Chicago, the University of Chicago is to receive $200,000, the Field Museum and Yale Uniersity $25,000 each.

DR. WILLIAM MATHER LEWIS has resigned the presidency of George Washington University to become president of Lafayette College, at Easton, Pa.

DR. B. M. DUGGAR, of the Missouri Botanical Garden and Washington University, St. Louis, has been appointed professor of applied and physiological botany at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Duggar will take up his residence at Wisconsin in September.

DR. SAMUEL R. DETWILER, associate professor of anatomy at Harvard University, and Dr. Philip E. Smith, associate professor of anatomy at Stanford University, have been appointed professors of anatomy in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University.

DR. FRANK E. BURCH, St. Paul, has been appointed head of the eye, ear, nose and throat department, University of Minnesota School of Medicine, to succeed the late Dr. William R. Murray.

HOWARD O. TRIEBOLD, formerly holder of the American Cracker Manufacturers fellowship under the direction of Dr. C. H. Bailey, in the division of agricultural biochemistry at the University of Minnesota, has been appointed instructor in the chemistry of milling and baking in the department of agricultural and biological chemistry at the Pennsylvania State College.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE THE INCREASE IN SCIENTIFIC PERIODICALS SINCE THE GREAT WAR

IN looking back to the period of the great war, it seems for the most part like a nightmare, but there were some bright spots, one of these being the peacefulness in the field of publication of scientific serials. Many journals took a vacation, some slowed up publication by dropping out or combining numbers, others ceased altogether. Even in 1919 when the war was supposed to be over, the amount of such material coming into the library of the Department of Agriculture was so small, that one person could look over the current mail and make all the necessary cards from which the "Botany, current literature" lists were compiled; and there was still plenty of time for other matters. Now in 1926 the indexing for the list consumes practically all the time of one person and a large part of the time of a second, and as for review and abstract journals, they are a task in themselves.

The growth in size of the "Botany, current literature" lists may, I think, be fairly taken as a measure of the increase of publication in that particular field using that phrase to include scientific serials contain

ing botanical material. In 1919 when the issuing of the lists began, the average size was eight to nine pages, fourteen pages being an unusually large list. In 1924-25 the average was twenty-two pages and with the shorter page now in use, it runs to thirtythree pages. Such an increase in publication would hardly have been looked for as a result of the war, in fact one would have expected quite the contrary. Some journals have changed name or form, and there are of course some casualties, but new recruits have, I think, more than filled up the ranks.

When I look over the mail that comes into the Department of Agriculture library each day, in its motley array of languages, I begin to doubt the wisdom of the principle of self-determination and almost to wish that the war had left the map of Europe as it found it. There are not only new publications from the older countries, but all these newly established states are plunging into publication, seemingly in all fields of science and what is more appalling to the indexer, each in its own language. Sometimes they are considerate enough to publish summaries in some of the well-known languages, as German, French or English, but just as often they do not. Translators are not available and dictionaries are woefully inadequate, particularly for the scientific terms. Some one has asked how we manage with these unfamiliar languages. One method used reminds me of a story. A small colored girl was being taught to read by means of a picture primer, her teacher placing her hand over the picture, pointed to a word and asked, "What is that, Sally?" Quick as a wink Sally replied "Ox." The teacher was suspicious as Sally had been rather slow in the uptake. "How do you know it's ox, Sally?" she asked. "Seed its tail," was the reply. That is often the method one has to pursue, one translates the title as best one may, looks over the text for old friends, rusts, smuts, weed flora, and familiar names of plants or sometimes familiar scientific terms taken over bodily from some better known language and decides that it belongs in the botanical catalogue and therefore in the "Botany: current literature" list. Every day one gives thanks for Latin. If it were not for the Latin scientific names and Latin descriptions, where would one be? As a listener at the discussion on nomenclature at the International Conference of Plant Science at Ithaca, I felt like protesting against the recommendation to give up the requiring of Latin in descriptions of new species, for, in many cases, the Latin is the only lifesaver one has in this flood of foreign languages. Do not encourage them to describe their plants in Russian, Czecho-Slovakian, Bulgarian, etc.!

