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areas of natural Negro segregation. As those areas to maintain men and culture of a fair level with the remainder of the nation, or will they be lowered so that a sort of cultural and physical quarantine would need to be maintained? Will those areas spread their inferiority out over their borders? Haiti and Liberia are contemporary examples of slackening Negro culture. We should study the tendencies of this movement in America-this unsought for, uninvited, unintended environmental segregation of the two peoples.

A second Negro movement is the present unprecedented acceleration of Negro migration from south to north. Ever since the Civil War the Negro has been a restless migrant, but during the past three years the migration has turned particularly away from the south, and one million or more Negroes have come directly from their old southern homes into our northern cities.

The south and the Negro mutually understand each other. The white south will tell you that it has no Negro "problem," because there is a perfectly understood procedure in all

interrelations between individuals, or groups, of the two races. The north and the Negro are almost total strangers. If the Negroes become proportionately as numerous in the north as they are in the south, will the interrelations between the two peoples be similar to those now in the south where the public opinion and the practise of the white south is, as expressed to me by men in several different southern areas, just this "The white man will run the south. Whether just or not, it is necessary." The recent northern race riots in East St. Louis, Omaha, Chicago and Duluth are, in this connection, suggestive.

The most accurate data should be at hand in regard to this northward migration, and daily research should be carried on in its many varying aspects. We need scientific facts to understand the tendencies of so unprecedented a movement.

In one aspect of this northward migration of Negroes decisive opinion should be uttered without further research, and that is the movement of alien Negroes into the United

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States-largely from the West Indies. On those who are so uninformed as not to kno we have a tragically serious Negro problem America can, on any except selfish ground favor the admission of alien Negroes to Ame ica. Have we not wisdom and charact enough to prevent the further aggravation the problem by the admission of some 6,0 more such aliens yearly?

A third of these Negro movements is t amalgamation of the Negro and the white, a the consequent effacement of Negroes by the physical incorporation with the remainder the nation's population.

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The growth in the per cent. of mixed-bloo shows that an increasing per cent. of "N groes possess mates with white ancestr Unless the tide turns the descendants of very large per cent. of our present Negroes time will be incorporated in the then Ame can breed of men.

The migration of the Negro to our northe cities and the large per cent. of foreign-bo whites in these cities greatly complicates th phase of the Negro question. The foreign coming fresh to our shores almost entire lacks the racial prejudice which is native America. I was told in Cleveland last summ by a student of the problem there that in th city intermarriage between the Negroes a Italians is taking place at a rapid rate in t two chief Italian centers of residence.

A most careful and conclusive study of c people of Negro-white ancestry should be ma that we may know how the wholesale abso tion of our Negroes by our whites will aff the qualities of the nation as a whole. At given era in history has one nation probal been inherently greatly superior or inferior another in the same general stage of cultu yet some competing nations have gone do while others have advanced. Apparently v slight physical, intellectual or moral superi ity is enough to give successful advanta and very slight inferiority enough to result disastrous disadvantage between two nati quite equally favored by environment. B tory has no truths to tell of the relat strength or weakness of a nation so larg

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come.

SCIENCE

Negro as ours seems at present destined to beIf we are not to blunder on in the dark, it is well to learn what forecasts of the future can be made by asking scientific questions of the present.

The fourth Negro movement I shall note is that of growing political power due to developing race consciousness and purposeful organization for political action.

August 19, 1920, the newly elected president of the Universal Negro Improvement Association is quoted in the press as saying, "The day is not far distant when the Negro will be a power in politics." In the October, 1920, number of The Journal of Negro History an article by Norman B. Andrews entitled "The Negro in Politics," closes with these words:

In several of the cities of the North there is such a large Negro population and so much appreciation among the Negroes of their political power that they are now launching a movement to nominate and elect members of their race to represent them in Congress. It is likely that this may soon be effected in Chicago, New York and Philadelphia.

race

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People says that in 1913 it defeated bills in eleven states out of twelve which aimed to prevent Negro-white intermarriage.10 When an organization in the race in America, a interest of one which numbers one tenth of our total population, can control legislation in eleven out of twelve states as far separated as New York on the Atlantic and Washington on the Pacific, it is very evident that that race is rapidly becoming an important political factor in the life of our nation.

