an exhibition of apparatus and books at the Central Hall, Westminster, and an exhibition of radiograms in the British Institute of Radiology, including those relating to papers read at the congress.

THE new plant pathology laboratories at the Rothamsted Experimental Station, Harpenden, Herts., were opened on June 18.

SIR WILLIAM MULOCK, chancellor of the University of Toronto, has announced the completion of preliminary arrangements for the raising of $500,000 for the Banting Research Foundation.

THE sum of £10,000 has been given to the London Hospital by Bernhard Baron to found a pathological institute, to be known as the Bernhard Baron Institute of Pathology. The hospital has also received £10,000 for the inauguration of the Owen Williams research fund, which is to be devoted to the prevention of disease.

AN appropriation of $25,000 for the work of Rush Medical College of the University of Chicago has been voted by the university board of trustees. In addition Carl D. Greenleaf, of Elkhart, Indiana, has given $10,000 to the medical college.

THE new house of the British Medical Association in London, now approaching completion, will be opened by the King on July 13. The medical profession officers of bodies cognate with the association, Dominion and Colonial delegates, and the presi

dent-elect of the American Medical Association will be present, and medical men from abroad, who will afterwards take part in the scientific proceedings at the Bath meeting, are also expected to attend.

DR. WARREN H. LEWIS, professor of anatomy at the Johns Hopkins University, writes: The first number of a new journal, Archiv für experimentelle Zellforschung besonders gewebezuchtung (Explantation) has reached this country. It is edited by Rhoda Erdman, of Berlin, with the collaboration of American, English, Danish, French, German, Italian, Russian and Swiss investigators in the field of experimental cytology. The gradually increasing volume of work in this field during the past ten or fifteen years and the recognition of its fundamental importance in biology assures the success of a journal devoted especially to experimental studies on living cells.

FUNDS to defray part of the expenses of contemplated investigations in the field of therapeutics have been granted by the Therapeutic Research Committee of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry of the American Medical Association to the following: Dr. Montrose T. Burrows, research department, Barnard Free Skin and Cancer Hospital, St. Louis; Dr.

Henry A. Christian, department of medicine, Harvard University; Dr. William S. Collens, department of physiology, Cornell University; Enrique E. Ecker, Ph.D., department of immunology, Western Reserve University; Dr. Robert A. Gesell, department of physiology, University of Michigan; Charles W. Greene, Ph.D., department of physiology and pharmacology, University of Missouri; Dr. Paul J. Hanzlik, department of pharmacology, Leland Stanford University; Treat B. Johnson, Ph.D., department of chemistry, Yale University; Dr. Edward B. Krumbhaar, Philadelphia General Hospital; Dr. Clayton S. Smith, department of physiological chemistry and pharmacology, Ohio State University; Dr. Alfred Stengel, medical division, University of Pennsylvania; Dr. Arthur L. Tatum, department of pharmacology, University of Chicago, and Dr. Carl J. Wiggers, department of physiology, Western Reserve University.

DR. MURRAY P. HORWOOD, assistant professor of biology and public health at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been asked to conduct a tuberculosis survey of Boston this summer for the Boston Tuberculosis Association. The survey will not only attempt to ascertain the facts concerning the antituberculosis activities in Boston, but will evaluate them and use them as a basis for a more comprehensive and effective program. The work is being performed with the cooperation of the state and local health departments, the hospitals, clinics and the various social, welfare and voluntary health agencies interested in the anti-tuberculosis campaign.

A PARTY of students and instructors from Louisiana State University spent the greater part of a week recently on Grand Isle at the mouth of Baretaria Bay, west of the Mississippi Delta. The trip was the annual field trip of the department of zoology, planned for the purpose of studying at first hand a typical Louisiana fauna. The time was divided between the Gulf beach life, that of the salt marshes at the back of the island, and that of the bay and the open gulf, both pelagic and deep sea forms, the last named specimens being obtained by trawling from one of the shrimp boats. There is also considerable bird life to be observed on the island; though none of the sea birds nests nearer than thirty miles away, they alight there in great numbers to feed. The island is likewise an excellent place for studying the migratory birds in passage. Collectors from the Louisiana State Museum told the university party that they had noted one hundred and fifty recognizable species of migrating birds passing over or alighting on Grand Isle two weeks previously.