In looking over the list of scientific serial publications indexed for "Botany: current literature," I find

that beginning with 1920 there are one hundred and fifty new titles of publications in sixteen different languages, twenty-three of these are Russian and eight Czecho-Slovakian. The activity of a country like Russia is astonishing when we consider through what an upheaval it has been and how hard have been the days of its reconstruction. One wonders how scientists have been able to work and publish under such conditions. In my impressions as to the amount of publications from Russia I am borne out by Miss Katherin G. Upton, who handles the Russian material for the library. These come not only from Russia proper but from Siberia, Central Asia, Turkestan, White Russia, Caucasus and Ukraine. The Botanic Garden at Leningrad besides continuing to publish the Acta Horti Petropolitani, Bulletin and Bolezni rastenii (its journal of plant pathology) has begun two new publications, the "Notulae systematicae" from its Herbarium and "Notulae systematicae" from the Cryptogamic Institute. When I mentioned the large number of publications coming out of Russia to Mme. Haffkin-Hamburger, the Russian delegate to the American Library Association Conference held at Atlantic City in October, her modest reply was "But we are so pig (big)." But their bigness, another handicap taken in connection with other conditions, makes the fact the more surprising.

Then one has to consider the publications which we have not been able to get hold of which are of interest to the indexer of botanical literature. There are some fourteen of these which have been announced in various review journals.

If the increase of publications is to continue what is to become of the maker of catalogues and lists such as the "Botany: current literature"? Shall we be swamped and have to give up entirely, or can we work out some selective method which will yet be satisfactory to the omnivorous user of such catalogues and lists?

We have heard much recently of the necessity of Americans becoming more internationally minded. I should suggest as one means to that, the indexing of foreign scientific publications.

BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY, WASHINGTON, D. C.

ALICE C. ATWOOD

HOOKE'S LAW AGAIN

A CAREFUL reading of Dr. Paul E. Klopsteg's rejoinder1 fails to show me the need of modifying my statement that the instruction sheet referred to "conveys the impression that accurate measurements should show strict proportionality between strain and 1 SCIENCE, November 5, 1926, p. 449.

stress." In fact my claim is virtually admitted in Dr. Klopsteg's own statement, "This graph, which is a straight line, shows that the elongation is, within the limits of experimental error, proportional to the stretching force."

It may be that my view of laboratory instruction is "unusual," but I hold that laboratory instruction should instruct and not tolerate inaccurate information. Science demands truthful statements. A scientific statement that is nearly true is about as valuable as an egg that is nearly good. I accept the opinion that my objection "must for the sake of consistency apply also to the measurement of acceleration of gravity by means of the simple pendulum." Yes, let the instructor warn the student that the vibrations are not isochronous and that the obedience of gases to Boyle's law is about as perfect as the obedience of our citizens to the Volstead law.

It is fairly obvious that if the tested wire is taken from a spool the initial increment of length when a stretching force is applied is partly an elastic lengthening and partly a result of straightening the wire. This latter effect diminishes with increasing loads while the elastic lengthenings produced by equal increments of load increase, as I have demonstrated. The net result is that the lengthenings are very nearly proportional to the forces. This is not mere hypothesis, this I have observed.

Since some may think that all my measurements were made with fine wires, I quote the following from my original paper:

In order to be perfectly sure that the phenomena which I have described were not confined to fine wires, I made careful measurements with larger wires. The loads placed on these were gradually increased to a maximum of 18 kg and without exception the results obtained were similar to those which I have reported. The reasons, however, why I preferred to use fine wires are first, because in these the thermal effects vanish more rapidly, and second, because the loading and unloading can be done in shorter time, and thus the aftereffect is more completely eliminated.