A few years ago one of the foremost administrators of research funds in the United States said the American Negroes could not be researched by his institution because they were a political factor in America. Is this not the all-sufficient reason why we should have all possible scientific data and knowledge concerning the Negro? The Negroes and

10 Fourth Annual Report of the Board of Directors of the National Negro Protective Association.

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whites in America have become too dy for national disaster longer to be trus adjust their differences mainly on th of race prejudice on the one hand, thoughtful sentimentality on the other

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I have endeavored to show in this pap our nation should make large use of and specific anthropological knowledge insure her national development. interested as any anthropologist in search into the development of man. terested in the development of culture. as one of my very richest experiences timate contacts with primitive peoples, an American believing in America a possibilities, I am to-day first of all that anthropologists use their scientific edge to assist America in the solution momentous problems.

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ALBERT ERNEST
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

A BRIEF HISTORICAL CONSIDER
OF THE METRIC SYSTEM
THE World Metric Standardization
wishes briefly to present to the Math
Association of America the desirabili
rolling actively in support of the add
the metric system in the United Sta
organization is an advisory organizat
fying the efforts of all who are ur
adoption of the metric units of wei
measures throughout the United St
British commonwealths and the worl
are no decimal dues, but contributio
cause are welcome.

Whatever theoretical advantages & imal or sixty system might have, th mains that man is ten-fingered and count and reckon with these mechan assisting in the process of computati consciously or unconsciously. Amo zations reaching any high degree o only two have carried to any extent than a decimal system The sixty sys Babylonians and the twenty syste

1 Paper presented before the Mathen sociation of America, Chicago, Dec. 28,

Mayas of Yucatan are exceptions. However, even in these systems, the ten (or five) forms a subsidiary system, apparently developed first. The further important fact should be noted that with the development of these numerical systems, both these civilizations included their systems of weights and measures. We may even say that it appears probable that the system of weights and measures was first brought to the sixty system among the Babylonians, and weights and measures to the twenty system among the Mayans, and from this carried over to the number system. Note that this reduction took place in Babylon as much as four thousand years ago. These ancient civilizations found it necessary, then, to make their number systems conform to their systems of weights and measures, including time.

The first systematic treatise on decimal fractions was printed in 1585, first in Flemish and then in French, by Simon Stevin, of Bruges. This work is addressed to astronomers, surveyors, masters of money (of the mint), and to all merchants. Stevin says, of this work, that it treats of "something so simple, that it hardly merits the name of invention." He adds:

We will speak freely of the great utility of this invention; I say great, much greater than I judge any of you will suspect, and this without at all exalting my own opinion. . . . For the astronomer knows, the difficult multiplications and divisions which proceed from the progression with degrees, minutes, seconds and thirds... the surveyor, he will recognize the great benefit which the world would receive from this science, to avoid . . . the tiresome multiplications in Verges, feet and often inches, which are notably awkward, and often the cause of error. The same of the masters of the mint, merchants, and others. . . . But the more that these things mentioned are worth while, and the ways to achieve them more laborious, the greater still is this discovery disme, which removes all these difficulties. But how? It teaches (to tell much in one word) to compute easily, without fractions, all computations which are encountered in the affairs of human beings, in such a way that the four principles of arithmetic which are called addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, are able to achieve this end, causing also similar facility to those who use the casting-board (jetons). Now if

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by this means will be gained precious time; by this means labor, annoyance, error, damage other accidents commonly joined with these putations, be avoided, then I submit this plan untarily to your judgment.

