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northern observatories, was incorrect and unjust, in that it overlooked the case of Dr. C. P. Olivier, for several years an astronomer in the McCormick Observatory. I regret exceedingly this oversight, and I am at a loss to explain it, especially as Dr. Olivier was for a year a member of the staff of the Lick Observatory, and his valued astronomical contributions are thoroughly familiar to me. It is my duty and pleasure to say that the observatory of the University of Virginia, thanks in good measure to the abilities and enthusiasms of Director Mitchell and astronomer Olivier, is as efficient in good works as any existing observatory. It is greatly to be regretted that their financial resources are so limited.

I should like to say that my comments upon the astronomical situation in the southeastern states were primarily not intended to be taken in the negative sense. There was with me the hope that a public expression on the subject might lead to a better realization of existing needs, and to more adequate financial provision in the positive sense.

W. W. CAMPBELL

TECHNICAL STUDY AT OBERLIN COLLEGE IN SCIENCE for December 31 I find a note: It is planned to establish a technical school at Oberlin College with accommodation for about seven hundred students.

This statement is not quite correct. President King has several times proposed, upon his own responsibility and doubtless merely for informal consideration, a plan for technical departments chiefly in chemical engi

neering and metallurgy. I believe the proposal has not yet come to the faculty for formal consideration, so of course does not have their endorsement. As all matters of internal policy and administration in Oberlin are controlled by the faculty, in accordance with an old vote of the trustees twice recently reaffirmed and now in part of the nature of a contract, it is evident the proposal has not yet taken the first formal step toward adoption. President King, who is one of the staunchest

supporters of this Oberlin system, apparently thinks that it is not yet time for formal consideration of the plan. It has been mooted for two years, and indeed over fifteen years ago something of the sort was suggested, but it has received only individual consideration by members of the faculty. Judging from numerous conversations, I think the faculty, if they are asked to consider it, will decide the plan to be unwise. A general feeling among the faculty is that Oberlin's effort should be centered upon strengthening herself in every way as a college before entering upon university or technical school work.

MAYNARD M. METCALF

URTHER REMARKS ON "THE USE OF THE TERM FOSSIL "

THE short article entitled "The Use of the Term Fossil" published in No. 1330 of SCIENCE seems to have fulfilled the writer's object of stimulating discussion. The first criticism, by Garret P. Serviss, appeared in the Sunday American1 and while approving "poetic license" the author continues the plea for a more careful use of scientific terms by the scientist, as follows:

Half the fogs that trouble the ordinary reader when he undertakes to traverse the fields of sci ence are due to the capricious use of words which ought to have an invariable signification.

In No. 1348 of SCIENCE, under the title "Professor Field's Use of the Term Fossil,' Professor Authur M. Miller suggests th following definition: "Any trace of a

organism that lived in a past Geologica

Age." He then states that such expression

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as "fossil suncracks " and fossil floo plains" are "illuminating" and "apt" an are valued contributions to geologics phraseology." In a recent contribution b a well-known paleobotanist, we find the ter "fossil climate." Would it be considere "illuminating" or "apt" to define pale climatology as the study of "fossil climates' There is a science of words as well as things, and is it not true that much of tl

1 July 22, 1920.

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misunderstanding in biological discussions
arises from the misuse of such terms as mu-
tation and saltation? We would not quibble
with Archbishop Trench's remark that words.
simply will not stay tied as regards their
meaning but are "constantly drifting from
their moorings," but the more the scientist
allows his vocabulary to drift the more is he
disturbed by the redefined or original terms
of his colleagues who, believeing it impossible
to use words of two, three or more meanings,
continue to inflict long-suffering humanity
with an ever-increasing nomenclature. Rather
do we agree with Alice who, after listening to
a dissertation by Humpty Dumpty in which
he makes his words mean what he chooses
nor less,"
them to mean-"neither more
comes to the conclusion that his remarks are
not particularly illuminating. Of
Humpty Dumpty was, among other things, a
poet, not a geologist!

But Professor Miller also states that

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The definition proposed by ... Field . faulty in that it errs in the time concept. He has committed the popular error of considering historic synonymous with the present geological epoch.

This is an unfortunate misstatement by Professor Miller and it is only necessary to quote from the original text to show that Field was not making the "popular error" implied.

