every one must feel in reading a French scientific book or memoir.

The profound use of analytical methods and the reduction of scientific truth to rigorous yet pleasing mathematical form is characteristic of the French. The mechanical view of nature arose among them. They were the first to set out to see how far science and reasoning can go while disregarding the principle of individuality. Among them science first became "truly conscious of its true methods, its usefulness, its most becoming style, its inherent dignity, its past errors, its present triumphs, the endless career which lies before it, and the limits which it can not transgress."

Of the three countries which have led in scientific development it seems to be the impartial verdict of history that we owe to France the largest number of works perfect in form and substance and classical for all time; that the greatest bulk of scientific work, at least in more recent decades, has been produced in Germany; but that the new ideas which have fructified science, in earlier times and also in the nineteenth century, have arisen more frequently in Great Britain than in any other country.

Science is cosmopolitan and flourishes under many skies. But the spirit of scientific work is national. Each great people manifest their own characteristics. They develop truth by methods influenced by the peculiar bias native to their temperament and institutions. No prime contributions to knowledge have ever been made repeatedly through a long period of time by any people other than those who labored from a center situated at the heart of their life and social organization. The deep-lying unknown things in nature can be found out only by one who looks upon her with eyes of his own. A people who seek guidance outside of themselves will never be led in the paths of high achievement. Only during their minority can they afford to lean upon the strength of others more powerful than they. On coming of age it is indispensable that they shall work from a center of their own.

American science should now begin to

render to the science of other countries a measure of support commensurate with that which it receives in turn in the mutual cooperation of all in the discovery of truth.

Up to the present we in America have not developed either a national spirit or a national tradition in scientific investigation. Research was not native to our soil and was not introduced by the first settlers. Along with the other portions of our European civilization our scientific attitude has come to us by inheritance. But we have now come to the time when American scientists may begin to proceed from an intellectual center of their own and make contributions in a characteristic spirit to the intellectual worth of mankind. R. D. CARMICHAEL

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

SCIENTIFIC EVENTS

THE PROPOSED NEW CHALLENGER
EXPEDITION

Nature announces that the council of the British Association has reluctantly decided that the organization of a new Challenger expedition, such as was suggested by Professor W. A. Herdman in his presidential address to the association at Cardiff last August, on an adequate scale can not be profitably promoted at the present time.

In accordance with the resolution passed by the general committee at the Cardiff meeting, the council appointed a special oceanographic committee to inquire into the details of the suggested project and to prepare a reasoned statement as to the need for such an expedition and its probable scale, scope, equipment, and cost. This memorandum has now been completed, and is available for use when the occasion arises; but in view of the present demand for economy in all national expenditure, and after consultation with trustworthy authorities, both scientific and administrative, the council at a recent meeting adopted a report by the general officers to the effect that, while retaining the scheme under consideration, no further action should be taken until circumstances seem more favorable for public expenditure upon such an undertaking.

The oceanographic committee will remain in existence with a watching and organizing brief ready to revive the project whenever a favorable opportunity arises, and the council will doubtless report upon the whole matter to the meeting of the general committee of the association at Edinburgh next September. It is hoped that the proposed expedition is postponed only for a season, and that the interval may be usefully employed in perfecting plans and making other essential preparations.

THE NOLAN PATENT OFFICE BILL

THE American Engineering Council of the Federated American Engineering Societies will seek at the opening of the special session of Congress to have the Nolan Patent Office Bill passed.

Failure of the measure in the last session is attributed to the presence of the Federal Trade Commission section which Edwin J. Prindle, of New York, chairman of the American Engineering Council's Patents Committee in a report to L. W. Wallace, executive secretary of the council, asserts should not be enacted into law in any form even as a separate bill. The committee reports:

The bill for the imperatively necessary relief of the Patent Office, after passing the House of Representatives with satisfactory provisions for the Patent Office, failed to pass the Senate at the session just closed with those same provisions, solely because of the presence in it of an unrelated section known as the Federal Trade Commission Section.

