DR. W. F. DRAPER, assistant surgeon-general in charge of the domestic quarantine division of the Bureau of Public Health Service, will sail for Europe on September 6 to study public health methods in Germany for two months. Dr. Draper's trip is a part of the system of international interchange of public health officials inaugurated several years ago for the purpose of keeping health officials in each country acquainted with advances in their field made by the health officials of other nations.

WITH the object of finding for the Field Museum of Natural History a suitable spot for representation in a habitat group illustrating the vegetation and landscape at the snow line of the Rocky Mountains, Dr. B. E. Dahlgren, acting curator of botany at the museum, and an assistant, Emil Sella, have left Chicago for the west. Dr. Dahlgren and Mr. Sella will be joined at Laramie, Wyoming, by Professor Aven Nelson, of the department of botany of the University of Wyoming. The party will proceed first to the Medicine Bow Mountains in Wyoming, and will explore regions at an altitude of between 10,000 and 12,000 feet. Thence they will go to Glacier National Park and elsewhere to continue their work. The proposed group is to show the alpine vegetation above. the timber line in the American Rockies. Charles A.

Corwin, field museum artist, will paint a background for it, showing the transition from the well-timbered zone below to the barren snow line near the top of the mountains. Actual specimens of the plant life of the region will be displayed.

DR. W. J. YOUDEN, a member of the staff of Boyce Thompson Institute, has been asked by the Forest Service of the Bureau of Plant Industry at Washington to help in planning an effective attack on the ravages of the white pine blister rust. It is a problem that involves a study of the plants that carry the disease and also of the soils. The disease has been baffling, because it occurs in scattered patches, with varying results. In some patches it is very destructive, and in other patches there is every gradation. The Government Forestry Service has spent much time in investigating it, and has accumulated a mass of data. The plan is that Dr. Youden shall study these data, determine the relative importance of the results, and work out a plan of attack. He will devote about a month to this work, visiting the different white pine regions, and finally reaching California.

DR. MEIR WANNIK, professor of agricultural chemistry in the Mikveh-Israel University of Palestine and head of the agricultural experiment station connected with that school, who came to the United States as a delegate to the International Soil Congress, recently

spent some time at the Davis branch of the College of Agriculture of the University of California, studying the work being done in soil moisture by Dr. F. J. Viehmeyer, of the division of irrigation investigations.

PROFESSOR R. T. LEIPER, F.R.S., director of the division of medical zoology in the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, known for his researches into bilharziasis in Egypt, has been invited by the Egyptian Government to continue them next winter, and to advise on the best methods of combating the disease.

DR. L. KREHL has been appointed director of the Institute of Natural Therapy, which is conducted under the auspices of the government at the University of Jena. The institute is affiliated with the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and will include the Heidelberg Institute for Cancer Research and the Heidelberg Institute for Protein Research.

DR. GEORGE ANDREWS HILL, senior astronomer of the Naval Observatory, died in Washington on August 29. He was sixty-nine years old.

HENRY DALLAS THOMPSON, since 1894 professor of mathematics at Princeton University and for forty years a member of the faculty, has died in Santa Barbara, California. Professor Thompson was sixtythree years old.

DR. WILLIAM BURNSIDE, F.R.S., late professor of mathematics at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, died on August 21, aged seventy-five years.

PROFESSOR OTTONE BARBACCI, of the chair of pathologic anatomy at the University of Siena, has died, at the age of sixty-seven years.

THE triennial congress of the International Institute of Anthropology will be held at Amsterdam from September 19 to 24, under the presidency of Professor J. P. Kleiweg de Zwaan. It will comprise six sections: (1) physical anthropology, (2) ethnography and ethnology, (3) heredity and eugenics, (4) sociology and criminology, (5) prehistory, (6) folklore. The official languages will be French, German, English, Dutch, Spanish and Italian.

THE Journal of the American Medical Association states that a group of 150 physicians belonging to the Interstate Postgraduate Assembly of North America arrived recently in Paris by way of Belgium. They were received by eminent members in the medical profession, who arranged for them to visit the principal scientific centers and hospitals. A reception was held at the Elysée by the president of the republic, who accepted an honorary diploma of membership.