The measurements with a steel wire will be found in my original paper and are similar to those made with brass and copper. Iron told the same story. Since the figures with brass and copper with diminishing load are interesting I give here the ratio of elastic lengthening in mm to load in kg in the case of a brass wire .66 mm in diameter:

The load had previously been increased from 0 to 10 kg with similar results.

Although Dr. Klopsteg expresses the belief that the apparatus for which the instruction sheet was written "would fall far short of sufficient precision to show the lack of proportionality," I find it is capable of giving results similar to mine. For, using the data of the first half of set number 2 of measurements made under laboratory conditions and given on page 8 of the instruction paper, I get the following ratios of strain to stress as the load increased from 1 to 10 kg. Since there is evidence that the load of 1 kg was needed to make the wire straight 14.7 was taken as the zero reading.

SEYMOUR SEWELL ON "SALPS OF INDIAN SEAS"

In this careful paper, which treats all but six of the recognized species, two errors of nomenclature made (and later corrected1) by Metcalf2 are perpetuated, two wrong subgeneric names, Apsteinia (instead of Thlea) and Ritteria (instead of Ritteriella), being used. As Professor Cockerell pointed out to me, Apsteinia and Ritteria were preempted for other groups, so I withdrew them and substituted other names, as above. My SCIENCE paper evidently did not reach Sewell's hands.

Sewell describes, but does not name, a clearly distinet form of Salpa (Cyclosalpa) pinnata, showing resemblance in its musculature to pinnata but in the aperture of its ciliated funnel being much simpler

1 Metcalf and Bell upon Salphidae: SCIENCE n. s. Vol. 6, No. 1278.

Metcalf and Bell. "The Salpidae: A Taxonomic Study." U. S. National Museum Bulletin 100, Vol. 2, part 2.

even than pinnata subspecies polae though not so simple as affinis. I would recognize Sewell's form as a subspecies, the subgenus Cyclosalpa including thus pinnata (Forskal), pinnata polae (Sigl), C. pinnata sewelli, affinis (Chamisso), floridana (Apstein), bakeri (Ritter) and virgula (Vogt).

MAYNARD M. METCALF

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

STORM DAMAGE AT LONG BEACH, N. Y.

THE unusually severe storm of Sunday, February 22, furnished a striking example of the value of wellconstructed beach protective devices. The shore at Long Beach is protected for the greater part of its length by a series of fairly heavy wooden groins extending into the ocean at right angles to the shoreline; the landward ends of these groins are not tied to bulkheads, as is usually the case, but are extended into the slightly higher sand bank at the rear of the beach. On a short unprotected portion of the beach the waves undermined twelve or fifteen houses, which toppled forward on their faces and then frequently collapsed. No houses were destroyed on any portion of the shore protected by groins, so far as visited by the writer.

In a number of places the groins themselves were partially or completely destroyed by the pounding of the waves, but apparently had borne the brunt of the attack long enough to save the buildings under their protection. The destruction of the groins seemed to be due in some cases to the removal of sand from around their bottoms, whereupon they were floated by their own buoyancy often swinging around nearly parallel to the beach in such a position that the waves soon tore the floating part from the still firmly imbedded portion. In other cases it seemed that they were too weak to withstand the smashing onslaught of the waves, and were broken off like toothpicks. The frequent destruction of timber groins at Long Beach and elsewhere along the Atlantic coast causes doubt as to the advisability of using anything but the heaviest riprap for structures exposed to storm waves from the open ocean.

In one or two places on the western portion of the beach erosion had already started around the landward ends of the groins, and had cut a considerable channel. Fortunately no buildings were situated right at the ends of these groins, or an excellent example of the danger of omitting bulkheads would have been afforded. Due to the danger of such erosion around the inner ends of groins, it is usually unsafe to use them alone unless they can be extended so far into the shore that no apprehension need be felt about scouring around their ends under the combined attack of an unusually high tide and a severe storm. Tight

bulkheads stop this erosion at a level fairly even with their tops, and in conjunction with groins are believed to provide the most efficient protection.

