large steps; while these may occur, minute heritable changes are more frequent. . . . Evolution according to the typical Darwinian scheme, through the occurrence of many small variations and their guidance by natural selection, is perfectly consistent with what experimental and paleontological studies show us; to me it appears more consistent with the data than does any other theory.

Many believers in mutation have been needlessly befuddled by the diverse meanings of "variations" as used by Darwin and De Vries. Darwin included in his "individual variations" both the " fluctuating varieties " and the "mutations" of De Vries. Phenotypically they can not even now be distinguished. De Vries himself candidly admits that this was Darwin's attitude, thus proving himself more clear-sighted than many of his followers. All that Darwin needed for his purpose was proof of variations that are heritable, and these are found in mutations, be they large or small.

Just as mendelism has to do with the mechanism and not the fact of heredity, 80 the mutation theory deals with the nature and not the fact of variations. Neither, in my opinion, has any implication that is antagonistic to the theory of natural selection.

The statement has often been made that natural selection "originates nothing" because it does not explain the origin of variations. I must confess to scant patience with this point of view. As well say that the sculptor does not make the statue because he does not manufacture the marble or his chisel; or that the worker in mosaic originates nothing because he does not make the bits of stone which he assembles in his design!

The material corresponding to the bits of stone in the mosaic is furnished by heredity and variation, and its quantity by geometrical ratio of increase. Natural selection acts in selecting and putting together this material in the formation of new species. Thus, in a true sense, it seems evident that something new has appeared-something that is but was not.

Another favorite figure, introduced I be

lieve by De Vries, is "Natural selection acts only as a sieve" determining which forms shall be retained and which shall be discarded. This also seems to me to fall short of a complete statement of the truth. If the material subjected to the sifting process be regarded as changing with each generation by the addition of variations, or mutations if you prefer, some of which are favorable to a nicer adjustment of the species to its environment; the figure would be more nearly correct. To make it complete, however, the mesh of the sieve must change from generation to generation so that a quantitative variation which would be preserved in one generation would be discarded in a later one. But in this case natural selection would do more than a sieve could do. It would combine a number of favorable variations in the production of something new, a new species!

In conclusion it seems to me that we are justified in maintaining that Mendelism and the mutation theory, while forming the basis of the most brilliant and important advances in biological knowledge of the last half century, have neither weakened nor supplanted the Darwinian conception of the "Origin of species by means of Natural Selection." C. C. NUTTING

SCIENTIFIC EVENTS PROFESSOR CALMETTE ON A VACCINE FOR

TUBERCULOSIS

THE Paris correspondent of the London Times reports that the Petit Journal publishes an interview with Professor Calmette, subdirector of the Pasteur Institute, which indicates that progress has been reached in the long struggle of the medical profession to find a cure for the ravages of tuberculosis. Professor Calmette was careful to tell his interviewer not to proclaim too widely that a cure has been found. "We are only at the dawn," he said. The possibilities are immense, I can assure you, but we have still much work before us in following the pathway which now lies open before us and which will lead us perhaps to a splendid realization of our hopes. Hope is now permissible."

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Professor Calmette then gave an account of the results of his researches and those of Dr. Guérin, which proved that cattle and monkeys could be given immunity. A vaccine has been found for cattle. Experiments lasting over many months have given results said to be of importance.

Professor Calmette stated that in a certain stable they placed five known tuberculous Cows. With them were housed ten heifers, four of which had not been given an effective vaccine, and the other six had been vaccinated. The trial lasted for thirty-four months, some of the cattle being revaccinated each year. At the end of the time, when the beasts were slaughtered, it was found that of the four unvaccinated heifers three showed advanced tuberculosis. Of the six vaccinated beasts the two which had only once been vaccinated showed distinct signs of the disease, but the four animals which had been vaccinated three times, although they had been in constant company with the tuberculous companions for thirty-four months, showed no trace of the disease. Further experiments on a large scale are now going on.

To find out whether this vaccine is capable of being applied to man experiments will be necessary on chimpanzees and anthropoid apes. These animals do not take kindly to temperate climates, and Professor Calmette and his collaborators have therefore decided to build an experimental laboratory in French Guinea. The Pasteur Institute has obtained the concession of Rooma Island, four miles from Konakry, for their researches, and the governor of Western Africa has put at the institute's disposal from the 1921 budget the sum of about £6,000, with which the laboratories will be constructed. The researches of the scientific missions will take some years, and the estimated expenditure is £5,000 a year.

