time to present phylogenetic conclusions to freshmen in more dogmatic form; but until that day arrives, there is much to be said in favor of a continued use in our elementary texts of that system which has so long met with favor at the hands of those who are entitled to speak with authority in matters of botanical pedagogy.

EDMUND W. SINNOTT CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE

CHESTNUT TREES SURVIVING BLIGHT

WHEN the chestnut blight (Endothia parasitica) became prevalent some years ago it seemed that Castanea dentata was doomed. Some suggested that a few resistant trees might remain. The writer has followed the course of the disease with great interest and in recent years his observations made him believe that there was a general lessening in the amount of branches killed per year, while the amount of new growth gradually overbalanced that killed.

Accurate data appeared rather difficult to secure; a measurement of new growth compared with that growth killed during the same year was an obvious index but one requiring considerable labor. Any element of choice should be excluded. From extensive field work in connection with an ecological problem it appeared that any normal area on a given soil type could be taken safely, and in such an area a twenty-meter quadrat was laid out near the middle of a woods. This woods was twenty-year-old second growth, of which the chestnut trees (10 in the quadrat) had been killed and sprouts produced from the base while 14 seedlings had come up and were now from 0.5 to 2.5 m in height. The new growth was measured and found to total 152.60 m. Assuming an average cross-sectional diameter of 0.0035 m for the twigs, the total volume of new twig-tissue produced was 0.001456m3. Measuring the blighted wood in the same

ray, it was found to total 0.000079m3. It is seen hat the amount of new growth is 18 times that killed n the same year.

Not only are saplings showing recovery of growth ut older trees as well. Near the writer's home is a ne grove of chestnut trees of 30 to 40 years age; he tops were killed, but the trees are producing new rowns, in some cases recovering half their former eight, and are now well set with fruit.

This condition seems common in southeastern Pennylvania, the trees flourishing more on Chester and Manor soils than on the more sterile Dekalb. It may dlso be rather a widespread condition, for in passing hrough the mountains from Harrisburg, Pa., to Bufalo, N. Y., many trees were seen similar to those decribed. In the Niagara Peninsula of Ontario, espeially near St. Catharines, recovery seemed evident.

The improved condition may not be due wholly to reater resistive powers but to a lessened supply of pores, for it is evident that the total production f Endothia spores is vastly lessened. The trees have lso shown their ability to heal serious cankers, alhough ultimate recovery is not a necessary conse

ON reading the article of Dr. R. G. Kent on "The Scientist and an International Language" (SCIENCE, io. 1538, June 20) I am particularly glad to hear rom a scientist of an English-speaking nation, of the teed of an international language for scientists. I ully agree with Dr. Kent in discarding any existing ational language as such. I want to call attention o a great handicap on the part of scientists belongng to a nation whose language is not widely intelliible. For instance, in the Annotations Zoologicae "aponenses and the Folia Anatomica, both published y Japanese biologists, all articles written in Japabese are excluded, and the editors of the Swedish ournal Acta Zoologica will not accept papers written ■ Swedish. It is true that for some scientists writing nother languages this may not be felt as a serious andicap. But it remains true that some have the adantage of publishing papers in the mother language, while others have the disadvantage of endeavoring to rrite in a foreign language.

Dr. Kent proposes the use of Latin as an international auxiliary language among scientists. This was proposed by Zamenhof in his boyhood half a century ago. He soon discarded it, however, because of the extreme difficulty of learning that complicated language, and after years of painstaking effort he finally succeeded in inventing a language, which is now well known by the name of Esperanto.

It is not necessary to explain how easy it is to learn Esperanto, and how freely one can express one's opinion and can describe what he has in mind, even in scientific terms. Every Esperantist will tell you of it. For this reason it would not be desirable to adopt Latin as the spoken language in an international congress. Even if "we give Latin a preferred place in our study of foreign languages" I wonder how many of us would succeed, after a few years' course, in speaking Latin! Esperanto has already experienced a brilliant success in this respect. I believe that it is Esperanto that fulfills our desire of having a neutral auxiliary language in scientific circles.

I may be allowed to add, further, that in Japan some original papers have already appeared in this language in the fields of anatomy, pathology and veterinary science, and that there is a project among a few biologists of publishing an Esperanto bulletin of zoology. This, together with the fact that there exist international as well as local Esperantists' associations in the medical sciences and that several journals are published by them, is sufficient to show the practicability of this language in scientific publications.

KJUSU IMPERIA UNIVERSITATO, FUKUOKA, JAPANUJO

HIROSHI ОнSHIMA

BALL LIGHTNING

IN SCIENCE for August 8, Mr. W. J. Humphreys, of the U. S. Weather Bureau, requests information as to ball lightning.

Several years ago my home was struck by lightning. A ball of fire seemingly about nine inches in diameter was thrown into the center of my bedroom and exploded with a terrific noise, just as if a bomb had been exploded. Brilliant particles seemed to have been hurled into every direction, but I felt no effect other than that of sound and sight.

The electric wires throughout the house were affected, and there is an inch hole through the plastered wall on the ground floor where an electric spark seems to have found its path between the radiator in the room and the metal support to the water spout on the outside of the building.

I took the matter up with Dr. T. C. Mendenhall, with whom I was associated on the board of trustees of Ohio State University, and on expressing a doubt