AUGUSTUS O. EIMER, whose death occurred on April 13 last, left his entire estate to his widow as residuary legatee. It is eventually to come to Columbia University and consists of capital stock of the firm of Eimer and Amend, manufacturers of scientific apparatus and chemicals.

ANNOUNCEMENT has been made of gifts to Columbia University totaling $111,615. This sum includes $15,000 from the Borden Company for research in food chemistry and nutrition, and $5,000 from the Walker Gordon Laboratory Company for the same purpose. The Commonwealth Fund has contributed $15,000 to constitute the Psychiatric Commonwealth Clinic Fund, and $5,000 to meet the cost of educational researches to be conducted by the university. Other gifts were $2,500 from Edward D. Faulkner to be applied towards the cost of research work in the department of surgery, $2,000 from E. E. Olcott for the establishment of the "Robert Peele prize" in the school of mines, $2,000 from Eli Lilly and Co. for the pernicious anemia fund in the department of pathology, $1,000 from Rohm & Haas Co. to maintain a research fellowship in biological chemistry, and $900 from Mrs. Elsie Clews Parsons for work in the department of anthropology.

THE United States Civil Service Commission announces open competitive examinations for the following positions in the forest service: Senior forester, $5,200; senior forest economist, $5,000; forester, $3,800; forest economist, $3,800; associate forester, $3,000; associate forest economist, $3,000; assistant forester, $2,400, and assistant forest economist, $2,400. Receipt of applications will close on November 17. Competitors will not be required to report for a written examination, but will be rated on their education, experience and on a thesis or publications which must be filed with their application.

DR. WILLIAM G. FOYE, secretary of the New England Intercollegiate Geological Excursion, writes that the twenty-first excursion was held in the vicinity of Waterville, Maine, on October 9 and 10. Professor E. H. Perkins, of Colby College, was the leader. On October 9 the party visited localities near Waterville where the Silurian slates are exposed. Specimens of Nereites deweii and Monograptus colbiensis were collected. During the afternoon the glacial geology about the Belgrade Lakes was studied. On October 10 automobiles carried the group to Litchfield, west of Gardiner, at which place the rare rock type Litchfieldite containing sodalite and cancrinite was collected. Later in the day Mount Apatite and its gem

stitutions were represented on the excursion: Bowdoin, 1; Clark, 1; Coburn Institute, 1; Colby, 4; Dartmouth, 1; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 4; Middlebury, 1; Mount Holyoke, 2; New Hampshire State, 3; Wellesley, 4; Wesleyan; 2; Williams, 2; unattached, 2; total 28.

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THE new discovery of high grade uraninite ore on the western coast of the White Sea is expected to give the Soviet Union a full supply of domestic radium, according to a bulletin from the Russian Academy of Sciences received by the Russian Information Bureau. Hitherto Russian scientists have had to depend on supplies of radium imported from abroad. The samples brought to Leningrad by A. N. Lobunzev, geologist, from the White Sea expedition, have been analyzed by the Radium Institute of the academy, which reports the ore as rich in uranium as ore obtained in Joachimsthal, Czechoslovakia. The academy has dispatched an expedition headed by A. E. Fersman, chief mineralogist, to the White Sea, to make arrangements for securing the ore in quantity.

An epidemic goiter survey of Massachusetts will be made this fall and winter, if the State Department of Health can complete its tentative arrangements with the United States Public Health Service in Washington. Dr. George H. Bigelow, has conducted a preliminary sounding at home and has mapped out the survey. The probabilities are that Dr. Robert Olesen, a surgeon in the employ of the United States Public Health Service, will be sent to Massachusetts to conduct the same kind of a survey that he made in Colorado last year. His services are wanted there because of his experience in Colorado, as his method of procedure will permit an interpretation of the Massachusetts results in the light of a comparison with those of Colorado. The first concern of the heauth authorities is whether there is an undue prevalence of endemic goiter in Massachusetts, and the next step will be to establish its relationship to the iodine contents of the drinking water and incidentally also the iodine contents in the soil.