THE Evaporated Milk Association has given two fellowships to the University of Chicago, one for $1,500 to the home economics department for determining the availability of calcium and other minerals, and the other to the department of hygiene and bacteriology for determining vitamin C.

Two industrial fellowships, as a mark of recognition of the lines of investigation pursued there, have been established in the departments of agricultural chemistry and bacteriology, respectively, of the University of Wisconsin. The Quaker Oats Company of America has given $3,200 to the former as an aid in securing impartial data on vitamins in cereals and their products with special reference to rolled oats and the antirachitic vitamin, and the Commercial Solvents Corporation has allotted $2,500 to the latter department working in conjunction with the other, to secure data on fermentation problems.

COLGATE AND COMPANY have established a research fellowship at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, in the department of chemistry, for the purpose of studying the causes of tooth decay. The first Colgate fellow will be Dr. Sylva Thurlow. The work is to be carried on under the direction of the professor of chemistry, Dr. H. H. Bunzell.

DR. A. W. CROSSLEY, presiding at the annual dinner of the Chemical Society, London, referred to the difficult position in which the society finds itself on account of the increased cost of publication. Subscriptions of fellows have been raised, various limitations have been placed upon the distribution of the society's publications, and papers are curtailed as much as possible, yet there is a financial deficit, and no practical means of avoiding it have yet been found. On this situation Nature comments: "During the war, chemists saved the nation from disaster by supplying drugs, poison gases and protection from them, and other products demanded by the times, and it does not seem too much to ask that assistance should now be afforded in placing upon record the work they are doing for the advancement of knowledge. When one remembers the vast sums expended upon the verbatim reports of proceedings in Parliament published in the large volumes of Hansard, and considers how trivial most of the matters are in comparison with the original contributions made to a body like the Chemical Society, it is difficult to understand the national sense of value which leaves the society in its present anxious position. Possibly the additional £1,500 received by the Royal Society in aid of scientific publication will enable a grant to be made to the Chemical Society, but in our opinion a very strong case can be made out by many other scientific societies for assistance towards costs of pub

lication, either from the state or private benefactions, and we should like to see a concerted effort made with the view of securing adequate funds for this purpose."

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL
NOTES

GIFTS totalling $4,517,348, in addition to substantial contributions to the special $10,000,000 fund for chemistry, business and fine arts, were announced by President Lowell at the annual meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association.

PROFESSOR MELVILLE F. COOLBAUGH, of Golden, Colo., has been elected president of the Colorado School of Mines, succeeding Dr. Victor C. Alderson.

DR. WILLIAM S. ELKIN, for seventeen years dean of the Emory University School of Medicine, has resigned and has been elected emeritus dean and emeritus professor of obstetrics and gynecology. Dr. Russell H. Oppenheimer was elected dean to succeed Dr. Elkin.

DR. JASPER LUTHER BEESON, professor of chemistry in the Georgia State College for Women, Milledgeville, has been appointed dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in this institution.

DR. PAUL D. LAMSON, associate professor of pharmacology in the Johns Hopkins University Medical School, has been appointed professor of pharmacology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tenn.

RICHARD M. SUTTON, for three years instructor in physics in Miami University, Ohio, has resigned to take a fellowship in physics at the California Institute of Technology.

PROFESSOR CHARLES SHATTUCK PALMER, who for the past year has been research chemist of the department of scientific research, Institute of American Meat Packers, Chicago, will rejoin the staff of the department of chemistry of Northwestern University in September.

DR. EDWARD SAMPSON, associate geologist, U. S. Geological Survey, has been appointed assistant professor of geology at Princeton University.

DR. WALTHER F. HOLST, Son of President Axel Holst, of the University of Christiania, and discoverer of vitamin C, has been elected instructor in poultry husbandry at the University of California.