The former opposition in the Senate to the Patent Office relief and that which forced the unacceptable reductions in salaries and numbers of examiners and clerks (which the Conference Committee was persuaded to set aside) is largely and seemingly almost wholly overcome. But the oppo

sition in the Senate to the Federal Trade Section is determined and has expressed an intention to prevent the Patent Office from getting the desired relief unless the Federal Trade Section is removed from the bill.

More than preventing the Patent Office relief, however, the Federal Trade Section is believed to be a dangerous measure in itself. It provides that the Federal Trade Commission may receive assignments of and administer inventions and pat

ents from governmental employees and is an entering wedge for further legislation to empower the Trade Commission to receive patents from nongovernmental inventors or owners.

An exclusive license would have to be granted, at least for a few years, to induce any one to undertake the almost always necessary development expense, and the Trade Commission would surely be charged with favoritism in granting such a license. In order to protect its licensees, the Trade Commission would have to sue infringers, a most unfortunate activity for the government. The industries would close their doors to the gov ernment employees fearing to disclose to them their secrets or unpatented inventions, and research by the industries would be discouraged for fear that government employees, using government facilities, might reach the result first and patent it.

THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

THE American Philosophical Society will hold its general meeting in the hall of the society on Independence Square on April 21, 22 and 23. The program includes the following discussions:

The Application of the Method of the Interfer

ometer to certain Astronomical Researches: To astrophysical problems: HENRY NORRIS RusSELL, Ph.D., professor of astronomy, Princeton University.

To the measurement of double stars: FRANK SCHLESINGER, Ph.D., director, Yale University Observatory.

To the determination of stellar parallaxes: JOHN A. MILLER, Ph.D., director, Sproul Observatory, Swarthmore, Pa.

Atomic structure:

DAVID WEBSTER, professor of physics, Leland
Stanford University.

WILLIAM DUANE, director of radium institute,
Harvard Medical School, Boston.
BERGEN DAVIS, professor of physics, Columbia
University.

On Friday evening there will be a reception in the hall of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, when Dr. James H. Breasted, professor of Egyptology and Oriental history, University of Chicago, will speak on "Following the trail of our earliest ancestors" illustrated by lantern slides.

Award will be made of the society's Henry M. Phillips Prize of two thousand dollars for

the best essay on, "The control of the foreign relations of the United States: the relative rights, duties and responsibilities of the President, the Senate and the House, and of the judiciary, in theory and practise," and presentation of John Scott Medals "For Useful Inventions," by Owen Roberts, Esq., on behalf of the Board of City Trusts of Philadelphia.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS

THE National Institute of Social Sciences has awarded its gold medal to Mme. Curie.

MR. HERBERT C. HOOVER has been elected a trustee of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

PROFESSOR A. S. EDDINGTON has been elected president of the Royal Astronomical Society in succession to Professor A. Fowler.

MR. C. TATE REGAN has been appointed keeper of zoology at the British Natural History Museum, South Kensington.

DR. JOHAN HJORT, director of the Norwegian Fisheries, has received the degree of doctor of science from the University of Cambridge.

WE learn from Nature that the following were elected fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh at the ordinary meeting on March 7: Dr. Nelson Annandale, Mr. W. Arthur, Mr. B. B. Baker, Dr. Archibald Barr, Mr. J. Bartholomew, Mr. A. Bruce, Mr. Andrew Campbell, Dr. Rasik Lal Datta, Dr. John Dougall, Dr. C. V. Drysdale, Mr. G. T. Forrest, Dr. W. Gibson, Dr. J. W. H. Harrison, Mr. J. A. G. Lamb, the Rev. A. E. Laurie, Mr. Neil M'Arthur, Mr. D. B. M'Quistan, Dr. T. M. MacRobert, Dr. J. M'Whan, Mr. J. Mathieson, Sir G. H. Pollard, Professor E. B. Ross, the Right Hon. J. P. Smith, Professor N. K. Smith, and Dr. I. S. Stewart.