THE annual report for 1924 of the inspector, Dr. J. A. Giles, under the act for regulating experiments on living animals in Great Britain has been issued. The number of persons holding licenses for such experiments was 1,042, but of these 239 performed no experiments during the year. The total number of experiments made was 177,815, or 43,032 more than in the preceding year. The whole of that increase is accounted for by the larger number of simple inoculations and similar experiments performed without anesthetics, and there was a decrease of 893 in the number of operations. performed with anesthetics..

Dealing with the latter class the report says: "Of the 9,162 experiments 1,109 were simple inoculations into the skin of guinea pigs, which were anesthetized in order to keep the animals motionless during the introduction of a minute quantity of the fluid to be tested for the purpose of standardization. Of the remaining 8,053 experiments in this table, comprising all the cases in which any serious operation was involved, 4,324 were performed under license alone, or under certificate C, and therefore came under the provision of the act that the animal must be kept under an anesthetic during the whole of the experiment, and must, if the pain is likely to continue after the effect of the anesthetic has ceased, or if any serious injury has been inflicted on the animal, be killed before it recovers from the influence of the anesthetic."

AN attempt is being made to preserve the Indian totem poles in the vicinity of Hagelton, Kispiox, Hagwelgate, Gitsegyukla and Kitwanga, British Columbia. The poles at Gitsegyukla and Kitwango may be seen from the Canadian National Railway car windows. So far as known this Canadian government railway is the only one in the world from which totem poles may be viewed. The work is being carried on under the Canadian Department of Indian affairs. Harlan I. Smith, of the National Museum of Canada, is in charge in the field and is assisted by T. B. Campbell, in the engineering problems, and H. F. Ballentyne in the art and architectural work.

THE U. S. Department of Agriculture reports that the nation-wide drive to eradicate bovine tuberculosis up to April 1 included 10,201,492 cattle under supervision; 6,777,624 cattle in herds successfully passing the first test; 1,187,908 cattle in fully accredited herds; 617,810 cattle tested during March, 19,841 cattle reacting to the test during March; 3,498,072 cattle on the list to be tested, and sixty-nine counties recognized as free from bovine tuberculosis. Reports show unusual interest in tuberculosis eradication on a countywide basis. In the first three months of the year, the number of counties having less than 0.5 per cent. of the disease increased from fifty-three to sixty-nine. Veterinary officials of the Bureau of Animal Industry consider that such progress is proof of the practicability eventually of freeing entire states from bovine tuberculosis.

WE learn from the Journal of the American Medical Association that, in accordance with plans prepared by the committee to investigate the health hazards of tetra-ethyl gasoline, the U. S. Public Health Service is carrying on chemical and clinical studies in various parts of the country of the manufacture, distribution and use of this gasoline product. Sur

geon General Cumming has detailed Dr. J. F. Leake to assume charge of all these investigations and to cooperate with the director of the Hygienic Laboratory and with medical officers of the section of industrial hygiene and sanitation. Two fields of study have been determined on. One of these will be in a Middle Western city where tetra-ethyl lead gasoline has been in use for several years. In this city investigations will also be carried on in an experimental garage where this gasoline has never been used. Identical experiments will also be carried on in an Eastern city.

THE Federation of Bird Clubs of New England has been presented with Milk Island, off Rockport, for a bird sanctuary. This island, the gift of Mrs. Roger W. Babson, will be presented to the state by the federation. The island comprises about fifteen acres. The officers of the federation will present it to the state as a bird refuge in perpetuity, and the island will be known as the Knight Bird Refuge in memory of Mrs. Babson's father and mother. By this gift the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will have by the end of this year seven islands for bird sanctuaries, acquired either as gifts or by purchase by the federation. These islands are Egg Rock in Lynn Harbor, Ram Island, off Mattapoisett, Carr Island, off Newburyport and the Merrimack River, Tern Island, off Chatham, Smith's Island, off Nantucket, and Penikese in Vineyard Sound.

THE American Museum of Natural History announces that the museum architects, Trowbridge and Livingstone, are collaborating with Howard Russell Butler, of Princeton, in the preparation of plans for the proposed new astronomical hall which is to occupy the place of the present auditorium. This hall will include five floors and will cost $2,000,000. The first floor will be devoted to the museum's large collection of meteorites. On the second floor will be a great hall, extending through the third floor, for astronomical models and exhibits, while the astronomical hall will extend from the fourth floor through proper the fifth and sixth floors and will be capped by a huge dome, which will represent the heavens with the constellations.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NOTES

DR. G. B. FRANKFORTER, of the University of Minnesota, has become professor of chemistry at Stanford University.

