66 us in our subconscious a great reservoir of very primitive instincts and tendencies, many of which are as archaic as those of our Paleolithic and anthropoid ancestors. This whole relatively undifferentiated and imperfectly organized equipment must be of the greatest value as a source of future adaptations. We are also beginning to see that as civilization progresses it is necessary to maintain a certain number of our activities in a primitive, unorganized condition and for their exercise to set aside hours of leisure and relaxation, vacations and holidays, so that we can escape from the organized routine of our existence. And as the surface of the planet becomes more and more densely covered with its human populations, it becomes increasingly necessary to retain portions of it in a wild state, i.e., free from the organizing mania of man, as national and city parks or reservations to which we can escape during our holidays from the administrators, organizers and efficiency experts and everything they stand for and return to a Nature that really understands the business of organization. Why may we not regard scientific research, artistic creation, religious contemplation and philosophic speculation as the corresponding reservations of the mind, great world parks to which man must resort to escape from the deadening, overspecializing routine of his habits, mores and occupations and enjoy veritable creative holidays of the spirit? These world parks are in my opinion the best substitute we are ever likely to have for the old theological Heaven, and they have the great advantage that some of us are privileged to return from them with discoveries and inventions to lighten the mental and physical burdens of those whose inclinations or limitations leave them embedded in routine. This is the meaning of that stanza in the w song of Faust: The lofty skill From all men deeply hidden! To him 'tis brought, 'Tis given unsought, unbidden! 13 Like other members of society, the tist, artist and philosopher must a devote considerable time and ener routine occupations, for their lives, very rare exceptions, are not comp absorbed in research, speculation and tive activity. They might therefore pected to react rather unpleasantly t suggestion of meddling with those o tions in which they feel that they ca press their personalities with the gr freedom and the greatest satisfacti themselves if not to others. It seems that it can only be due to the mode indifference of scientific investigator they have failed to voice their opini the organizers. The only utteran have seen are an admirable paper by fessor Sumner1 and in another field of social theory, a few paragraphs by H. Cole.15 I will end my paper with paragraphs, because they express s cisely the conclusions I have reached different point of view: а First of all, it is necessary to rid ourselv and for all of the notion that organizatio itself a good thing. It is very easy to fall notion that growing complexity is a sign o ress, and that the expanding organization ciety is a sign of the coming of the Coo Commonwealth. A constantly growing mea cooperation among men is no doubt the Trans. by Baya 13 Goethe's "Faust." lor. N. Y., Houghton Mifflin Co., Vol. 1, 14"Some Perils which Confront us as tists," Scient. Monthly, March, 1919, pp. 2 15 Social Theory," N. Y., Stokes Co p. 185. social need of our day; but cooperation has its unorganized as well as its organized forms, and certainly the unorganized cooperation of men, based on a sheer feeling of community, is not less valuable than organized cooperation, which may or may not have this feeling of community behind it. It is easier to do most things with organization than without; but organization is to a great extent only the scaffolding without which we should find the temple of human cooperation too difficult to build. To say this is not to decry organization; it is only to refrain from worshiping it. Organization is a marvelous instrument through which we every day accomplish all manner of achievements which would be inconceivable without it; but it is none the less better to do a thing without organization if we can, or with the minimum of organization that is necessary. For all organization, as we have seen, necessarily carries with it an irreducible minimum of distortion of human purpose; it always comes down to some extent, to letting other people do things for us instead of doing them ourselves, to allowing, in some measures, the wills of "representatives' to be substituted for our own wills. Thus while it makes possible in one way a vast expansion of the field of self-expression that is open to the individual, it also in another way distorts that expression and makes it not completely the individual's own. In complex modern communities there are so many things that must be organized that it becomes more than ever important to preserve from organization that sphere in which it adds least to, and is apt to detract most from, our field of selfexpression-the sphere of personal relationships and personal conduct. WILLIAM MORTON WHEELER NELSON R. WOOD FOR many years I knew the late Mr. Nelson R. Wood, who suddenly died in Washington on November eighth, and during all those years he was employed in the taxidermical department of the United States National Museum. As a scientific and artistic taxidermist he had not a single equal in this country, and I personally never knew of his peer anywhere in the world. Birds were ever the special objects of his skill, and to the mounting of them for museum exhibition the greater part of his life was almost daily devoted. While a consummate master with birds of all groups, certain families of them were his especial favorites, and these he preserved in a manner so perfect that they appeared to need but the instillation of life to have them go their way as they did in nature when alive. The forms particularly referred to were the game birds, pigeons, and fowls of all descriptions, and many of these, together with a host of others, are now on exhibition in the cases at the United States National