AT the Chicago meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the council established a committee on conservation to cooperate with similar committees of other organizations. This new committee on conservation has now been appointed, its

personnel being as follows: J. C. Merriam, chairman, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, D. C.; Isaiah Bowman, American Geographical Society, New York City; H. S. Graves, 1731 H Street, N.W., Washington, D. C.; Barrington Moore, 925 Park Avenue, New York City; V. E. Shelford, University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill.

DR. HAVEN EMERSON, formerly commissioner of health of New York City, has been appointed medical adviser and assistant director of the Bureau of War Risk Insurance.

DR. P. G. NUTTING, organizer and for the past four years director of the scientific research of the Westinghouse Electric Company, will not be with that company after May 1. Dr. Nutting was for ten years with the Bureau of Standards, leaving in 1912 to assist Dr. Mees in the organization and development of the research work of the Eastman Kodak Company.

DR. L. A. MIKESKA has resigned from the Color Laboratory of the Bureau of Chemistry, U. S. Department of Agriculture, to join the staff of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, New York City.

DR. HENRY E. CRAMPTON, of Barnard College and the American Museum of Natural History, has returned from a nine months' trip to the tropics and the islands in the Pacific.

JOHN W. GILMORE, professor of agronomy at the University of California, has been appointed exchange professor from the United States to the University of Chile for the academic year 1921-1922.

DR. LAFAYETTE B. MENDEL, professor of physiological chemistry, Yale University, spoke before 500 members of the Chicago Section of the American Chemical Society on Friday, March 18. Preceding the talk, a dinner in honor of Dr. Mendel was served at the Quadrangle Club, University of Chicago.

ON March 12, the Mayo Foundation, Rochester, Minn., was addressed by Dr. James Ewing, President George E. Vincent and Dr. Charles Choyce.

PROFESSOR DOUGLAS JOHNSON, of Columbia University, addressed the annual open meeting of the Syracuse University chapter of Sigma Xi, March 16, on "The rôle of geography in world affairs." On March 17, he spoke at Colgate University on the same subject.

THE Council of the Paris Faculty of Medicine, has received a gift of 50,000 francs from Mme. Mathias Duval, widow of the eminent professor of histology. The sum having been given without any conditions as to the manner in which it shall be expended, a committee has been appointed to decide how it can best be employed.

PLANS to broaden the scope of the Gorgas Memorial Institute in Panama into a research and teaching institution of international scope are being developed by the provisional board. of directors for the United States.

ERNEST JOSEPH LEDERLE, the sanitary engi

The titles are to be given to men of distinguished attainments who devote most of their time to research rather than to teaching. It was voted "That the title of research associate should be confined to men of real distinction in research and productive scholarship, and that it should carry with it inclusion in the list of 'Professors and other officers of professorial rank,' the object of the position being to attract to the university men of eminence, who usually wish greater freedom in the use of their time for research than professorial appointments permit."

EUGENE E. HASKILL, S.E., dean of the combined colleges of civil and mechanical engineering at Cornell University has resigned. His resignation is to take effect in June of this year after his sabbatic leave, which he is now enjoying. Dean Haskill has been at the head of the college of civil engineering at Cornell since 1905, prior to which he was in

years. Dr. Lederle was health commissioner of New York City under Mayor Low and Mayor Gaynor.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL
NEWS

THE latest report on the Worcester Polytechnic Institute Endowment Fund indicates pledges of over $900,000 to date. The committee in charge has no doubt that the entire $1,000,000 will be pledged before Commencement Day. This is the second million of the $2,000,000 fund undertaken, the first million having already been pledged, partly in the form of scholarship funds given by industrial corporations in Worcester.

AN appropriation by the Oregon legislature of $271,000 has been made for medical work in Portland by the University of Oregon.