THE second national symposium on organic chemistry will be held at Ohio State University, December 29, 30 and 31. Suggestions for the program should be sent to the secretary of the division of organic chemistry of the American Chemical Society, Professor Frank C. Whitmore, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill.

THE annual meeting of the American Association of Agricultural College Editors met during the last week in August at the Colorado State Agricultural College, Fort Collins.

To commemorate the forty-fifth anniversary of the

PROFESSOR LUIGI MANGIAGALLI has given his large private library to the Istituto Ostetrico-Ginecologico of the University of Milan, which bears his name. The library contains, in addition to 10,000 bound volumes, a large number of unbound treatises and rare complete collections of scientific reviews.

THE Establissements Dornalo, submarine specialists, will undertake in the course of the present season the taking of submarine views in the Mediterranean, in depths varying from 40 to 50 meters, with the help of a diving apparatus which will carry one man and a powerful motion picture projector. Their purpose is to take views of submarine life in its natural sur

electric light and power plant in the world in New York City, John W. Lieb, vice-president and general manager of the New York Edison Company, who was associated with Mr. Edison in that undertaking, on September 4 placed a wreath on a tablet which marks the site of the old plant. The ceremony was witnessed by many of the men who were associated with Edison in pioneer days of the electric industry. CONSTRUCTION has been begun on a new building at New Orleans, La., for the tropical insect work of the Bureau of Entomology. It will contain office and laboratory quarters, a cold room controlled by a refrigeration plant, greenhouse and insectary units, and a shop for the construction of special apparatus. Storage space is provided for spray machinery and other field equipment, and two acres adjacent to the buildings are allotted for special experimental plots. The laboratory will contain a battery of incubators and other special apparatus for study under controlled conditions, and full equipment will be provided for the statistical analysis of data gathered in field experimentation where conditions are not under control. Thus factors developed by an analysis of the varying conditions in the field can be studied in parallel series under control in the laboratory.

THE North Sea Aquarium of the State Biological Institute on the Island of Helgoland has recently been opened to the public. The aquarium, with some fifty large tanks, shows the complete fauna and flora of the North Sea. The pipes that supply the tanks with sea water are of transparent celluloid, which is not subject to corrosion.

THE Minnesota Legislature at its last session reestablished the $4,000 appropriation for the Minnesota Crop Improvement Association. This fund is used chiefly in the distribution, inspection and certification of improved seeds developed at the station. The association is organized for the purpose of protecting these improved varieties and maintaining suitable stocks for seed purposes.

usually living in these depths. These views will be used for making educational films. The work will later be extended to the tropical regions.

THE Women's Zionist Organization of America, known as Hadassah, voted recently to expend $609,000 in medical and health work in Palestine, most of which will be to support the Hadassah Medical Organization in that country. In addition to that budget, the organization voted to raise $100,000 from revenues for medical service in Palestine. The need for medical work in Palestine is considered urgent. The convention expressed its gratitude in a unanimous resolution to Nathan and Mrs. Straus, of New York, for their gift of $250,000 for a health center in Jerusalem.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL

NOTES

Two gifts amounting to $550,000 have been made to the medical school of the University of Chicago; $300,000 for the erection and equipment of a building to be known as the Gertrude Dunn Hicks Memorial, which shall be operated as an orthopedic hospital, and $250,000 from Mr. Louis H. Kuppenheimer to establish an endowment fund to be known as the Louis B. and Emma M. Kuppenheimer Foundation. The income is to be used for teaching and research in the department of ophthalmology.

PROFESSOR W. B. ZUKER, head of the department of chemistry of the University of Dubuque since 1921, has been appointed acting president of that institution beginning on September 1, when the resignation of Reverend K. F. Wettstone, D.D., took effect.

DR. W. L. HOWARD, director of the Davis branch of the college of agriculture of the University of California, has been appointed associate dean of the College of Agriculture to assist in the administration of the college during the temporary and partial absence of Dean E. D. Merrill.

PROFESSOR I. M. KOLTHOFF, of the University of Utrecht, has accepted a professorship of analytical chemistry at the University of Minnesota and will begin his work in October. Dr. R. S. Livingston, of the University of California, has been appointed assistant professor of physical chemistry.