DR. WALTER NORMAN HAWORTH, professor of organic chemistry in the University of Durham, Armstrong College, Newcastle-on-Tyne, has been appointed professor of chemistry and director of the department of chemistry in the University of Birmingham,

England, in place of Professor G. T. Morgan, who has resigned.

DAVID JACK, at present associate professor in the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, has been appointed an assistant in the department of natural philosophy at the University of St. Andrews, England.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE THE EXCESSIVE POLITENESS OF AMERICAN BOTANISTS

WHOEVER writes a novel or a collection of essaysand gets it published-feels that some one somewhere is likely to say, in print, just what he thinks of the book and why. The American botanist who writes a paper has, on the other hand, every reason to believe that he will have little difficulty in finding a publisher; and thanks to the excessive politeness or perhaps the indifference of his colleagues, he is also reasonably certain that no matter how poor the paper be, no one will tell him so even in print. This is merely another way of saying that American botanical literature is conspicuously lacking in adequate criticism. The probable causes of this lack will be discussed briefly in the present note.

There can be no question that we need criticism. Probably the only American botanists whose work is open to no criticism are those who have published no papers. Occasionally, the need of criticism is acute. For example, the February number of Phytopathol'ogy contained an article in which it was announced as a discovery that Rhizopus rot is an important disease of peaches in transit. The concluding paragraph strongly urged that pathologists give attention to this rot and study methods of control. No literature relative to Rhizopus rot of peaches was cited, although there are two recent American papers dealing with the subject, one of which was published in the Journal of Agricultural Research and the other in Phytopathology itself. To date, no review or criticism of this paper has appeared.

In general, we confine our criticisms of papers to personal discussions at times when neither the author of the paper nor the editor of the journal is present. In the February number of the American Journal of Botany there appeared an article on poisonous plants. This contribution contains such information as that "... the burrs of the chestnut produce mechanical injuries" and that "buckwheat cakes sometimes produce a dermatitis in people and hogs." The prevalent southern notion that "Buckwheat cakes and Injun batter makes you fat or a little fatter" was somehow overlooked. This paper was read aloud recently to a group of professional botanists assembled at lunch. It was greeted with undignified shouts of glee. Regarded purely as a humorous article it was a huge suc

The prevalent

cess, although two or three of the older members of the society which supports the journal did express the opinion that it was a disgrace to the society. One of them, who has been much in Europe, stated that on account of the publication of such papers we are rapidly losing our standing with European botanists. No one, so far as can be learned, has taken the trouble to write a serious review or even a letter to the editor.

It can not be successfully contended that American botanists lack the ability to criticize. Dr. Fernald's reviews of publications in his field are of unusually high quality and have added materially to his standing as a botanist. Dr. Heald's review of Stevens' "Fungi Which Cause Plant Disease" is a classic.

American botanists have also shown decided ability to appreciate criticism. The editorial review published in the Gardeners' Chronicle for February, 1921, of Dr. Coville's paper on the influence of cold in stimulating the growth of plants was widely read and appreciated by American botanists, including, we believe, the author of the criticized paper. More recently American botanists have read with interest, in the International Sugar Journal, Dr. E. W. Cross's review of Lee's paper on present needs in cane disease control.

Reference to the note in the Gardeners' Chronicle brings up the interesting question of why friendly and constructive criticism is more common in English botanical publications than in American. Without attempting to answer the question in detail it may be suggested that perhaps real criticism is lacking in American botany because of the great American tendency to move in crowds. Most American botanists of the present generation have been college trained; that is, they have been trained to boost for the old college and yell for the home team. They hate to offend personal friends. They realize that an incisive review may hurt the reviewer's chances of election to the vice-presidency of the section of oenotheriology of the Botanical Society of America-and so, the review is not written.