What can one add to these words of the writer on the subject, and an independent coverer of decimal fractions? All that St says applies to-day, hardly with the chang a letter. The genius of Stevin is eviden the comprehensive grasp which he had of universal application of decimal fraction affairs. Much of the benefit of this inven is lost to us in America, because we persis using non-decimal weights and measures. LOUIS C. KARPINS

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

SCIENTIFIC EVENTS THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE BOARD TRUSTEES OF THE AMERICAN MUSEU OF NATURAL HISTORY

A REPORT of the nature and scope of the year's work of The American Museum of ural History was made on the evening February 7 by President Henry Fairfield born, at the annual meeting of the boar trustees, which was held at the home of Walter B. James. The president regards year 1920 as one of the greatest years ir history of the museum, inasmuch as the stitution's educational value has for the time been fully recognized by the present administration, and gifts, collections. funds for expeditions presented to the mu represent a total of $500,000.

Commenting on the financial conditio the museum, it was announced that the y work had been concluded without the r sity of requesting the trustees to make usual personal contributions to supple the budget. This was due to the enforce of the most rigid economy and to the that the city authorities, after a searchin vestigation of its affairs, recognizing th portance of the institution as a vital and developing adjunct to the city's educat system, had increased the annual mainte allowance by $150,000 over the appropr

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for 1919. Appreciation was also expressed for the generous response to requests for membership and for support of exploration work.

The popularity of the museum as an educational center was evidenced by the visits of 1,040,000 persons during the year.

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seen

Regarding the museum's work of coopera-
tion with the public schools, it was reported
that 1,180,000 students had made use of the
nature study collections which are loaned,
without cost, to the schools; that 88,000 pupils
had attended the lectures in the museum pro-
vided so that they might visualize the sub-
jects treated in their studies; that 1,650 blind
"the material selected for
children had
their use and attended special lectures; that
136,500 people had made use of the collections
loaned to the public libraries; and that 116,500
slides had been distributed to public-school
teachers to enable them to give illustrated
talks on travel and natural history subjects
to their pupils. A new line of contact with
the schools has been developed through a
series of background lectures, given by the
museum staff to the city's teachers in training,
designed to give the student teachers a greater
fund of information and breadth of vision
and to familiarize them with the museum ma-
terial and the ways in which it can be used to
As a further
supplement class-room work.
development of this cooperative work with the
public-school system, the museum's depart-
ment of health, at the request of the Board of
Education, has prepared a set of twenty ex-
hibits, each set including food models, com-
position blocks and charts, and constituting
an aid to the instruction of school children in
dietary hygiene.

EXPEDITIONS AND ACQUISITIONS OF THE
AMERICAN MUSEUM

THE field work of the year included several important expeditions. In September, an expedition financed by Mr. Harry Payne Whitney and headed by Mr. Rollo H. Beck, started on a five-years' investigation of the birds of Polynesia. This is the most important expe dition ever sent into the field by the department of ornithology. Mr. George K. Chorrie

collected birds in southern Ecuador, and
Harry Watkins worked in Peru. Mr. I
Anthony collected mammals and verte
fossils in Jamaica and southern Ecuador.
J. C. Bell obtained specimens and cas
sharks and rays at Cape Lookout, I
Carolina. The department of anthrop
continued excavations at the Aztec,
Mexico, ruin (which work was provide
by the Archer M. Huntington Fund), s
party into the Grand Gulch region of
to explore cliff-dwellings, and began wit
Bishop Museum of Honolulu a joint in
gation of racial problems in Hawaii.
bers of this department also represente
Museum in Honolulu at the First Pan-I
Scientific Congress, at which plans were
for future Polynesian exploration and in
gation, in which the American Museur
participate. The department of geology
investigations in New York and Pe
vania, Tennessee and Kentucky, A
California and Hawaii, collecting in
regions being done by Curator E. O. 1
Associate Curator Chester A. Reeds, an
E. J. Foyles. Messrs. Albert Thomso
George Olsen excavated large fossil
brates in Nebraska, for the departm
vertebrate paleontology. Dr. Henry E. C
ton, curator of the department of inver
zoology, began an extended trip throu
South Seas and the Far East. Dr.
Lutz, associate curator of the same
ment, explored in Wyoming, Colorado,
Utah and Indiana, and Mr. F. E. Wats
field work in Jamaica. Mr. Paul Ru
collected in Mexico and Mr. Elwood J
obtained specimens in Colombia for t
partment of herpetology. Through c
tion with the New York Zoological S
under the supervision of Mr. C. V
Beebe, collecting has been carried on
museum in British Guiana at the Zo
Society's Tropical Research Station the