DR. CARL SNEED WILLIAMSON, formerly of the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., has been appointed head of the department of surgery at the University of Arkansas School of Medicine, Little Rock, and Dr. Oliver C. Melson, also of the Mayo Clinic, has been appointed head of the department of medicine.

AFTER many years' activity as lecturer on zoology at the institute for investigations in heredity in BerlinDahlem, Dr. Paula Hertwig, the daughter of the former professor of biology, Oskar Hertwig, has been given the title of professor.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE AGE OF THE "SATSOP" AND THE DALLES FORMATIONS OF OREGON AND

WASHINGTON

GEOLOGISTS have differed regarding the ages of the "Satsop" and the Dalles formations of the Columbia River Gorge region. Because of their bearing on the history of the Gorge and for other reasons their ages are important.

During a brief investigation of these beds under the auspices of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the writers secured fragmentary mammalian fossil remains from the Dalles formation representing not a Quaternary, but approximately an upper Miocene or lower Pliocene stage. This age determination is corroborated by the lithologic resemblance of the Dalles beds to the middle Neocene Ellensburg formation of central Washington, by the apparently similar relations of these two formations to the Columbia lavas, and by the induration of the Dalles beds, which is equal to that of lower or middle Neocene deposits of the west, but much greater than that of Quaternary formations.

In interesting papers by J H. Bretz and by I. A. Williams the "Satsop" in the Columbia River Gorge has been considered Quaternary by correlation, mainly through lithologic similarity, with the fossiliferous marine Satsop on the Washington coast. In the eastern part of the gorge, however, the writers have found the "Satsop" gravels beneath the Dalles beds. Moreover, the "Satsop" gravels can be traced into central Washington where they lie at the base of the middle Neocene Ellensburg formation. Further, the induration of the "Satsop" is considerably greater than that of other Pacific Coast upper Pliocene or

Quaternary strata. For these three reasons the "Satsop" of the gorge is also believed to be approximately upper Miocene or lower Pliocene rather than Quaternary.

Since the "Satsop" of the gorge is not the correlative of the type Satsop on the coast, the new name, "Hood River Formation," is proposed for these rather unique conglomerate and sandstone strata. The type section may well be the beds so excellently exposed in the cut immediately east of the Columbia River Highway bridge across Hood River.

A more detailed statement of the evidence and of the bearing of these beds on the geological history of the region is in course of publication.

JOHN P. BUWALDA BERNARD N. MOORE

CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

MORE DATA

UNDER "Datum and Data" in the July 1 issue of SCIENCE, Mr. Blake says that "We speak and hence write English by ear and not by rules of grammar," and that "in ordinary use," data is not the mere plural of datum. It was, no doubt, recognition of these very unfortunate conditions that prompted the commendable letters of protest regarding the use of "data" in the singular.

There is no standard in the education of ears, and thus it becomes very difficult to eliminate "ain't" from spoken English. The old dictum that use is the law of language presupposes good usage, and the best existing criterion of good usage is a good dietionary. No reputable dictionary admits, or is likely to admit, "data" as a singular form.

But the correspondence which I have seen regarding the misuse of "data" entirely overlooks the chief abuse, which consists, not in using the word incorrectly as a singular, but in using it at all when the intended meaning can be more accurately expressed otherwise. Any one who cares to observe will find that, in probably nine cases out of ten, clearness can be gained by the substitution of "facts," "figures,” "records," "values," "results," "information," or any one of perhaps a dozen other words which may more aptly fit the particular case. The general use of "data" for all such cases is due to the same slovenly thinking which causes a writer to use "etc." when he is at a loss for another word; or to use such expressions as "in regard to same" instead of repeating, or specifying just what he means by "same."

The laudable desire to adopt "new" words is to a considerable degree offset by failure to see that they are used accurately, and "data" is only one of a large number used erroneously more often than correctly. Though its use in the singular offends the intelligent

reader, the context usually reveals the true meaning. This seems to be less often true in the case of "strata" (used less frequently, but with at least as high a percentage of error). The same desire for new expressions fills our reading matter with such words as "résumé" (for which "summary" is usually better) and "rôle," printed (newspaper style) without

accents.