DR. HILDING BERGLUND, a native of Sweden who has been an assistant professor in the Harvard Medical School since 1923, has been elected professor of

medicine and head of the department of medicine in the University of Minnesota Medical School. He succeeds Dr. S. Marx White, who has resigned to devote his full time to private practice.

DR. BURTON CLARK has been appointed associate professor in the department of geology at the University of South Carolina.

JOHN GIESEN, assistant professor of zoology in Marquette University, Milwaukee, has resigned to become head of the department of zoology in Holy Cross College, Worcester, Massachusetts.

DR. FREDERICK H. ALLEN, director of the All-Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic, has been appointed associate in psychiatry, and Dr. Richard H. Paynter and Dr. Phyllis Blanchard, psychologists of the clinic, instructors in psychology in the graduate school of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. They will have charge of the instruction in psychiatric and psychological methods in child guidance work of the neuro-psychiatric fellows of the Commonwealth Fund of New York City.

Ar the New York Homeopathic Medical College and Flower Hospital the following appointments are announced: Dr. J. George Brody, professor of physiology and pharmacology; Dr. Laura Florence, assistant professor of histology and embryology; Dr. Hans Anderson, assistant professor of pathology; Dr. C. Saul Danzer, assistant professor of experimental medicine; Dr. Gregory Schwartzman has been promoted to be professor of bacteriology.

DR. WINFRED OVERHOLSER, a member of the Massachusetts Commission on Mental Diseases, has been appointed professor of psychiatry in the faculty of the Boston University School of Medicine to succeed Dr. N. Emmons Paine.

NORMAN C. MILLER, head of the engineering extension department of Pennsylvania State College, has resigned to become director of extension teaching at Rutgers University.

PROFESSOR H. V. A. BRISCOE has been made director of the department of chemistry at Armstrong College, Durham, in succession to Professor W. N. Haworth, now professor of chemistry in the University of Birmingham. Professor Briscoe has been for several years professor of inorganic and physical chemistry in Armstrong College. Dr. G. R. Clemo, of the British Dyestuffs Corporation, has been appointed professor of organic chemistry in the college.

PROFESSOR HANS CLOOS, of the University of Breslau, has been appointed professor of geology and paleontology at the University of Bonn, to take the place of Professor G. Steinman, who has been made professor emeritus.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE BOTANICAL CRITICISM

ARE American botanists excessively polite ? Certainly they do not indulge in mutual criticism as a major activity. Most of us will agree that without discussion knowledge can not prosper. It is coming to be pretty generally admitted that the badly crowded programs at botanical meetings stifle even the most necessary discussion. On the whole, however, botanical criticism is not a matter of machinery, but of atmosphere. The columns of many journals are open, and publication is easy-too easy, the mathematicians and chemists tell us.

One may as well grant that our civilization is one which makes a specialty of avoiding friction. It has even been eliminated as bargaining from the age-old business of retail selling. "Knocking," as a source of friction, is a capital social offense and in the mind of the average man comprehends criticism in all its phases. But may we not also grant that science rises above such considerations?

The cause of inadequate criticism is not so patent. To put it bluntly one can not have criticism without having the critical attitude of mind. And the only truly critical mind is the educated mind.

As a matter of course science must attract large numbers of youths who are fascinated, not by the ideas involved, but by the manipulations to be performed. Any botanist who knows his field can name instances where the ideas of one man are at present engaging the hands of anywhere from five to fifteen other men.

Skill is a noble thing, but it does not guarantee an intellectual atmosphere. It is essential to know a good preparation from a bad one, or to distinguish a correlation from a coincidence, but that is not enough. In reality science consists not of things nor of events, but of ideas. So far as the scientist is concerned ideas have relative values. It is the task of criticism to assign these values. The great strategists in science have been great selectors in the field of ideas.