AWARDS OF THE PARIS ACADEMY OF
SCIENCES

ACCORDING to the report in Nature the prizes awarded by the Paris Academy include the following:

Mathematics.-Grand prize of the mathe sciences to Ernest Esclangon, for his men titled "New Researches on Quasi-periodi tions"; the Poncelet prize to Elie Cartan, whole of his work; the Francœur prize Baire, for his work on the general theory tions.

Mechanics.-A Montyon prize to Stéphan wiecki, for his book on the general theory helix, with reference to marine and aerial pr blades; the de Parville prize to Jean Vil his work on internal-combustion motors. Astronomy.-The Lalande prize to Schulhof, for his revision of the catalogue proper motions of 2,641 stars; the Valz I Ernest Maubant, for his work on the cald of the perturbations of comets; the Jansser to William W. Coblentz, for his work on the red radiation of terrestrial sources and of the Pierre Guzman prize between Françoi nessiat (5,000 francs), for his work on the raphy of the minor planets; René Jarry-D (5,000 francs), for his physical observations planets, especially Mars, and Joanny-Ph. I (4,000 francs), for his work on the rapid i cation of the minor planets.

Geography. The Delalande-Guérineau p Georges Bruel, for his explorations and p tions relating to French Equatorial Afric Tchihatchef prize to Auguste Chevalier, 1 explorations in Africa and Indo-China; the prize to Marcel Augiéras, for his work in th ern Sahara.

Navigation. The prize of 6,000 francs b Fernand Gossot (4,000 francs), for his trea the effects of explosives, Pierre de Vans Blavous (1,500 francs), for the whole of hi and René Risser (500 francs), for his w ballistics.

Physics.-The L. La Caze prize to Georg nac, for the whole of his work in physic Hébert prize to Léon Bouthillon, for his w wireless telegraphy; the Hughes prize to F Laporte, for his work on electrical standar the photometry of electric lamps; the ( Felix foundation to Amédée Guillet, for searches on chronometry.

Chemistry. The Montyon prize (un trades) to Léonce Barthe, for his work on giene of workshops; the Jecker prize francs) between Henri Gault, for his work ganic chemistry, and Henri Hérissey, for searches on the glucosides of plants; the

Caze prize to Robert de Forcrand, for his work in inorganic chemistry.

Mineralogy and Geology.-The Fontannes prize to Olivier Couffon, for his work entitled "Le Callovien du Chalet (Commune de Montreuil-Bellay)"; the Joseph Labbé prize to Albert Bordeaux, for his applications of geology to the solution of mining problems. The Victor Raulin prize is postponed until 1921.

Botany. The Desmazieres prize to André Maublanc, for his work in mycology and plant diseases; honorable mention to Pierre Sée, for his book on the diseases of paper; the De Coincy prize to Lucien Hauman-Merck, for the whole of his botanical work. The Montagne prize is not awarded.

Anatomy and Zoology.-The Cuvier prize to Alphonse Malaquin, for the whole of his work in zoology; the Savigny prize to F. Le Cerf, for his “Revision des Ægeriidés algériens'; the Jean Thore prize to A. Cros, for his biological studies of the Coleoptera of northern Africa.

THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON'S PHYSIOLOGICAL LABORATORY

AT its meeting in December the senate of the University of London decided that the physiological laboratory must be closed at the end of July next unless assurance of adequate support is received from the London County Council or other sources. The British Medical Journal writes:

The laboratory was established under the direction of Professor A. D. Waller, F.R.S., in 1902, at the headquarters of the university in the Imperial Institute, South Kensington, the equipment being provided out of a fund of £4,000 provided from private sources. It has since been maintained partly out of university funds and partly by private assistance, with the help, during the last nine years, of an annual grant of £500 from the London County Council. This grant is now to be withdrawn, and the university has no funds out of which to make up the deficit. In deciding to close the laboratory, the senate appears to be influenced also by the need of finding additional room in its present quarters for general university purposes; this is indicated by a further resolution stating "that should adequate support for the transference and maintenance of the physiological laboratory be forthcoming, the laboratory be continued during the pleasure of the senate elsewhere than in its present quarters, which shall be vacated not later than the end of July, 1921." Physiologists will