THE Corporation of Yale University has adopted regulations with reference to research associates and research fellows. Research associates are to have professorial rank, and research fellows assistant professorial rank.

of the Great Lakes. Dean Haskill is a graduate of Cornell University, class of 1879; his successor, Professor F. A. Barnes, is also a Cornell graduate, having been granted his degree in 1897.

DR. PAUL WEATHERWAX, for the past two years associate professor of botany in the University of Georgia, has resigned to accept an associate professorship in Indiana University, where he was formerly instructor.

PROFESSOR IRVING H. CAMERON, for many years professor of surgery in the medical department of the University of Toronto, has relinquished that chair, and Dr. Alexander Primrose has been appointed to succeed him temporarily.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE

ARE THE LANCE AND FORT UNION
FORMATIONS OF MESOZOIC TIME?1

TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: Under the above title Professor Charles Schuchert has recently reviewed in SCIENCE (issue of January 14) a

1 Published with the permission of the director of the U. S. Geological Survey.

publication of the Geological Survey by Dr. T. W. Stanton on "The Fauna of the Cannonball Marine Member of the Lance Formation." Following the review Profesor Schuchert announces his opinion that the evidence

binds invertebrate paleontologists and geologists together in the conviction that the Lance and the Fort Union are of Mesozoic time. The U. S. Geological Survey should now reverse its former conclusion and adapt itself to the fuller evidence.

In the first conclusion Professor Schuchert adopts the view of Dr. Stanton and of Messrs. Lloyd and Hares, who described and named the Cannonball beds in 1915, as to the Lance formation, but goes even further than they do in assigning the Fort Union to the Mesozoic. However, it does seem difficult to justify a separation of these formations, making one Cretaceous and the other Eocene.

As a geologist long interested in the Cretaceous-Eocene problem of the Rocky Mountain region, I wish to comment that Professor Schuchert is not warranted in assuming to speak for geologists inasmuch as he does not regard much of the geological evidence. Nor does he give due weight to paleontological data, aside from those of the mollusca. Moreover, it seems gratuitous to assume that the Geological Survey, because it has not adopted the conclusion reached by Professor Schuchert, has not considered in its decisions the bearing of facts concerning the Lance secured by its own investigators some years ago. The Survey geologists have also secured much other evidence.

Now it is perfectly well known to Professor Schuchert that the question as to the age of the Lance and Fort Union beds is a part of a very large problem, involving a conception of the geologic evolution of the whole Rocky Mountain Province from Mexico to far north in Canada. More than a score of more or less local formations, younger than the great continuous Cretaceous section and older than the Wasatch Eocene, are to be correlated and interpreted. These formations present a great deal of varied evidence as to the history of the Cretaceous-Eocene transition period. The Survey has, in fact, based its action, with

which Professor Schuchert disagrees, on a consideration of all available evidence.

Investigations of the Rocky Mountain Province and adjacent lower country to east and west, made within 30 years past, have surely proved that the older idea of the diastrophism which characterized the transition from the Cretaceous to the Eocene period was very faulty. The change was gradual, not abrupt, and, while over a large area the great Cretaceous succession was ended, the uplift was epeirogenic for a long period during which erosion and prevailingly continental deposition proceeded, and there was no such abrupt environmental change affecting life upon the land as has been assumed. In general the newer picture of Rocky Mountain development, after Laramie time, gives no basis for the belief that dinosaurs and some other dominantly Mesozoic land forms could not survive into the Eocene. In fact, dinosaurs of the type found in the Lance lived in the Denver epoch, that is, they survived during the period in which the entire Cretaceous section was removed from a large part of Colorado and adjacent regions.

The Lance and Fort Union formations of eastern Montana and adjacent portions of the Dakotas present an exceptionally interesting and important association of stratigraphic and paleontologic data, the subject of conflicting ideas which must eventually be harmonized. Their correct interpretation will contribute much to our understanding of Rocky Mountain history. The most striking data will be briefly specified.