Naturally the business of criticism is no child's play. It is work for good minds that have been severely trained. One recalls a well-known teacher of botany who took actual pride in his "discovery" that it required no especial ability to become a botanist! If this opinion were very widely shared one would not have to look far for an explanation of the dearth of botanical criticism.

In addition to the need for ability there is the question of adequate training. The writer has been

1 Rose, D. H., and Stevens, N. E., "The excessive politeness of American botanists," SCIENCE, 61: 656– 657, 1925.

repeatedly struck, during his teaching experience, by the sound discrimination in dealing with scientific ideas displayed by students trained in the humanities. As a rule they have shown a better sense of values than students whose experience has been primarily scientific. Is it not possible that the drive against the humanities has been too successful? These subjects concern themselves with the task of evaluating ideas. Does the science student, busy with the acquisition of descriptive details and technique, have any proper substitute for them?

The choice seems fairly clear. On the one hand we may rigorously select those whom we permit to go ahead as botanists and see to it that they are soundly educated. Even so there will be many useful workers interested primarily in manipulation, but their interest should not be a blind one. On the other hand we may encourage students of mediocre intelligence and narrow training to fill the ranks. If we choose the latter course we commit ourselves to a policy of helotism in the realm of ideas. In such case it will be a cause for thankfulness rather than chagrin if those who perform the routine have nothing to say concerning the significance of their work. PAUL B. SEARS

UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA

FUNCTIONAL DIVISIONS OF THE NER

VOUS SYSTEM OF INSECTS

FROM time to time attempts have been made to homologize structures in widely separated groups of organisms. This is interesting but apt to be rather unsafe. The functional divisions determined in the nervous system of vertebrates have aided greatly in the determination of the nature of the various parts of this complex system.

In insects there is a similar complexity of function and structure. An analysis of the parts of the nervous system of arthropods in terms of function has been going on for some time. In no other group, with the exception of the vertebrates, has so much been done. However, somewhat different methods must be used and our knowledge is far from complete. Regeneration methods, for instance, are not very successful, nor are degeneration tracts easily traced. The chief method, then, for determining peripheral and central parts is by the use of the intravitam methylene blue stain followed by dissection. In a few cases serial sections may be used, but the tough body-wall often hinders the preparation of perfect slides.

Two years ago I found an exceedingly valuable source of material for this study in the flat, transparent larva of the beetle Dendroides. In this insect

it was possible to trace practically all parts of the nervous system in abdominal segments. In a successful preparation there was a bewildering abundance of nerve structures shown with a clearness and completeness of detail that was remarkable. This often included both the central and peripheral systems at the same time. There were details in the central ganglia, the nerves of the intestine, of the heart, the nerves of the spiracles, nerves to all the muscles of the segment including both afferent and efferent terminations and the extensive receptor system of the body-wall. It was from the results of such a study that it was determined, for instance, that muscle cells had both afferent and efferent terminations, the former by means of bipolar cells located on the muscle fibers, the latter by extensive complex end-plates supplied by nerve cells from the ventral ganglia by a special motor branch. It was also determined that at least ten nerve cells supplied each muscle fiber of larger size. It was determined that the so-called median nerve was composed of two parts and that the lateral nerves from these strands had components, from both above and below, from cells in the two nearest. ganglia. The lateral nerves were traced to spiracles. It was determined that the socalled heart was supplied by strands from the motor branch of each ganglion; the fibers from these nerves were not all confined to the segment from which they spring. It was determined that the intestine was supplied by visceral ganglia which give rise to a superficial and a deep plexus with motor fibers from the central ganglia and sensory fibers from the intrinsic nerve cells of the plexus. It was found that the superficial nerve plexus contributed to the afferent and efferent supply of the Malpighian tubules.

Other recent studies have added much to our knowledge of the nervous system of insects, notably Zwarzin (Zeit. f. wiss. Zool., 1924) and Orlof in the same publication. As a result of their work and mine the following seems to be true:

(1) The visceral system of insects consists of the so-called visceral ganglia in the head region with nerve extensions along the digestive tube. Receptor cells in the wall of the intestine of a bipolar or tripolar nature may in part be from muscles. The effector cells seem to be located in the visceral ganglia. (2) The somatic system consists of bipolar cells ending in hollow hairs of the body-wall. Similar cells and some of a tripolar nature end in the bodywall without hairs. These also seem to be receptors. The effectors are located in the ventral ganglia of each segment and supply nerve endings to the body muscles.