The whole problem of beach protection is so influenced by financial considerations that although it is generally possible to predict what structures will best preserve a given beach, it is often impossible to adopt them, because of the cost which may be prohibitive to a small community. In such cases a cheaper substitute must be used. At Long Beach more expensive structures might have obtained better results, but those erected performed valiant service in cutting down the destruction to a minimum.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

HENRY S. SHARP

SCIENTIFIC BOOKS

A HISTORY OF OUR TIMES1

IT has been suggested that the universities should establish a new series of courses, dealing with the additions to human knowledge and experience within the past decade or twenty years. Such a plan, if fully and adequately developed, would serve the needs of innumerable busy people who wish to keep in touch with at least certain aspects of the progress of the world. To some extent the universities already minister to such needs, especially in their summer schools and extension divisions. But after all, comparatively few can take advantage of what is offered, and there is no comprehensive organization of the whole field of modern knowledge in any school.

What the schools have not done, and perhaps can not do, has been attempted by the editor and staff of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The volumes before us purport to describe what has been significant in human affairs during the last fifteen years. Not only material events, but also the stuff that dreams are made of those aspirations of the mind, vague or well defined, which motivate our lives. In this gigantic undertaking the editor has certain advantages over even the largest university. He can command a faculty so eminent that it represents on the whole the present competence of our species. Instead of requiring attendance in the classroom, he sends his message to the people of the world, and the most isolated student may have it all at his service. He offers a mirror to mankind, reflecting good and evil, success and failure, hope and despair. We have toiled and struggled, these fifteen years; what has it all amounted to? Well, here it is: let each man sit in judgment on himself and his kind.

1 The Encyclopaedia Britannica. The Three New Supplementary Volumes. London and New York. 1926.

Surely the educational consequences must be very great. Whatever faults may be found, and they are doubtless many, it must be said that a vast mass of essentially accurate information is made the common property of all peoples. That, at least, ought to make for better understanding and more willing cooperation. It is perfectly true that in the perspective of time present values will be strangely altered. Posterity will criticize our judgment of many things. But judge we must, and whatever imparts wisdom to this judgment is worth our earnest attention.

It is not very difficult to discern wherein the present volumes will appear ill-proportioned to later generations. They really constitute a sort of newspaper in excelsis, a summary of what may be expected to interest the readers. Hereafter it will be said of many matters that they were properly subjects of popular concern at the time, but their significance was mainly ephemeral. Of others it will be said that they never deserved the attention they received. In his prefatory note the editor states that one of his main purposes has been "to escape from the passions and prejudices and shattering discords of the war period-to revive and enhance that intellectual cooperation between distinguished authorities of every nation, that civilized community in the sphere of intellect, which the war temporarily destroyed, but which throughout the century before 1914 Britannica to nourish." it was the increasing object of the Encyclopaedia Nevertheless, in looking

through the volumes, one is struck by the inordinate space given to the various details of the war, and to methods of warfare. Such titles as "Victory, Advance to" and "Western Front" are intelligible only because recent events dominate our minds. Probably this excessive dominance of the war motive and war interest will be distasteful to a large number of readers, and yet it may be defended on the ground that it has to do with the prime concern of a large part of the civilized world during the period under review. As a contribution to history, it is of great value to have the events of the war accurately described as they could not be during the conflict. Not only are the facts now given with reasonable completeness, but the temper of the articles is fair and well considered. It may well be that the principal effect will be to create, not a warlike spirit, but a sense of humiliation and disgust that such things should have been possible. The personal biographies also depart widely from encyclopaedic standards, and stand rather on a journalistic basis. There are detailed accounts of many politicians, moving picture actors, and the like, who will be quite forgotten after a few years. Thus Mary Pickford gets three inches of space, Fabre only an inch and a half. This is not

due to the existence of a biography of Fabre in a previous volume, although there had been references to his work. Posterity will see by these notices wherein our interests lay, only of course the actual public interest in and knowledge of Mary Pickford as compared with Fabre is very much greater than the proportions cited might suggest.