Museum, where they will probably be viewed for many generations to come. It has been my privilege to publish, in various works both here and abroad, over a hundred of Mr. Wood's mounted specimens of birds and many species-not only those of this country, but of all the Americas, Australia, and other parts of the Old World as well. They have ever been received and spoken of with more than marked approval and highly praised, as they well deserved to be. It is not easy to estimate the far-reaching loss the death of such a man is to a great museum, where high-class taxidermical work is so essential and so constantly in demand. In the entire history of the scientific art of taxidermy in America, no one has ever left such mounted specimens of game birds, pigeons, and domesticated fowls as Mr. Wood, while in the case of many of the passerine types he was equally skilful. Only a short time before his death he mounted several specimens of crows and jays-single pieces-and the work is the wonder of all who see it. One of our common Crow in particular is the most life-like thing of the kind that one may well imagine; it represents the height of the science in regard to modern taxidermy, which passed, only within comparatively recent time, from the antiquated methods of "stuffing" birds to the practise of imperishably preserving them in their natural poses. Mr. Wood gained his knowledge of the normal attitudes of birds in nature through his life-long study of them in their various habitats. More than this-he had so skilfully 68 mastered the imitation of the notes and calls R. W. SHUFELDT FRANZ STEINDACHNER FRANZ STEINDACHNER, for many years intendant or chief director of the Hofmuseum at Vienna, died on December 10, 1919, at the advanced age of 85. His death was due directly to the inability of the Austrian Museum to secure coal to warm any of its offices. Steindachner, a student and friend of Agassiz, spent some time at Harvard, about 1870, later collecting fishes in California and Brazil. His first systematic paper on the fossil fishes of Austria was published in 1859. From that time until 1914 when the war wrecked his nation, his memoirs on fishes, living and fossil, some 440 in all, appeared with great regularity. These were always carefully prepared and finely illustrated by the stone engravings of his most excellent artist, Edward Konopicky. His last series of papers in quarto dealing with certain fishes of Brazil passed into the hands of the British censor, an obstacle from which but one copy has yet come across. Steindachner conferred his attention to faunal work. especially to exact definition of genera and species. The larger combinations he left to less experienced investigators on the principle laid down by Linnæus. "Tyro novit classes; magister fit species." Within the field as thus limited, no German systematist in vertebrate zoology has stood in the class with him. When the Imperial government raze fortifications of old Vienna, the proper the street thus opened, the "Burgring, sold and with the proceeds three im public buildings were erected, the House, Library and the Museum of N History. The last was long since pla Steindachner's charge, but with a whol adequate force, and with little provisi extension. In the fishes, Steindachne the services of an artist and a preparat had to do all the identification and lal himself, and to pay from his own mea all specimens he felt it necessary to buy In his devotion to his work, he neve ried and when I visited him in 1910 he pied humble lodgings in a stone annex museum, cared for only by an elderly keeper. To the general public he was as a "Bekanter Fischkenner." To h leagues he was one of the most trust and most devoted lovers of knowledge own sake. Among the tragedies of the war nothing is more disheartening th smothering effect on European scienc feature of which has been the death great master in faunal zoology. DAVID STARR Jo SCIENTIFIC EVENTS SIGMA XI AT THE UNIVERSITY O PENNSYLVANIA THE Society of the Sigma Xi of th versity will hold its next meeting in th ical laboratory on Wednesday evening uary 19. The subject for discussion "Wheat; a Study in the World's Foo ply." Dr. Alonzo E. Taylor, profes physiologial chemistry, will open the sion. Dr. Taylor was one of the advi the U. S. Department of Agriculture the war and who made several food sur Europe for the State Department. A has made a survey of the subject the sion will be continued by Dr. Clyde L of the Wharton School faculty, who wil on the situation in the United State Ernest M. Patterson, also of the W School faculty, will discuss the situation in Europe. Three other meetings are scheduled during the remainder of the college year. On Wednesday, March 9, a meeting will be held in the Law School and the subject for discussion will be "Statistical Methods." On Wednesday, May 25, the society will meet in the botanic gardens and discuss "Fertile Border Fields in Scientific Research." The final meeting of the year will be a joint meeting with Phi Betta Kappa in Houston Hall, on Monday, June 13. The last meeting of the society was held on Tuesday, November 23, at the Art Alliance, 1823 Walnut Street. At that time there was an illustrated lecture on "Modern American illustrations," by Thornton Oakley, '06. Dr. Erwin F. Faber, the illustrator for the medical department, spoke on "Scientific illustration." Dr. Clarence E. McClung, head of the zological department spoke on "What a scientific illustration should contain." Dr. McClung was recently made national president of the Sigma Xi for a period of two years. Dr. McClung was on leave of absence from the university last year engaged in some special investigation for the government. FIRST MEETING OF THE CELLULOSE SECTION AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY Ar the cellulose symposium held by the Industrial Division of the American Chemical Society at the meeting in Chicago last September, it was voted to form a permanent Cellulose Section. Following the meeting the necessary steps for organization were taken, and President Noyes appointed