from all parts of the world, the committee requested the director, Dr. Stephen P. Duggan, to undertake the negotiations between the committee and the French university administration. The French administration responded cordially to the offer for the annual exchange of a professor. The French have selected, for their first representative, Professor J. Cavalier, rector of the University of Toulouse, a well-known authority on metallurgical chemistry, to come to America this fall, and to divide his time during the ensuing academic year, among the seven cooperating institutions, namely, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pennsylvania and Yale.

The American universities have selected as their outgoing representative for the same first year (1921-22), Dr. A. E. Kennelly, professor of electrical engineering at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

GRANTS FROM THE BACHE FUND GRANTS from the Bache Fund of the National Academy of Sciences have been made as follows:

$500 to C. H. Warren, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to defray the expense of chemical analysis in the study of igneous rocks from Massachusetts.

$500 to Waldemar Lindgren, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for chemical analyses of samples used in a study of additions and losses that limestones from Bingham, Utah, have suffered in contact metamorphism.

$500 to T. H. Goodspeed, University of California, for photographic records and illustration, over a period of three years, for a study of Nicotiana in respect of Mendelian inheritance, of quantitative inheritance, of inheritance of inter-specific hybrids, and of the nature of bud variation.

$1,000 to Frank P. Underhill and Lafayette B. Mendel, Yale University, for investigations on deficiencies in nutrition.

$500 to Gilbert N. Lewis, University of

California, for the computation of chemical constants.

$300 to H. W. Norris, Grinnell College, Iowa, for the investigation of the nervous system of the Elasmobranch fishes, and for the study of the Ganoid fishes.

$750 to Preston Edwards, Johns Hopkins University, for investigations in acoustics.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS MME. CURIE, accompanied by her two daughters, arrived in New York City on May 11. Last week she visited Smith, Mt. Holyoke and Vassar Colleges. According to the program that has been arranged, she is given this week a luncheon by the chemists of New York City, a welcome by the American Association of University Women, and a reception at the American Museum of Natural History. On Friday President Harding presents her with a gram of radium on behalf of the women of America.

DEAN ALBERT R. MANN, of the New York State Agricultural College at Cornell University, has been appointed head of the New York State Agricultural Department by the reorganized Council of Farms and Markets. There were three candidates-Raymond R. Pearson and George E. Hogue, who have each held the office, and Dean Mann.

DR. R. W. THATCHER, dean of the department of agriculture and director of the agricultural experiment station of the University of Minnesota for the past four years, has resigned in order to accept the appointment as director of the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva, N. Y., effective on July 1. Dr. W. H. Jordan, who completes twenty-five years of service as director of the station at Geneva on June 30, retires on that date.

DR. W. J. MAYO and Dr. C. H. Mayo have. recently received notification that honorary fellowships in the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland will be conferred upon them as soon as they can attend the ceremony which will be held in the College Hall.

DR. THEODORE HOUGH, dean of the medical

department of the University of Virginia, has been elected president of the Association of American Medical Colleges.

DR. HARRY P. BROWN, of the New York State College of Forestry, has declined the position of wood technologist at the Imperial Forest Research Institute, Dehra Dun, United Provinces, India, offered to him by the Secretary of State for India.

SIR WILMOT HERRINGHAM, chairman of the Committee on Medical Education of the University Grants Committee, and Sir Walter Morley Fletcher, secretary of the Medical Research Council of London, guests of the Rockefeller Foundation, visited the Mayo Foundation and the Mayo Clinic on April 26 and 27.

ARNOLD WILLIAM REINOLD, F.R.S., for thirtyfive years professor of physics at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, died on June 19, aged seventy-eight years.

DR. JAMES LAW, director emeritus of the New York State Veterinary College, Cornell University, died in Springfield, Mass., on May 11, aged eighty-three years.

DR. MICHAEL IDVORSKY PUPIN, professor of electro-mechanics at Columbia University, addressed the meeting of the Columbia Chapter of Sigma Xi on May 4. He spoke on Progress in physics in the last decade." This was the first of a series of annual lectures on "The Progress of Science."

66

DR. T. WINGATE TODD, Payne professor of anatomy in the Medical School of Western Reserve University, will deliver in June five special lectures at the University of Ghent, Belgium, on "The growth and metamorphosis of the skeleton." The lectures are supported by the Hoover Foundation provided by the funds remaining after the Commission for the Relief of Belgium had finished its activities.

PROFESSOR ALBERT EINSTEIN, who delivered a series of five lectures on the theory of relativity at Princeton University during the week beginning on May 9, has arranged with the Princeton University Press for their publica

tion in book form. This will be the only authorized publication of the lectures he will give during his present visit to the United States.

THE last issue of the Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society carries an appreciation of the work of Dr. J. J. Wolfe (Harvard), late professor of biology of Trinity College, Durham, N. C. The Biological Club of this institution is raising funds and collecting books for a memorial library.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL
NEWS

THE West Virginia legislature has appropriated for the University of West Virginia $400,000 for a chemistry building; $300,000 for a gymnasium and $100,000 to complete the law building.