Strangely enough, many a worker who conducts his investigations with the strictest accuracy of which science is capable, publishes his results with little concern for accuracy of statement or nomenclature. Unfortunately, some of the errors escape the attention of even the most vigilant editor. A flagrant error which seems to be gaining ground is the expression "different than." Only two weeks ago it occurred in the Saturday Evening Post-one of our most carefully edited journals.

E. H. MCCLELLAND

CARNEGIE LIBRARY OF PITTSBURGH

ASSIMILATION OF FIXED NITROGEN BY HAVANA TOBACCO

EXPERIMENTS on the assimilation of different forms *of combined nitrogen by Havana tobacco are being made at the Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station. Among results to date is the proof of ready assimilation of ureal nitrogen in the unchanged form. Plant growth, however, has not been as rapid with urea as a source of nitrogen as with sodium or calcium nitrate.

A more detailed report of the whole experiment will be made later. On account of the growing importance of urea as a commercial fertilizer, we make this progress report.

A. B. BEAUMONT G. J. LARSINOS

STANDARD MATHEMATICAL SYMBOLS A LIST of proposed American standard mathematical symbols has been prepared by a special committee of the American Engineering Standards Committee and the list has been submitted to the sponsor organizations. This list was noted in SCIENCE for August 12, 1927. It has been published in full in the following places: Jour. Engin. Educ., June, 1927; Jour. Soc. Auto. Engin., July, 1927; Mechanical Engineering, August, 1927. Since the American Association for the Advancement of Science is one of the sponsor organizations for this standardization project, the permanent secretary wishes to bring this matter to the attention of all members interested, with the request that they examine the list and send him their comments as soon as possible. The comments received will be

placed before the executive committee of the association, which is asked officially to approve the list of proposed standard symbols.

BURTON E. LIVINGSTON, Permanent Secretary

QUOTATIONS

A PORTRAIT PAINTER OF BIRDS THE birds have lost their most devoted and faithful portrait painter in the tragic and untimely death of Louis Agassiz Fuertes. For he was not only a great ornithologist. He was for the birds what such an artist as Sargent was for men. There are not a few artists who have represented with more or less accuracy the color, form and pose of birds, but the portraits painted by Fuertes, who had a genius for individualizing every bird he saw even in its facial expression and in depicting what he saw with practiced vision that was as a sensitized plate, also revealed the character of the living creature. All birds of a feather look alike to the ordinary observer, but every owl and toucan painted by Fuertes, as Frank M. Chapman said in writing of him many years ago, had its individuality, was instinct with life, and differed from the drawings of the inexperienced or unsympathetic artist as a living bird from a stuffed

one.

Dr. Fuertes's opportunities for field study were greater than those of any other painter of birds, from the boreal birds of the Bering Sea to the flamingoes of the warmer regions. He studied the birds of Texas, California, Nevada, Jamaica, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Bahamas, Florida, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Yucatan, Mexico, Colombia and Abyssinia. He made thousands of drawings, many of which have been widely reproduced and have been of the greatest value in interesting the public, children especially, in bird life, and acquainting them with the characteristics, the habits and the migrations of birds and their relation to human life.

But the contribution that will be his permanent monument in this state is his collection of portraits of the birds of New York (made for the illustration of Eaton's great work on the "Birds of New York"), which was purchased by Mrs. Russell Sage and presented to the State Museum at Albany. The birds will come and go with the seasons through the years all unwitting of his absence, but they can not become wholly extinct, for they will be preserved there as in life. He whose skill has given them this sort of immortality, in season and out, needs "no trophy, sword or hatchment o'er his bones," for they in turn will preserve the memory of his genius and of his devotion to them.-The New York Times.

SOME LIMITATIONS OF WARBURG'S THEORY OF THE ROLE OF IRON IN RESPIRATION

THE Construction of models of biological processes has occasionally contributed greatly to the knowledge of the mechanisms of vital phenomena. However, enthusiasm over the successful construction of a model that in part duplicates the reaction of living protoplasm often obscures the fact that the duplication is only partial and misleads the investigator into undue dependence on deductive reasoning. Caution must be observed in accepting theories of the organism derived from the behavior of models, for in attempting to isolate a single process in this manner the controls and correlations that distinguish the living from the non-living are lost. Obviously, the value of any theory derived from the behavior of a model depends on the extent of resemblance between the behavior of the non-living system and the facts and characteristics of the process of the living organism which it purports to simulate.