Professor Harold Hibbert, of Yale University, chairman of the new section with Gustavus J. Esselen, Jr., secretary. One of the objects of the section is to provide an opportunity for those interested in the practical application of cellulose to get together with those concerned with the more strictly scientific aspects of cellulose chemistry and to afford an opportunity for discussion which should prove mutually helpful. An interesting program is being arranged for the first meeting of the new section in con nection with the meeting of the American Chemical Society in Rochester, N. Y., beginning on April 26. Those having papers which they would like to present before the section are requested to send title and abstract before April first to the secretary, who may be addressed, care Arthur D. Little, Inc., 30 Charles River Road, Cambridge, 39, Massachusetts. G. J. ESSELN, JR., Secretary FORESTRY LEGISLATION BY THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT HEARINGS on the national forestry program bill, which calls for the expenditure of $11,000,000 a year for the protection and development of forests, were begun on January 7, before the subcommittee on appropriations of which Representative Anderson is chairman. Newspaper publishers, paper manufactures, lumbermen, timberland owners wood-using industries, the United States Forest Service and the American Forestry Association were represented. One million dollars a year for cooperating with the states in protecting the forests from fire, and $10,000,000 a year for securing additional forest land for the government is being asked as a forward step in the endeavor to secure sufficient lumber and paper pulp for future needs. R. S. Kellogg, chairman of the national forest program committee, has made the following statement: This is a paper age, and in the United States, at least, a newspaper age. From an annual consumption of three pounds of news print paper per capita in 1880 we have gone to thirty-five pounds in 1920. The news print paper produced in the United States and Canada this year, if put in the form of a standard roll seventy-three inches wide, such as is used by many of the large newspapers, would unwind 13,000,000 miles. Our daily papers have a circulation in excess of 28,000,000 copies, and there are more than 100 dailies between the Atlantic and Pacific whose circulation exceeds 100,000 copies, and some of them have several times that number. The proposed legislation has been indorsed by the National Lumber Manufacturers' Asso 70 SCIENCE ciation, the American Forestry Association, American Newspaper Publishers' Association, National Wholesale Lumber Dealers' Association, Southern Pine Association, Western Forestry and Conservation Association, American Paper and Pulp Association, United States Forest Service, Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, national forest fire protection committee. RESOLUTIONS OF THE NATIONAL RESEARCH A. BUMSTEAD As has been recorded in SCIENCE Dr. Henry A. Bumstead, professor of physics and director of the Sloane Physical Laboratory at Yale University, and for the past half year on leave from the university as chairman of the National Research Council of Washington, D. C., died suddenly on the train on the night of December 31, while returning from Chicago, where he had been in attendance at the meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and affiliated socieies. The following resolution was unanimously adopted at a special meeting of the Interim Committee of the National Research Council, held on January 3, 1921: Resolved, That the National Research Council learns of the death of Dr. Henry A. Bumstead, chairman of the council, with great sorrow and profound sense of loss. Dr. Bumstead in his association with the council had revealed to its officers and members not only a high capacity for administration, and a most loyal fidelity to the aims and work of the council, but also a sweetness of disposition and personal attractiveness which had won for him the devoted and affectionate regard of all of his colleagues in the council. In his death the council and the scientific world lose a man of most eminent attainments, highest character, and lovable personality. The National Research Council extends to the SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS DR. EDGAR FAHS SMITH, former provos the University of Pennsylvania, has elected president of the American Cher Society. Dr. Smith was president of the Announcement is also 1 ciety in 1898. 1 that the ballots of the 15,500 members o society resulted in the election of the fo ing other officers: Directors, George D. R garten, of Philadelphia, and Dr. Henr Talbot, of the Massachusetts Institut Technology. Councilors, Dr. Carl L. Als of the Bureau of Chemistry; Dr. Allen Ro of Pratt Institute; Dr. Lauder W. Jone Princeton University, and Harrison E. H of the National Research Council. PROFESSOR C. E. ALLEN, of the depart of botany of the University of Wisconsin elected president of the Botanical Socie America at the recent meeting in Chi He was also named editor-in-chief of American Journal of Botany. THE Perkin medal of the American Se of the Society of Chemical Industry has awarded to Dr. Willis R. Whitney, res director of the General Electric Company A DISTINGUISHED service medal was aw at the annual meeting of Gamma Sigma honorary agricultural society, held in Ch to Professor Stephen M. Babcock, invent the Babcock milk test and professor em of agricultural chemistry at the Univers Wisconsin. Professor Babcock was also an honorary member of the organization MAJOR LAWRENCE MARTIN, the Gilman morial lecturer in Geography at Johns kins University for 1920-21, has been d ilized after three and one half years' serv the United States Army, and has entere State Department in Washington. By of the secretary of war, after selection by eral Pershing and a board of officers, Martin has been placed on the General eligible list. PROFESSOR EDWARD S. MORSE, of Pe Academy and Boston Museum of Fine has been elected an honorary member East Asiatic Society. |