A fossil is an object which indicates former existence of an organism which has been buried and preserved previous to historic time. According to this definition the mastodon preserved in the arctic ice is a fossil; the leaf buried in the gutter is not. It is also worth noting that Schuchert and the recent or historic others distinguish period as beginning the Psychozoic era. If in agreeing with this concept an error has been committed, it is certainly not a lar" one. Paleontology, the study of ancient life, is literally the study of fossils. Paleo is accepted in earth science as meaning geologically ancient. As a last analysis, which is the "fossil more "apt," paleo climates climates"?

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Professor Miller's constructive consists of the new definition already It has the advantage of being brief, using the expression "past geologica (subdivision of the present geological i.e., Bronze Age) he appears to make slight geological time distinction After careful reading of the whole t are under the impression that he mean geological epoch" or pre-historic!

DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGY,

BROWN UNIVERSITY

RICHARD M.

THE BIOGRAPHICAL DIRECTORY OF AM
MEN OF SCIENCE

THE third edition of the Biog
Directory is now in type; it will be p
as soon as the printers can complete th
of the work. The editor ventures to
the return of all proofs and also for i
tion in case proof has not been recei
second copy of the proof (by letter
with return letter postage) has been
those who did not return the first copy
a reasonable time. If it is not know
scientific man can be reached at the
given, or even that he is living, it will
cases be undesirable to include the b
ical sketch.

It is gratifying that the number engaged in scientific work in America creased from about 4,000 in 1905 t 10,000 at the present time. This stance, however, has greatly enhan labor and the cost involved in the pre of the work, and it is not possible individual letters of enquiry in all cas this might be desirable. The edito quently makes public this request. return of the corrected proofs of all b ical sketches. J. MCKEEN CA GARRISON-ON-HUDSON, N. Y.

QUOTATIONS

WHEN AN INVENTION IS NOT AN INV

THERE exists in our patent and c laws a gap which has always seemed

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lamentable one, and one which there is not the slightest justification for leaving unfilled. This has to do with the invention-we use the word though the law denies its propriety-of printed forms for the keeping of accounts or any other purpose.

It goes without saying that much skill and thought may be expended upon the formulation of a set of forms which shall be the last word in furnishing a framework for the proper recording of a certain kind of data. Business of many kinds is dependent upon tabular devices of this sort under one head or another; the invention of such a form may be of great value to its users. It would seem that the man who devotes his time and energy and ingenuity to getting up a thing of the sort ought to be rewarded to the same degree and in the same manner as the man who invents a new safety pin or a novel design for a perfumery bottle or a clever trade-mark. But under the law and the decisions as they now stand he is able to get no protection of any description; you or I or anybody else may manufacture and sell his form in direct competition with him and he has no redress save to undersell us.

The hitch lies in the fact that the law defining invention is so worded that a blank form to be filled in by the user is not an invention. It has no mechanical features, and it is not a process or a product. If the inventor be sufficiently ingenious to design it in such fashion that the user has to punch a hole as part of the process of using it, or join two parts of it in a certain predetermined relationship, or fold the left fifth over upon the right fifth and tear them half off and turn one of them over again in order to bring into juxtaposition two parts of the paper that were originally remote, this constitutes the mechanical feature necessary to make the form stand up under fire as an "invention" entitled to patent protection. But in the absence of such a feature the patent examiners will have nothing to do with it; and if the unhappy inventor turns to the copyright division, he learns that whether his device is an invention or not, it certainly is no publication and he can not protect it by copy

right. Even the feeble solace of a design patent seems denied him.

The situation has long been familiar to us. We are inspired to comment on it by a subscriber who shows us a farmers' account book which he has devised. This is an admirable article, and at the same time it fills a want; for the farmer, never an accountant, is required to keep accounts under penalty of paying an income tax on a lot of income that isn't income. But our subscriber can't advertise his little book decently, for if he does some substitute that doesn't have to meet any advertising expense will appear and wipe out his market. We think he has a grievance against the government that tells him that an invention is sometimes an invention and sometimes isn't. Scientific American.