agree with Sir E. Sharpey Schafer that the closure of the laboratory would be a serious misfortune. "It is," he says, in a letter to the Times, "unique from the fact that, being unattached to any particular medical school or college, it has been untrammelled by the necessity of providing elementary teaching in physiology, and has been able to devote all its energies to research. The success it has obtained in this under the able guidance of the director, Professor A. D. Waller, is universally acknowledged. The originality of Professor Waller's methods and the brilliant results which have been obtained from their application-especially in the difficult subject of electrophysiology—are well known. It would be a real calamity if a sudden stop were put to these activities." It is suggested that the reason why the London County Council has withdrawn its contribution at this time is the expectation that it will shortly have to contribute a large sum toward the cost of building new university headquarters. "It would seem, Sir E. Sharpey Schafer concludes, "a pity to allow an active laboratory to be abolished in order to save £500 a year towards the cost of problematical buildings." "Problematical," perhaps, is not quite the right word, because, we presume, something will have to be done for the university, but no building can be undertaken for some considerable time to come. We can only express the hope that, should the London County Council remain obdurate, public-spirited benefactors, recognizing the importance of the university having at least one research laboratory, will come to the rescue. may, at any rate, express the expectation that means will be found to carry on the laboratory until the question of the new site for the university is settled.

We

POPULAR LECTURES ON SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS AT THE CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

WITH the opening to the public of the new Museum of the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, in 1916, one of the activities of the educational policy put into effect by Dr. Barton Warren Evermann, the director of the museum, was courses of popular lectures on scientific subjects of general interest. These courses began in the fall of 1916 and have been continued each year since, without interruption except during the summer months. The lectures are given at three o'clock each

Smith Hartley, senior physician at the Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest, Brompton.

THE pupils and friends of Professor E. Morselli recently celebrated the fortieth anniversary of his incumbency of the chair of psychiatry at the University of Genoa. The celebration occurred during the Italian Congress of Neurologists and Alienists, held at Genoa in his honor. A copy of Raphael's Madonna of the Candelabra, in a sixteenth century frame, was presented to him by public subscription.

THE Geological Society, London, has made the following awards: Wollaston medal, Dr. John Horne and Dr. B. N. Peach; Murchison medal, Mr. E. S. Cobbold; Lyell medal, Dr. E. de Margerie, director of the Geological Survey of Alsace-Lorraine; Bigsby medal, Dr. L. L. Fermor, Geological Survey of India; Wollaston fund, Dr. T. O. Bosworth; Murchison fund, Dr. Albert Gilligan; and Lyell fund, Professor H. L. Hawkins, Reading University College, and Mr. C. E. N. Bromehead, H.M. Geological Survey.

THE Paris Academy of Medicine has elected the following officers for the year 1921: President, Dr. Richelot; Vice-president (president for 1922), Professor Bourquelot, and Annual Secretary, Professor Achard.

HERBERT E. GREGORY, professor of geology at Yale University and director of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, has returned to the Hawaiian Islands.

DR. OSKAR KLOTZ, professor of pathology and bacteriology at the University of Pittsburgh, will sail on February 9 for São Paulo, Brazil, to assume for a two-year period the directorship of the pathological laboratories at the University of São Paulo, under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation.

PROFESSOR CHARLES J. TILDEN has been granted a leave of absence from Yale University, where he was called to reorganize the engineering courses a year ago, to become director of the Highway Education Committee appointed by the federal commissioner of education.

DR. L. A. MIKESKA has accepted a position on the staff of the Rockefeller Institute, New York City, having left the Color Laboratory of the Bureau of Chemistry in Washington, D. C., where he was working on photosensitizing dyes.

Dr.

DEAN A. PACK, Ph.D. (Chicago), has been appointed plant breeder in the Office of SugarPlant Investigations, Bureau of Plant Industry, U. S. Department of Agriculture. Pack has charge of the sugar beet seed breeding work for the department in the Intermountain States, with headquarters at Salt Lake City, Utah.

DR. J. C. WITT, assistant professor of analytical chemistry in the University of Pittsburgh, has resigned to become chief research chemist for the Portland Cement Association with headquarters in Chicago. Dr. Witt has been succeeded in his former position by Dr. C. J. Engelder, of Horneli, N. Y.

MR. THOMAS M. RECTOR, formerly in charge of the division of food technology of the Institute of Industrial Research, Washington, D. C., has been appointed director of the department of industrial chemistry of the Pease Laboratories, Inc., New York City.

DR. EDGAR FAHS SMITH, formerly provost of the University of Pennsylvania, made an address on February 11, on "Research," before the New York Section of the American Electrochemical Society in joint session with the American Chemical Society, the American Section Society of Chemical Industry and the American Section of Société de Chime Industrielle.