The need of adequate criticism in American botany being recognized, how shall it be met? In the litererary field it is met by a special class of writers, many of whom in the past have attained high standing as critics. This solution of the problem is perhaps not possible in botany at the present time, although something similar has been suggested. Only recently, the distinguished professor of botany in one of our great universities wrote a Washington botanist: "Why does not the department establish a division of research criticisms and reviews and start a journal in that line?" This is emphasized by the pen note, "This is serious and no joke." Granted the desirability of such a journal, why should it be conducted by the Department of Agriculture? Why should it not

be established, for example, by the National Research Council? There could then be started somewhere else a journal of criticisms of the National Research Council and both publications would be assured of abundant material.

A criticism need not be caustic nor entirely unfavorable. It should call attention to the strong points of the article as well as its weak ones and it should never be anything but frank and honest. On occasion it may even have entertainment value.

The above notes while in manuscript form were referred for criticism to Dr. C. L. Shear. He returned them with a comment which so well bears out our central thought that we are quoting it in conclusion:

In the case of young investigators it is little less than criminal to encourage or ignore hasty and poorly prepared publications, since by so doing their futures may be blasted and real contributions to science lost. D. H. ROSE, NEIL E. STEVENS

BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY,
WASHINGTON, D. C.

ON THE DAYLIGHT VISIBILITY OF STARS FROM A MINE SHAFT

THE perennial question of the daylight visibility of stars from wells or mine shafts having been raised again, I have thought the following discussion might be of sufficient interest to justify a printed note.

Stars can, of course, be observed by daylight with a telescope. The image of a fixed star appears in a telescope as practically a point, but due to the lightgathering power of the objective of the telescope, is hundreds of times as bright as when seen by the unaided eye. The intrinsic brightness of the sky, an extended surface, can not be increased in the least. Consequently, on any clear day, the brighter stars are easily seen with a telescope of moderate size.

Now consider a person descending a well or a mine on a bright day. As one goes down, the patch of sky seen above becomes smaller and smaller, but from an elementary proposition in physics the intrinsic brightness is practically unchanged. The only change is the small loss due to atmospheric absorption, which will affect also any stars which happen to be in that

area.

At a depth of a few hundred feet the general illumination would be greatly reduced, and the eye would be a little more sensitive; but since the contrast between the stars and the sky background is the same as at the surface, it is obvious that a star could be seen only if bright enough to be on the limit of visibility from the shade of any good sized building. The necessary brightness for daylight visibility is easily estimated from observations with a telescope,

or obtained directly from observations of the planet Venus in midday.

With an objective of 6-inches aperture a star in daylight should theoretically appear about 1,000 times as bright as to the unaided eye. Further, it is found that the faintest stars which can be observed in midday with such an instrument give about one thousandth the light of the planet Venus at its maximum brightness. Making no allowance for atmospheric disturbances, we would expect these stars as seen in the telescope to appear about as bright as Venus seen with the unaided eye. But, as the "seeing" is always rather bad in the daytime and any disturbances are greatly magnified in the telescope, Venus at maximum brightness is an easier object to the unaided eye than such a star is in the telescope. As a matter of fact, Venus can be seen with no great difficulty on the best days when about half a magnitude below maximum. However, in the eastern and middle western states, one must have good eyesight and choose a very clear day to see Venus when as faint as thirty times the brightness of Vega, the brightest star which could be seen from a vertical mine shaft anywhere in the United States or Europe.

This is a pretty wide margin, and one naturally wonders how the stories started. A suggestion is that accidental views of Venus in the daytime are responsible. I have in the last twenty years personally known of several such, by persons with no astronomical knowledge. Any good news writer, hearing of such a glimpse of a "star" from an open window or cave opening to the south, could imagine that from a deep mine other stars could be seen. It should also be borne in mind that Venus passes overhead in tropical countries and should occasionally be seen from wells, shallow mines, large chimneys, etc., in those regions.

After the above was written, I spoke to Professor A. E. Drucker, a mining engineer of some twenty years' experience. His reply was that as one descends a deep mine the patch of bright sky at the top gets smaller and smaller, eventually looking like a star. He had never heard of any one's seeing a star by daylight from a deep mine shaft.