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The theory of flight has more than kept pace with the development of the airplane. It is possible, on the basis of constants determined in wind tunnels, to predict very closely the performance of an existing airplane or to design a plane for some desired performance. The fundamentals of this theory of flight are embodied in a number of recent treatises and are readily available to the student. In Bedell's work they are not only available but are presented in so attractive and understandable a form as to compel the interest of the reader. The present reviewer has read the book through twice, for the pleasure of following so masterly a presentation. Everything is reduced to its simplest terms; every idea is driven home; the influence of each element is illustrated by a series of graphs; the whole subject seems to develop itself. It is a book for the amateur, but it is also the best of beginning books for the serious student. And it explains so convincingly many things which are troublesome to the beginner, as for example, why can not speed be increased in level flight

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merely by opening the throttle, as in the case of an automobile.

Professor Bedell's book shows an unusual gift for clean cut analysis and exposition; there are but few scientific or technical books that demonstrate these qualities in so high a degree.

The book does not attempt to extend the science of aeronautics. It is devoted primarily to a discussion of the problem of sustentation; the matter of stability is also treated, but in a qualitative way. It falls in a category between the popular book, superficial and inadequate, and the treatise, involved, and complicated. It is a book destined for a long and useful life. LIONEL S. MARKS

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

SPECIAL ARTICLES

A FURTHER NOTE ON WAR AND POPULATION1

In a note published last summer2 I drew attention to the course of the ratio

100 Deaths Births

in the principal belligerent countries of Europe between 1913 and 1918. All of the curves presented, with the single exception of that for Prussia, ended on a high point in 1918. The question was raised as to what would be their course after that year, and it was shown that England and Wales gave a value of 73 per cent. for 1919 against 92 per cent. for the high point in 1918. The first three quarters of the year 1920 give for England and Wales a value of 46.8 per cent. This is 10 points lower than the figure for 1913! For every death England had more than two births.

The Journal Officiel has recently published the 1919 figures for France (77 non-invaded departments only) to the following effect:

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with 198 in 1918, 179 in 1917, 193 in in 1915, 110 in 1914, and 97 in 1913. words, in the next year immediately: the cessation of hostilities France's de ratio came back to less than that of With an first whole year of the war. of 157 per cent. in marriages in 1919 there seems little risk in predicting will show a ratio not far from 100, w be about the normal prewar status having had for some time a nearly s population. The 1920 vital index fo may well prove to be considerably b

Another, and even more striking tion of the exceedingly transitory effe upon the rate of population growth, i the figures for the City of Vienna. no large city suffered so severely from as did this capital. Yet observe happened, as set forth in Table I. table I have added, for the sake of out the data of this and the former p death-birth ratios of the United Stat tration Area for as many years as available, and for England and Wale 1920 (first three quarters of latter y

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These figures are shown graphicall

ure 1.

We note that:

1. The high point of the Vienna 1918, 229 per cent., is higher than France (198 per cent.), and probab than for any other equally large agg population in the world.

3 First three quarters of year only.

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FIG. 1. Showing the change in percentage which deaths were of births in each of the years 1912 to 1919 for Vienna (- -); 1915 to 1919 for the United States (--); and 1912 to 1920 for England and Wales (----).

2. The drop in 1919 is sharp in its angle and marked in its amount, the percentage coming down nearly to the 1916 figure-and this in spite of the very distressing conditions which prevailed in Vienna throughout 1919. It is not at all improbable, indeed rather it is probable that Vienna will in 1920 show a ratio under 100-that is, more births than deaths. If this happens she will have begun absolute natural increase again in only the second year after the cessation of hostilities, during the last year of which she had 2 persons die for every one born.

3. The war produced no effect upon the death-birth ratio in this country, as would have been expected. The influenza epidemic in 1918 raised the curve a little, but it promptly dropped back to normal in 1919.

4. In England and Wales the provisional fig

ure indicates that 1920 will show a lower vital index than that country has had for many

years.

Altogether, these examples, which include the effects of the most destructive war known to modern man, and the most devastating epidemic since the Middle Ages, furnish a substantial demonstration of the fact that population growth is a highly self-regulated biological phenomenon. Those persons who see in war and pestilence any absolute solution of the world problem of population, as postulated by Malthus, are optimists indeed. As a matter of fact, all history definitely tells us, and recent history fairly shouts in its emphasis, that such events make the merest ephemeral flicker in the steady onward march of population growth.

RAYMOND PEARL

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