THE will of Mrs. William L. McLean, wife of the publisher of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, leaves $100,000 to Princeton University in memory of her son Warden McLean, of the class of 1912, who was killed in the

war.

THE inauguration of Dr. Ernest Fox Nichols as president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will take place on June 8. Addresses will be made by Governor Cox, Dr. Elihu Thomson, President A. Lawrence Lowell and Professor H. P. Talbot, followed by the inaugural address of Dr. Nichols.

DR. JOHN HOWLAND, professor of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Medical School, director of the Harriet Lane Home and pediatrician in chief of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, has been offered the professorship of children's diseases in the Medical School of Harvard University.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE EFFECT OF DORMANT LIME SULFUR UPON THE CONTROL OF APPLE BLOTCH

DURING the progress of investigations on apple blotch (Phyllosticta solitaria E. & E.) new and noteworthy facts concerning this important disease are gradually coming to light.

Of particular concern, from the practical viewpoint, is the effect of dormant lime sulfur and copper sulphate sprays upon the pycnospores lodged in the pycnidia and destined to function after petal-fall.

Wallace in his official reports and Douglas have repeatedly published the statement that a very strong solution of lime sulfur, applied before the buds begin to swell, perfectly controlled this disease and that the summer sprays, consequently, were unnecessary. The writer disagrees with their views, but has discovered from field and laboratory experiments and obervations, the scientific explanation of partial control by the dormant sprays applied late.

The infectious surface of an apple blotch canker in the first season of its functional activity consists of two distinct portions: first, that portion which develops from a single infection, becoming apparent in late summer and ceasing its active growth upon the appearance of cold weather; second, that porton which advances from the initial canker the following spring, approximately two weeks after the buds burst open, and which becomes dotted with pycnidia, with mature pycnospores, simultaneously with the advance of the canker. The first portion is the initial canker and bears pseudo-pycnidia. The contents of the pseudo-pycnidia are completely or partially differentiated into spores by the time it is customary to apply the dormant spray. Furthermore, the epidermal covering over the pycnidia is ruptured, exposing the pycnidial wall. The season's young fruits and new growth are, therefore, subject to two distinct sources of infection from the young blotch cankers.

A dormant spray of lime sulfur applied as the buds begin to swell actually kills the spores and sporidal layer within the differentiated pseudo-pycnidia but has absolutely no 1 Wallace, F. N., 9th Annual Report Indiana State Entomologist, 1915-16, pp. 51, 54. and 2 Douglas, B. W., "War the Fruit Grower," Country Gentleman, September 14, 1918; "Fruit Diseases of 1919," Country Gentleman, April 17, 1920.

effect upon the mycelium of the organism ramifying throughout the cortical tissue beneath. The toxic effect upon the spores is very striking after the first rain following the dormant spray. Dilutions of lime sulfur of 1-3, 1–5, 1–6, and 1-8, were given their trial and all were similarly toxic to the spores in the pycnidia, but it appeared that dilutions somewhat stronger than 1-8 were more efficient. A dilution of copper sulphate (1-6) produces similar toxic effects. Scalecide produces none at all.

As was mentioned above, a new infectious area advances from the initial canker in the spring. It follows, therefore, that the dormant spray exercises but very little control upon the season's infection of the young apples and new growth.

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

E. F. GUBA

CROWS AND STARLINGS

TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: Last fall at Devon, Pennsylvania, a man shooting blackbirds also wounded a starling, which fell on the grass and which he could not find. Shortly afterwards several crows were seen diving at something in the grass and then lighting and running through the grass after it. Upon his going towards them to see what they were doing, they all flew away, one of them carrying the starling in its bill, and landed on the walk in a neighboring place, where the crows gathered round the starling and proceeded to peck at it. He followed them and scared them, and the crows flew away, abandoning the starling, which was nearly dead.

I have never before known of crows carrying off as large a bird as a starling, though I have seen one carrying off from the nest a young robin nearly ready to fly, and of course they kill many young robins and other young birds of smaller size.

tions were made during the evenings of June 5 and 6, 1920, from a house boat on the Tachin River, in the district of Sarm Prarm, Nakorn Chaisri, Siam. A distinct flashing of dark and light was observed. A whole tree of flies would flash all together at regular intervals of, by count with a watch, between 105 and 109 flashes a minute.

Frequently entire trees filled with fireflies are observed at the College of Agriculture, Los Baños, Laguna, Philippine Islands and it was at first thought by the writer that an extremely rapid flashing in unison took place. After, however, observing the distinct flashing in unison of the fireflies in Siam it can be stated with certainty that no such synchronal flashing took place at Los Baños.

Determinations made by H. E. Woodworth, of the College of Agriculture, Los Baños, on fireflies from Siam, showed these flies to be of the genus Calaphotia. Professor Woodworth states that the firefly at Los Baños is of the same genus, but of a different species. Neither species has been determined.

TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: I read with much interest the article of Dr. Jordan on Franz Steindachner. I had the great pleasure of visiting Dr. Steindachner twice; once in 1878 and again twenty years later in 1898. He was living in the simple way described by Dr. Jordan on the occasion of both my visits. His maiden sister at that time, however, was living and was keeping house for him in a perfectly simple manner.