An examination of the characteristics of biological oxidations shows that the comprehensive theory of Warburg of the mechanism of oxidations in the cell,1 based largely upon the characteristics of his so-called models of respiration, is not free from the criticisms that have been levelled at other theories of biological processes similarly derived from models. On the contrary, the divergence between Warburg's theory and the actual facts is wide enough to justify regarding the theory as distinctly limited in application.

Briefly, Warburg has developed a theory of cellular oxidations in which iron in unknown combination with nitrogen is held to play the rôle of catalyzer. Molecular oxygen is said to enter into combination with the iron to form higher oxides of iron, and the iron-nitrogen is assigned the property of adsorbing and peculiarly loosening the bonds of amino acids. in the cell. In the oxidation of carbohydrates phosin the cell. In the oxidation of carbohydrates phosphates replace nitrogen, and in the oxidation of fats the presence of the SH group is necessary. A transfer of active oxygen is thus effected, and the iron is returned to a lower oxide. Unfortunately for the theory in its present form, the facts of cellular oxidations which Warburg cites in support of his theory are in some important details disputable.

The theory demands, and Warburg has shown in the case of the unfertilized sea urchin egg,2 that the oxygen absorption of disintegrated cells is equal to

1 Warburg, O., 1921, Biochem. Zeitschr., cxix, 134; 1923, ibid., cxxxvi, 266; 1923, ibid., cxlii, 518; SCIENCE, n. s., 1925, lxi, 575.

2 Warburg, O., 1911, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., Ixx, 413; 1914, Arch. f. ges. Physiol., clviii, 189.

that of intact cells. This is contradictory to sound evidence3 which shows that the chief energy-releasing oxidations in the cell are profoundly depressed by mechanical destruction of the cellular structure. This contradiction between the findings of Warburg and those of others shows that the experimental result which Warburg uses in support of his general theory is not a general but a particular case. The peculiar structure of the cell has thus been shown to be of great importance in its energetics. Warburg himself years ago demonstrated the importance of the cell boundary in regulating oxidative metabolism when he showed that dilute sodium hydroxide accelerates the oxygen consumption of the sea urchin egg without entering the cell interior.

According to Warburg, anesthetics decrease oxida tions in the cell because they are adsorbed by the ironnitrogen, and are therefore described as general negative catalyzers of this reaction. However, there is abundant evidence that dilute solutions of many anesthetics accelerate oxidative metabolism. The powerful action of the cyanides in depressing oxidative metabolism, Warburg asserts, strongly supports his theory. The validity of this evidence is open to question. Within certain limits the depression of

oxidative metabolism in cyanide solutions increases with increasing concentration of the cyanide, but, after maximum depression characteristic of the concentration has been reached, continuous exposure does not result in further depression of oxidations. Warburg holds that the action of cyanide in depressing oxidations in protoplasm is due to its combination with iron, converting it into a form incapable of transferring oxygen. He regards the reaction between the cyanide and the iron as stoichiochemical, and he shows that the activity of an iron-nitrogen model in oxidizing an amino acid is depressed 97 per cent. by the addition of M/1000 HNC. Accord

ing to this, we should expect very complete extinction of oxygen metabolism in the presence of strong cyanide. The expectation is not realized. It has been shown that M/1000 and M/2000 KNC have approximately the same effect on oxygen consumption in

3 Fletcher and Hopkins, 1907, Jour. Physiol. xxxv 247; Harden and Maclean, 1911, Jour. Physiol., xliii, 34: Batelli and Stern, 1914, Biochem. Zeitschr. lxvii, 443: Lund, E. J., 1921, Amer. Jour. Physiol., lvii, 336. Se also discussion in R. S. Lillie's book, "Protoplasmi Action and Nervous Action," Chicago, 1923, page 52 et seq.

4 Warburg, O., 1910, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., exvi 305.

5 Lillie, R. S., 1916, Biol. Bull., xxx, 311 and refer ences; Buchanan, J. W., 1923, Jour. Exper. Zoo Xxxviii, 331 and references.