To summarize: Since the contrast between a star and the sky background would not be changed in descending a mine shaft, one could see a star only if practically on the limit of visibility from any spot above ground where the eyes are well protected from the glare of the sun. To be so seen a star must approach the brightness of Venus at greatest brilliancy. From this we can say that in the United States and Europe no stars could be seen from a ver

TWINNING IN A MOLLUSC, SERPULOIDES VERMICULARIS

In view of a statement by Newman1 it seems worth while to mention a possible case of twinning observed in embryos of Serpuloides vermicularis. Newman writes:

I have never seen a reference to a case of twins or double monstrosity in Mullusca . . . characterized by determinate cleavage in its highest form. . . . It is no wonder then that in groups with strictly determinate cleavage we find no example of twinning, for twinning requires a totipotency of blastomeres or regions of the blastoderm.

Serpuloides is a sessile tubiculous mollusc living on the under sides of rocks in shallow water along the Pacific coast. Ovoviviparity is the rule. The young individuals are "born" with a simple coiled shell resembling that of an ordinary snail. The young Serpuloides soon become attached to the substratum and begin to grow in length. As they grow, they keep adding material at the mouth of the shell, gradually increasing its size so that a long irregularly coiled tube, resembling that of some of the polychetes, is produced eventually. The material in question, collected on the Pacific coast during the summer of 1923, consists of three pairs of "twins." In each case, two apparently normal young individuals, each with a larval shell fully formed but below the average in size, are contained in a single intact egg "shell," or membrane. These embryos were studied in the living condition and then fixed and preserved in alcohol for future examination. During life their movements were similar to those of other embryos at corresponding stages of development. Other preserved material on hand is being examined for possible earlier stages of such a phenomenon. This communication is presented as a suggestion that twinning is not impossible in the Mollusca, in spite of the determinate cleavage so characteristic of the group.

THE RICE INSTITUTE, HOUSTON, TEXAS

RICHARD P. HALL

1"The Physiology of Twinning," 1923.

SCIENTIFIC BOOKS

Laboratory Manual of the Foetal Pig. By W. J. BAUMGARTNER. New York: The Macmillan Com

pany, 1924.

THIS is a laboratory manual that merits the consideration of every teacher of comparative vertebrate anatomy. It contains excellent directions for the dissection and study of a form hitherto largely overlooked, which presents certain obvious advantages over the dog, cat or other mammal more frequently the object of such study. Among these advantages the author calls attention to the following:

(1) The unlimited number of specimens which may be obtained at any good-sized packing plant with a minimum expenditure of time and labor.

(2) The convenient size of the specimens together with their ease of preservation.

(3) The absence of any objectionable odor or other quality that would make them objects of disgust to the most "finicky" student.

(4) The impossibility of any sentimental restrictions on their use arising from humane societies or antivivisection societies. Related to this is the fact that the student has no tender associations to be outraged as is sometimes the case where "pet" animals are used.

(5) The softness of the muscular and skeletal systems in the fetal pig make easier the dissection of the nervous and circulatory systems. And finally,

(6) The student gets a very good idea of the course of the fetal circulation in mammals.

The disadvantages in the use of this type of material are few and easily remedied. Some who have attempted it in the past have complained that the pigs become soft and "mushy." This is due to improper fixation and is readily overcome by following strictly the procedure described in this manual, which is the result of twelve years' experience. The imperfectly developed skeletal system can be readily supplemented with prepared skeletons, and the very immaturity of the pig gives the student an idea of bone development which he can not obtain from a study of mature animals only. There is left only the muscular system as a real difficulty and this can be remedied by the use of a few mature animals for the demonstration of the muscles, their arrangement and functions. This disadvantage is after all such a minor one that it is far outweighed by the greater usefulness of the pig in all other respects.

Typographically this book is up to the usual Macmillan standard. Only a very few errors have been noted, the most serious being the constant use of "foeti" as the plural form of "fetus." Not only does the correct Latin plural of this word end in "-us,” as in the singular, but attention may also be called to the fact that the "oe" in the first syllable is likewise