pointment of close times, and the protection of breeding areas require cooperation.

Many minor problems, such as the study of variations in human anatomy, can be advanced most quickly if all the opportunities in different countries are employed simultaneously on a selected object. Such examples could be multiplied indefinitely. International team-work is required sometimes merely as the quickest means of attaining the object, sometimes because no other method is possible, sometimes because common practical interests are involved.

Before the war international scientific cooperation was obtained in several ways. As many as 40 to 50 international bodies had come into existence in response to the need. Some were sustained by formal conventions arrived at through the usual diplomatic channels; others were due to the efforts of individual scientific societies or interests; many were the informal result of personal effort directed to a common purpose. All these were rudely interrupted by the clash of arms, and much water will have to pass under the bridges before the healing process has been completed. But it has already begun.

Through the booksellers work published during the war is creeping across the frontiers; the impersonal exchange of publications has been resumed between many of the learned societies; there has even been a little furtive correspondence between individuals. Science could not wait. The theory of Einstein, the German Jew, was put to the test by British astronomers; physiologists and doctors here and in Germany had to use the same methods of research in struggling against the same problems of altered nutrition and of damaged men, and could not let their service of humanity be restricted by a local patriotism. Had it been allowed to take its natural course, this cold, almost stealthy redintegration would have offended no one and would, indeed, have assisted towards the open internationalism which we must all hope for our sons or sons' sons, although we can not even wish it for ourselves.

But there were the formal conventions. On these descended a little group of diplomatists of science, almost as aloof from the real feelings of those whom they claimed to represent as the big men of the Peace Conferences. They held a conference in London in October, 1918, when every one except themselves knew that the war was almost over. They resolved, good people, that it "was desirable that the nations at war with the Central Powers should withdraw from the existing conventions relating to International Scientific Associations in accordance with the statutes or regulations of such conventions respectively, as soon as circumstances should permit," and that " new associations, deemed to be useful to the progress of science and its applications, be established without delay by the nations at war with the Central Powers with the eventual cooperation of neutral nations."

Then came the armistice and then, after an interval so long that impersonal relations with our former enemies had begun to be resumed, came the Peace Treaty. By that the Germans undertook to withdraw from most of the scientific conventions. Nevertheless, so far as the Allies and neutrals were concerned, these remained in existence. The same group of amateur diplomatists called a conference at Brussels larger in numbers but equally unrepresentative in character. This conference proceeded to destroy the last remnants of existing international cooperation. First they withdrew themselves from all the conventions; next they excluded all the Central Powers; thirdly they excluded all the neutrals. Having thus created chaos, they proceeded to the elaboration of a scheme of superorganization almost pathetic in its sterile incompe

tence.

The basis of the wonderful edifice is an International Research Council. This is to be the supreme body in all the affairs of science, to coordinate international efforts, to initiate new international unions, to direct international activity and to negotiate with governments. Its constitution is to remain in force for ten years and all subordinate

unions or associations are to comply with its statutes. Of these the vital clause is that membership is to be limited at first to what were the Allied countries during the war but that countries then neutral may be admitted if they obtain a favorable majority of not less than three-quarters of the countries already in the Union. It appears to be the case that former enemy countries if they choose to plead for admission and can obtain a threequarters majority are also eligible, but there is dispute as to the interpretation of the phrases. In any event the scheme perpetuates for ten years the division of the nations into the groups of war with the addition that former neutrals are asked to desert their neutrality and join the Allied scientific combine.

The legal domicile of the new supreme body is to be at Brussels where the funds are to be kept, and triennial general assemblies are to be held. An executive committee consisting of five members (a "big five") is to direct the affairs of the Research Council between the meetings of the Assembly. All the branches of science are invited to form international unions with their statutes in agreeIment with those of the Research Council.

The organization is actually in existence and several of the subordinate international unions have been formed. But how far these have any real significance or vitality it is more difficult to say. The statutes laid down that a country could join the International Research Council or any Union connected with it through its principal academy, its national research council, some other national institution or association of institutions, or through its government.