I do not wish to speak of Steindachner's great achievements in ichthyology. I want to add my little tribute to his value as a friend. The simplicity of his life, the wonderful clarity of his character and his devotion to his friends make him almost as rerenowned as his achievements in the investigation of fishes. At the time of my last visit he had achieved the full distinction of head superintendent of the Royal Imperial Mu

seums. He enjoyed to a remarkable degree the confidence of the Emperor Franz Josef. Through a special permit from the imperial palace I was permitted under his guidance to visit the castle with all of its belongings in which the heir to the throne was murdered a few years before.

i I was particularly struck with the amity and friendship shown him by the people with whom he worked. As a host he was the essence of geniality and at the same time of simplicity. I carried letters to him on my first visit from friends in Harvard who knew him when he was a resident of Cambridge. He had a great admiration for this country and he numbered many personal and professional friends on this side of the water. While war broke up all political and many social relations with Germany and Austria, I feel quite certain all the personal friends of Dr. Steindachner on this side remained loyal to him through his later years of sorrow and distress, due to the exigencies of the war. The grief for him as a friend is more poignant than the regret of his loss to science.

H. W. WILEY.

SCIENTIFIC BOOKS Chemische Krystallographie. By P. GROTH. Leipzig, Wilhelm Engelmann. Vol. I., 1906; II., 1908; III., 1911; IV., 1917; V., 1919. 4,443 pages, with 3,342 figures; 8vo, cloth. All persons interested in crystallized substances will be delighted to know that this monumental work, in the preparation of which Professor Groth spent several decades, has been finally completed. Notices of the publication of the first three volumes have already appeared in SCIENCE.1 Vol. IV. was issued in 1917 and Vol. V. late in 1919.

According to the original plan it was thought that all the available material could be conveniently published in four volumes; the first two to be devoted to inorganic, and the last two volumes to organic compounds. The aromatic organic compounds, however, proved to be much more numerous than had been 1 Vol. XXV., 143–144; Vol. XXVIII., 843; Vol. XXXIII., 253.

anticipated, so that two large volumes have been necessary to describe them. These two volumes contain 1,846 pages and 1,783 figures. In these volumes the treatment used in the others has been followed.

Chemists and crystallographers, the world over, are greatly indebted to Professor Groth for this most important reference work, which is a critical survey of all the crystallized material described thus far. As is generally known, Professor Groth has devoted his life to problems in chemical crystallography. He was the founder of and for many years the editor of the Zeitschrift fuer Krystallographie und Mineralogie. Hence, he was peculiarly fitted to undertake this very difficult and timeconsuming task. EDWARD H. KRAUS

MINERALOGICAL LABORATORY,

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

SPECIAL ARTICLES

THE CHANGE IN THE FAT OF PEANUT-FED RABBITS

IN the course of our investigation of the soft pork of peanut-fed hogs it occurred to me that if an animal in starving used its liquid fat first, this would make it possible to overcome the softness of the pork on peanut-fed hogs. If the animal used the liquid fat first in starving it would be reasonable to suppose that if both liquid and solid fat were fed at the same time he would use a greater proportion of the liquid fat to meet the energy requirements of his body. Then it would be possible to attack the soft pork problem in two ways. One would be to feed peanuts alone for forty or fifty days then starve the hog for some eight or ten days so as to remove the liquid fat as much as possible, and afterwards finish the feeding with other feeds. The other way would be to feed the peanuts not alone for forty or fifty days as is the custom but to feed them with some feed that would produce solid fat and in this way the animal would use a greater percentage of the soft fat that was fed than he would otherwise. We got some results this past spring which indicated that it is much better to feed the hogs peanuts with other feeds for

seventy days than it is to feed for forty or fifty days with peanuts alone, then to finish with other feeds.

To determine whether an animal in starving uses the liquid fat more rapidly than it does the solid fat, rabbits were fed on peanuts and alfalfa for six weeks. One of the rabbits was killed at the end of the feeding period and the others were killed after starving three, five and seven days. The iodine numbers of the kidney fat and the back fat were determined. Two series of rabbits were treated in this way but the results of the last series only will be given.

The per cent. of the livers extracted by ether, were rabbit 1, 8.15, rabbit 2, 17.04 rabbit 3, 19.18, rabbit 4, 20.09. It was expected that the ether extract of the livers would increase in starvation and it was thought that the iodine number of this extract would increase but in this last we were disappointed as the iodine number was practically constant, showing the values from 98 to 104.

Our results indicate that the liquid fat of an animal during starvation is used more rapidly than the solid fat, that the liquid fat of the back or subcutaneous fat is used more rapidly than that of the kidney. It is our intention to repeat this work, beginning in about a month, using pigs instead of rabbits.

OKLAHOMA AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION, STILLWATER

S. T. DOWELL

THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MAM

MALOGISTS

THE third annual meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists was held in the United States National Museum, Washington, D. C., May 24, 1921. Officers elected for the