To the reviewer it seems that when we consider the presentation of science and art in the volumes, the extraordinary progress and development of science contrasts strangely with what appears to be an actual degeneration of the arts. If it is said that this opinion has no basis, as coming from one unskilled in the arts, I venture to maintain that even a scientific man has a right to criticize artistic productions. Both science and art seek to interpret nature. Scientific workers, in spite of many errors, approach ever nearer to the understanding of reality, not merely of material objects but of mental processes. When we turn to the article Sculpture, and see anatomically incorrect figures seriously presented as offerings of the dominant modern schools, we surely have the right to ask, what is the matter with the mentality of those who see the human body in this distorted form, and actually prefer ugliness to beauty? If the modernist in art then claims that the idea of beauty changes, and is purely subjective, we reply that to us there is also an objective standard of beauty, expressed in the perfection of a type according to its form and function. It is this response to objective reality, this harmony with nature, which seems to us to be the test of sanity. Turn again to the article "Stage and Stage Production"; it is illustrated by a colored plate which merely exhibits the sloppy eccentricity of a certain school of painters. Fortunately, no actual stage setting ever could present such an appearance to the human eye. So it is with some of the other arts, as any reader can find out for himself. On the contrary, the scientific articles, while technical, amaze one by the revelation of progress and the achievements of the human mind. Is it not posxible, should it not be possible, to utilize these great powers in other directions with similar success? If so, certainly not by following fads, but by longcontinued and patient labor, for small material rewards.

One other matter of editorial policy deserves discussion. It has been the plan, again departing somewhat from traditional usage, to have the articles written by representatives of the several topics or interests, regardless of whether we may be supposed to agree with their opinions. The complexity of modern knowledge is such that an editorial orthodoxy is hardly possible. Consequently, to the surprise of many, the article on Lenin is by his associate, Trotsky. It seems to me to

be a very good article, giving an account of Lenin's activities to which no one should object. But when we come to the article on Mrs. Eddy, we wonder whether we shall be presently told that "the Encyclopaedia Britannica states" that "beyond cavil or question, her life was an illustration and a demonstration of her proposition that prayer, watching and working, combined with self-immolation, are God's gracious means of accomplishing whatever has been successfully done for the Christianization and health of mankind." The truth is, the Encyclopaedia is a platform in the ordinary, but not in the political sense; it is a place from which specialists give their opinions, but these opinions must not be considered to have any particular editorial sanction.

One result of this free-we had almost said irresponsible-editorial policy is a frequent relief from the ponderous gravity of the traditional encyclopaedia. Not that there is any unseemly levity, but writers appear to feel free to say what they think without the sense of compromising the universe. This imparts freshness and sincerity to many articles, making them very good reading.

It is out of the question to review many of the articles separately, but a few comments are possible. The great earthquake in Japan, misnamed "the Tokyo earthquake," as it was more severe in Yokohama, is not at all adequately discussed. In the account of Sir Charles Eliot, it is not mentioned that he is one of the leading authorities on nudibranchiate mollusca. Entomology is treated only in its economic and medical aspects, and zoology is confined to a consideration of the vertebrates, mainly fishes. Hardly any attention is given to the cultural aspects of natural history, or to the advancement of our knowledge of the outof-doors. To this extent I think it must be said that the treatment of the biological sciences is seriously inadequate. The summary of biology (J. Arthur Thomson) is extremely good, remarkable equally for the breadth of treatment and the number of striking discoveries recorded. Evolution is by no less than six different representative authors. The section "Theory of Organic Evolution" (T. H. Morgan) is especially noteworthy for its concluding paragraphs on the relation between modern views and the opinions of Darwin. It was not possible for Darwin to make an analysis of the different types of variation and their consequences, as we can to-day. Some of his reasons for evolution no longer appear valid, but others have taken their place. "Thus what the theory of natural selection lost in one direction it gained in another, and the probability that evolution has taken place by the selection of chance variations is as great as at the time when Darwin advanced his theory of natural selection." Bateson on Genetics and J. Arthur