It is therefore clearly within the power of bodies without a direct mandate from scientific men as a whole to make their countries formal participants. British biologists, for example, have formally refused to join an International Biological Union on the double ground that the complex organization will hinder rather than help cooperation, and that the constitution perpetuates international divisions which should be left to time to

heal. But the promotors of the scheme are making efforts to create a National Council" which could then enter the new edifice by a back door. No clear statement has been published as to the action of other countries, but evidence accumulates as to the absence of real support for the scheme of superorganization.-The London Times.

THE issue of the Times published on March 8 contains an article headed "The Progress of Science; Revolt against Super-Organization." A few words of comment are necessary, though the task is disagreeable owing to the general tenor of the article, which in parts is frankly abusive and in others misleading. Its chief invective is directed against the International Research Council. This, according to the author, is to be "the supreme body in all the affairs of science," and he follows up this product of his imagination by enumerating in the same sentence the avowed objects of the International Research Council, placing a pure invention of his own in juxtaposition to the actual functions of the body concerned so as to leave the impression that both have equal authority.

The International Research Council was founded in the first instance through the action of the Royal Society and the Academies of Paris, Italy, Brussels and Washington. Its object was to reorganize international work which had come to a standstill through the war, and to extend it where found desirable. The question as to the time at which former enemy countries should be admitted is a matter for argument, and it may be the policy of the Times to urge their immediate inclusion in the interests of the general peace of the world. Recent incidents at a meeting in Paris at which a German professor took part do not confirm this view, but the question has had nothing to do with the purpose which the writer pretends to discuss. It should not be forgotten, however, that a friendly personal intercourse is an essential condition of the success of international conferences. This is recognized by the countries neutral during the war, which have nearly

all accepted the invitation of the International Research Council to take part in this common enterprise.

The International Research Council has initiated the formation of unions for the conduct of scientific work. In the subjects of astronomy, geodesy and geophysics, and chemistry such unions are actually at work, and two others have been formed. Once an international union is established it becomes autonomous, and conducts its work without interference from the International Research Council except in a few matters in which a common policy is desirable.

Every one knows that the decisions of an international conference are only advisory, and have no binding force on the separate countries. Representatives taking part in the conference report to the home authorities concerned, who act as they think fit, accepting, no doubt, in general such recommendations as have secured practical unanimity. At a recent meeting in Brussels certain countries desired to initiate the formation of an International Union of Biology, and their representatives tentatively drew up some statutes. These were submitted to a competent body in this country, which reported unfavorably, and there the matter ends so far as Great Britain is concerned. This does not, of course, prevent France, Italy, the United States, and other countries from forming a Union of Biology if they wish. I fail to understand where the grievance of the Times comes in.Arthur Schuster, General Secretary of the International Research Council, in Nature.

SCIENTIFIC BOOKS

THE TERRESTRIAL LIFE ASSOCIATED WITH THE COALS OF NORTHERN FRANCE

IN a large, very detailed, and well-illustrated memoir published by the French Ministry of Public Works,1 Dr. Pierre Pruvost of the Uni

1 Introduction à l'Étude du Terrain Houiller du Nord et du Pas-de-Calais. La Faune Continentale du Terrain Houiller du Nord de la France. Mémoires pour servir à l'explication de la carte géologique détaillée de la France,' PP. 584 (quarto), 29 pls., 51 text figs., Paris, 1919.

versity of Lille Museum, has given us the most extensive work so far published on the fresh-water and land invertebrates of the Coal Measures of northern France, that is, of the Westphalian, the equivalent of our Pottsville and Allegheny series. The memoir is based on the "documents preserved in the museum of the University of Lille . . . which never could have been brought together without the cooperation of the mining engineers and the scientific men who are exploiting the basin of the north," and its object is so to define the faunal zones as to give to these same mining men fixed points from which they can reckon the stratigraphic position of their coals.