(3) Fibers or cells or both often form a peripheral

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network in the skin between the bipolar terminations. der These may associate the different regions.

fine

THE INDEX GENERALIS

THE "Minerva," or annual of the universities, which had a very modest beginning, but grew in the course of years until it had the proportions of a lexicon for a foreign language, had come to be more and more depended upon by university men as an indispensable book of reference. Published by Karl Trübner, of Strassburg, it came to a sudden end with the outbreak of the European war.1 Now once more in possession of Alsace, it has been a matter of pride for the French to take over the task of supplying a university annual, and under the name Index Generalis they have issued an enlarged and improved "Minerva.”2

Two ministries have made subventions for the publication and the huge task appears to have been taken very seriously. The value of such a work must depend very largely upon the correctness and the recent date of the information collected, and in no small degree upon the proofreading. It is a pleasure to be able to record the distinct success of the project in each of these respects. The volume which has just issued from the press is the second of the new series, the first having appeared a year ago.

Until new and satisfactory classified lists of scientists have appeared, the list of savants near the close of this volume can be made to serve. It covers no less than 366 closely printed pages and includes

1 "Minerva' resumed publication under the same editorship in 1923. It is published by the successor of Karl J. Trübner, Walter de Gruyler & Co., Berlin and Leipzig.

2 Index Generalis, Annuaire Général des Universités, Grandes Écoles, Académies, Archives, Bibliothèques, Instituts Scientifiques, Jardins Botaniques et Géologiques, Musées, Observatoires, Sociétés Savantes; Publié sous la Direction de R. de Montessus de Ballore, Professeur Libre à la Faculté des Sciences de Paris, Ouvrage honoré de souscriptions du Ministère de l'Instruction Publique et du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères. "Edition Specs,' ," 17 rue Soufflot, Paris, 1924-1925, pp. 21-36.

the names and addresses of about fifty thousand savants. Some difficulty seems to have arisen with the press work, for the forms could not have been very securely locked. Though many letters have fallen out, so large is the list and so accurate the alphabetical arrangement that most of the missing letters can be supplied.

Abbreviations have been used very extensively so as to reduce the compass of this work, and a little practice is necessary before one makes ready use of the volume. A feature of special interest is the complete list of members of all national societies of savants. A wise innovation has been the use of the English language for the sections devoted to the British and American institutions.

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

WILLIAM HERBERT HOBBS

BAUXITE AND SIDERITE

DR. E. N. LOWE, director of the Mississippi Geological Survey, who has published in SCIENCE, May 8, 1925, certain comments on recent papers of mine on bauxite, is correct in his belief that no discourtesy to him or to the Mississippi Survey was intended in my comments on the failure of two generations of geologists to capitalize Hilgard's description. I merely considered it as something of a joke on our profession to have a prospector make the discovery, for I also was among the geologists who had worked in the region without suspecting the presence of bauxite.

In Dr. Lowe's communication to SCIENCE it is not made clear that I published two papers, the first on "Bauxite associated with siderite," read before the Geological Society of America December 28, 1923, and submitted January 14, 1924, for publication by that society, and the second, a bulletin published by the United States Geological Survey about a year later on "Bauxite in Northeastern Mississippi." This latter bulletin is not mentioned by title by Dr. Lowe, but illustrations which were used in it are referred to, whereas none was used in the paper published by the Geological Society. It was stated that I forgot completely to mention that the Mississippi Geological Survey had promptly arranged with the prospecting company to secure the results of their accurate and detailed prospecting, but this statement surely can not refer to my Geological Society paper, which was prepared and submitted for publication before the state bulletin was available to me in any form for quotation or reference, nor could the U. S. Geological Survey paper (Bulletin 750-G) have been referred to.

At my request there were sent me page proofs of the state bulletin on March 21, 1924, nine weeks after the manuscript of my Geological Society paper had been sent to the society. The proofs were desired in