Important new acquisitions made.
the year, other than material secured
expeditions just mentioned, included
collection of paleolithic stone imp
from Egypt, presented by August Hec

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a rich and varied collection of ethnological material secured by the Rev. H. B. Marx and presented by Mr. J. P. Morgan; a large archeological collection from Iroquois sites in New York state, received through bequest of Herbert M. Lloyd; a suite of 68 mineral specimens from France, presented by Professor Lacroix of Paris; minerals from Chili presented by Mr. H. F. Guggenheim, and from Bolivia, presented by Mr. H. C. Bellinger; a ball, 10 centimeters in diameter, carved from a flawless rock crystal and mounted on a bronze elephant of Hindu workmanship, presented by Messrs. Sidney and Victor Bevin; a Japanese topaz, cut egg-shape and covered with facets, weighing 1,463 carate, donated by Mr. M. L. Morgenthau; a collection of pearls and pearlaceous growths presented by Mr. George W. Korper; a collection of marine fishes from Peru; a number of Honolulu fishes; a collection of fresh water fishes from China; a series of paleolithic implements from North Africa, selected by the French archeologist, M. Henri Breuil, and purchased through the Morris K. Jesup Fund; 1,200 mammals from North China and Mongolia-the largest and most valuable collection the museum has ever received from Asia-secured by the Second Asiatic Expedition; and 3,378 specimens (the greater part of which represent species new to the museum's collections) collected by Rollo H. Beck in South America and the West Indies, and presented by Mr. Frederick F. Brewster. This last mentioned item is the most valuable gift the Department of Ornithology has ever received. The Hall of Geology has been reopened to the public, after extensive re-arrangement and improvement, which is not yet completed. The re-installation of the North Pacific Indian Hall was reported to be almost finished. Early in 1920, the American Museum purchased, through the Archer I. Huntington Fund, the pueblo ruin at Aztec, New Mexico, which it has been investigating for the last five years. It was announced last night that in due time this property as uncovered and partially restored by the museum will be presented to the United

States to become a national monument and to be administered as a national park.

THE BIOLOGICAL FIELD STATION OF COR

NELL UNIVERSITY

PARTLY by purchase and partly through the generosity of Mrs. Herman Bergholtz, Cornell University has acquired land for what Professor Needham characterizes as "the best biological field station in this country, if not in the world." The acquisition comprises nineteen and a half acres of land at the north end of the Bergholtz tract, north of Percy Field. It is bounded on the east by the Lake Road and on the west by Cayuga Street. In accordance with the specification of Mrs. Bergholtz that the money which her gift represents be used either for the endowment fund or that the land be developed and improved as the trustees should decide, it has been turned over to the College of Agriculture to be developed as an aquatic park and field station. Money for its development is already available from that appropriated by the legislature for the college building and improvement program. The gift will also be included in the endowment fund.

The waters of Indian Spring, which is included in the tract, will be used for trout

ponds, and those of the lake will be used in other ponds and marshes where plants and animals may be studied in their native environment. An apiary and field station laboratory are planned, the latter to cost about $15,000. Because the area includes swamp, running water and high land, it is considered to be almost ideal for the purpose for which it will be used. Unlike the fresh water field stations along the Great Lakes, the weather conditions permit experimenters to work most of the year instead of only about six months.

Mayor Edwin C. Stewart, of Ithaca, has ex pressed the hope that the city may develop other land in the vicinity so that all of what is now waste land at the end of the lake may eventually be a park for public use.

AMERICAN FOUNDATION IN FRANCE FOR PRE HISTORIC STUDIES

Ar a meeting of the governing board of th American Foundation in France for Prehis

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