From the 17 species heretofore known in the fauna, the number is now increased to 116, 54 of which are new. They represent the following classes: 13 bivalves, 1 tubiculous annelid, 6 ostracods, 5 phyllopods (3 new), 3 Malacostraca, 2 Syncarida, 53 specifically determined insects (43 new), 1 eurypterid, 3 limulids, 7 spiders (3 new), 4 sharks, 6 crossopterygians (2 new), and 12 ganoids (3 new). These forms are found in 6,970 feet of Westphalian strata, divided into 5 formations and 9 members, most of which are of fresh-water origin, since it is only in the lower 2,350 feet that there is occasional evidence of the sea, this being most decided near the base.

The common fossils with limited ranges and therefore of value in correlating the various horizons are shown to be (1) the bivalves (Carbonicola, Anthracomya, Naiadites), (2) the phyllopods (Estheria, Leaia), and (3) the scales and teeth of fishes. The ostracods Carbonia and Cypridina and the annelid Spirorbis are all long-ranging, while the insects, even though they are of very short range-in fact, but very few forms extend through more than one zone occur too rarely to be useful in detailed stratigraphy, other than of a local basin. It is interesting to note that the fresh-water life has in its time duration about the same zoning value as the plants, and that both classes of organic evidence lead to the making of the same general time divisions. With these results attained, the author then paral

lels the different coal beds of northern France with those of Belgium and England.

The greater part of the volume is taken up with the insects (pp. 93-321), and the author confirms Handlirsch's conclusion that during Westphalian time hexapods were large, in fact, that as a rule they were "giants." Pruvost thinks that the Westphalian insects were not all carnivorous, but that some may have fed on the pollen, etc., of plants like the cordaites and cycadophytes; in other words, that the rise of the insect world was largely conditioned by the development of inflorescence among plants.

Insect impressions, to be preserved in the rocks, must be entombed in the very finest of sediments. The author states that they are found only in shales, in association with delicate plant remains, and with those of animals as well. The very best ones, of rare occurrence, have, however, suffered no appreciable transport or maceration, but were buried quickly along with the most fragile plants in the softest of muds; while the majority of the specimens found commonly in the "insect beds " have undergone more or less long periods of floating, and consequent maceration and dissociation. The floated specimens occur at times with stronger plant fragments and the remains of animals, all in varying degrees of decomposition.

Pruvost breaks up Handlirsch's order Protorthoptera, and puts the majority of his families in a new suborder, the Archiblattids (3 species described), which are present as early as the base of the Westphalian. These are "the simplest and oldest of Protoblattoidea " and they may have had their origin in the Paleodictyoptera, the original source-stock of all insects. Two other suborders of Protoblattids are erected, Mimoblattids (for American forms) and Archimantids (1 described). The author remarks on "the homogeneity and antiquity of the blattid phylum," describing 43 forms, and on its early separation from the rest of the orthopterids. Of Paleodictyopterids he describes but 3 forms. He believes that the greatest evolution of Paleozoic insects took place during the Westphalian, and states that at the top of the Lower Carboniferous (Dinan

tian or Mississippian) but one order is known; early in the Westphalian three orders are "scarcely outlined"; and at the end of the Westphalian "almost all the Paleozoic phyla are fully established."

The evolution of insects was especially rapid at the base of the Westphalian (Flines member), again at the base of the upper part of the same series (Ernestine), and at the top of the Westphalian in the Edouard member. And this threefold acceleration in insect evolution is in harmony with the floral enrichment.

We must add here that the supposed insects found in the Horton formation (early Mississippian) of New Brunswick, Canada, and mentioned in the table opposite page 293, have been shown to Professor H. F. Wickham and Dr. David White, with the result that both paleontologist and paleobotanist agree that they are not insects but the carbonized fragments of woody plants.

To the young author, a favorite student of Professor Barrois under whose direction are being carried out a series of studies designed to apply the "paleontologic method" to the problems of the coal basin of northern France, are extended our congratulations on his great achievement.

CHARLES SCHUCHERT

SPECIAL ARTICLES

THE RELATIVITY SHIFT OF SPECTRUM LINES

THREE experimental tests of Einstein's Relativity Theory of Gravitation have been proposed. Two seem to have been verified experimentally. The third, the predicted shift of solar spectrum lines, is still very much in dispute. Evershed and Royds,1 and Schwarzschild2 obtained very discordant results. St. John, with very fine apparatus, also obtained very discordant results with however a zero effect, on the average. Grebe and Bachem at first obtained discordant results, but a more careful analysis of their

1 Bulletin 39, Kodaikanal Observatory.

2 Sitzungsberichte, Berlin Akad., p. 1201, 1914. 3 Astro. Jour., 46, 249, 1917.

4 Verh. d. D. Phys. Ges., 21, 454, 1919.

data5, 6, 7 yielded more consistent results and results in agreement with theory. Using the lines near the head of the CN 3883 band, the shift of solar wave-lengths, compared to terrestrial, should be 0.0082 A to the red, equivalent to the Doppler effect of a descending current on the sun of 0.634 km./sec.

It appears to the author that a spectral line must rigidly fulfill three conditions, in order to be suitable for use in this work. (1) It must show no pressure shift, pole-effect, or other variation of frequency with physical condition of the source (excluding gravitational effects), (2) it must be a single, sharp, symmetrical line, (3) it must, in the solar spectrum, be quite free from other "foreign" lines.

Band lines are used because they seem to fulfill condition (1). In the early work proper attention was not paid to condition (3). Grebe and Bachem," by obtaining microphotometric curves, have attempted to rigidly satisfy condition (3), and in doing so have had to discard all but eleven of the 36 lines formerly measured by them. But no investigators have made an attempt to rigorously satisfy condition (2). Now the author, in arriving at a new formula for band series,8 obtained very fine spectrograms of the 3883 band, and made an extended investigation of its structure, supplementing the work of Uhler and Patterson." There are a number of different series in this band (twenty in all, commonly classified as ten series of doublets), but without exception the individual members of the various twenty series are sharp, symmetrical lines. This is a noteworthy characteristic of most band series, differentiating them from line series, the members of which are all complex, according to the Bohr-Sommerfeld theory. Moreover these latter are quite susceptible to changing electrical conditions.

But the ten doublet series of the 3883 band 5 Zeit. f. Phys., 1, 51, 1920.

Zeit. f. Phys., 2, 415, 1920.

7 Phys. Zeit., 21, 662, 1920.

8 Astro. Jour., 46, 85, 1917; Phys. Rev., 11, 136, 1918; 13, 360, 1919.

9 Astro. Jour., 42, 434, 1915.

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have different spacing and so are continually crossing, resulting very frequently in an apparent broad, unsymmetrical line, even with the best resolving power at our disposal. But this complex is really only the superposition, or partial superposition of two or sharp, symmetrical lines. It is self-evident that the apparent center of gravity of such a complex depends on the length of exposure, etc., while the position of the peak" of a micro-photometric curve depends on the relative intensity and position of the component members of the complex. It is known that the relative intensity of certain series in the 3883 band changes with physical conditions, and there is evidence that their relative intensity in the sun is different from that in the ordinary carbon arc. Hence any apparent "line" which is really a complex is entirely unsuitable for the detection and measurement of so small a shift as that predicted by Einstein. This is especially true as the solar lines are in absorption, while the arc lines are in emission.

The author, in his analysis, has identified many series lines, not previously identified, and by obtaining accurate formulæ for the stronger series, has been able to compute "theoretical" positions for all lines of these series, including those entering into complexes. In all cases tested, the actual appearance of the complex was in agreement with the theoretical structure thus built up. Also, many complexes have been recognized which may not previously have been suspected as such, and the presence of several extraneous lines in the normal arc spectrum (carbon lines, but not band lines) has been detected. Thus material is at hand for a rigid investigation of the eleven lines finally used by

Grebe and Bachem. The details of this work will be published elsewhere. Only the results are given here.

Of the eleven lines only two ( 3873.504 and 3858.822, on the Rowland system) fully satisfy condition (2). Even this is not strictly correct, for the two lines are unresolved doublets, the 31st and 49th member, respectively, of the A, series. But the two