finding the missing link in the chain, the actual spawning fresh-water eel in the intermediate waters somewhere above the abysses of the open ocean.

Again, take the case of an interesting oceanographic observation which, if established, may be found to explain the variations in time and amount of important fisheries. Otto Pettersson in 1910 discovered by his observations in the Gullmar Fjord the presence of periodic submarine waves of deeper salter water in the Kattegat and the fjords of the west coast of Sweden, which draw in with them from the Jutland banks vast shoals of the herrings which congregate there in autumn. The deeper layer consists of "bankwater" of salinity 32 to 34 per thousand, and as this rolls in along the bottom as a series of huge undulations it forces out the overlying fresher water, and so the herrings living in the bankwater outside are sucked into the Kattegat and neighboring fjords and give rise to important local fisheries. Pettersson connects the crests of the submarine waves with the phases of the moon. Two great waves of salter water which reached up to the surface took place in November, 1910, one near the time of full moon and the other about new moon, and the latter was at the time when the shoals of herring appeared inshore and provided a profitable fishery. The coincidence of the oceanic phenomena with the lunar phases is not, however, very exact, and doubts have been expressed as to the connection; but if established, and even if found to be due not to the moon but to prevalent winds or the influence of ocean currents, this would be a case of the migration of fishes depending upon mechanical causes, while in other cases it is known that migrations are due to spawning needs or for the purpose of feeding, as in the case of the cod and the herring in the west and north of Norway and in the Barents Sea.

WILLIAM A. HERDMAN

UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL

JOHN SAHLBERG

JOHN REINHOLD SAHLBERG passed away on the eighth of May, 1920, in Helsingfors, Fin

land, seventy-five years of age, having been born in Helsingfors, June, 1845.

Descriptive entomology has lost one of its prominent men; entomological societies-especially the famous Societas pro Fauna and Flora Fennica-an enthusiastic member and officer; the University of Helsingfors a learned teacher, who knew how to guide his pupils to the very source of biological knowledge—nature herself.

John Sahlberg was an unwearied and highly experienced collector, famous all over Europe, who up to his old age, undertook extensive and strenuous excursions throughout all parts of his native country. He also collected in many other countries of the old world, traveling through the northern parts of Scandinavia and Siberia, and staying in the Caucasus, Turkestan, Greece and Italy. Three times during the years 1895 and 1904 he visited Asia Minor, Palestine and Egypt. Although thoroughly familiar with all branches of entomology, it was the Cicadaria and the Coleoptera which attracted his especial attention, and to these groups he devoted much study.

Among the many publications of John Sahlberg the following may be mentioned: 1871: Öfversigt of Finlands och den Skandi

naviska halföns Cicadariæ. 1873-89: Enumeratio Coleopterorum Fenniæ. 1878-80: Bidrag till Nordvestra Sibiriens Insekt Fauna.

1900: Catalogus Coleopterorum Fennis Geographicus.

1912-13: Coleoptera Mediterranea Orientalia. He has left his entomological collections, which are large and of rare systematic and faunistic value, to the Zoological Museum of Helsingfors.

John Sahlberg belonged to an old Finnish family which for generations has been connected with the learned institutions of their native land. His grandfather (Carl Reinhold S.) was professor in natural history, first at the Åbo Academy of Science, later at the University of Helsingfors. After extensive travels over all parts of the world, his father (Reinhold Ferdinand S.) was for a period teacher in zoology at the University of Helsingfors.

John Sahlberg himself was only twenty-six years old when he was appointed teacher in zoology at the University of Helsingfors. At the same institution he was professor extraordinarius in entomology from 1883 to 1918. John Sahlberg's son is Dr. Uunio Saalas, Helsingfors (now Helsinki), an entomologist of very high standing and of international reputation.

John Sahlberg was a man of firm character and deeply interested in Christian movements and associations, especially the Y. M. C. A. and a Christian association of Finnish University students. He also was a very enthusiastic spokesman for prohibition, especially advocating it among young men. He has published and lectured on prohibition and Christian subjects.

A. G. BöVING

SCIENTIFIC EVENTS

THE PUBLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC BOOKS IN FRANCE

THE Paris correspondent of the Journal of the American Medical Association writes:

The paper shortage and publishing difficulties still arouse a lively interest. M. Ducrot, in an informative article in the Revue Scientifique on the subject of scientific publishing in France, showed that if there was a crisis in the publication of literary works, this was particularly acute in the case of works on pure science. In fact, the elements of bookmaking have increased considerably in cost as compared to prices before the war: compositors and pressmen are paid from three to four times as much as in 1914, the price of paper is five times as great, and these factors contribute to make the cost of a book from three to four times as much as before the war. Now, the income of the intellectual classes, the only purchasers of theoretic works, has barely doubled, while the budgets of public institutions, libraries, laboratories, etc., have been greatly reduced. A book, even one that constitutes a veritable working tool, is not a prime necessity. It should not, therefore, exceed a certain price, above which it will not sell, and at the present moment, the maximum has apparently been reached.

This condition, which constitutes a veritable danger to the advance of science, is not peculiar to France. A statistical study by M. Fernand Roches

in the Correspondant discloses the progressive decrease of the number of publications in the principal countries since 1914. Exclusive of periodicals and musical works, the figures show that a number of books published in 1918, as compared to 1917, decreased in France from 5,054 to 4,484; in Great Britain from 8,131 to 7,716; in Italy from 8,349 to 5,902; in the United States from 10,060 to 9,237, and in Germany from 14,910 to 14,743. The production in 1919 is not yet known, but it was probably less than in 1918.

It is interesting to note that the decrease in Italy totaled 2,447 books; in the United States 823; in France 570, and in England 415; but Germany, defeated and disorganized, showed a decrease of only 167 works.

So far as French medical books are concerned, statistics recently published in the Bibliographie de la France indicate that the number of such works, which had suffered a great decrease before the war (from 1,230 in 1910 to 721 in 1914), had again greatly declined in 1915, namely, to 202 works. A tendency to improvement was noted in 1916, and again in 1917, when 292 books appeared. However, in 1918, a new decline set in which it was believed would be accentuated in 1919, but nothing of the sort occurred and in that year 309 new books appeared.

CHEMICAL RESEARCH IN LONDON

A COMMITTEE presided over by Professor J. F. Thorpe, of the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, has made a report recommending the creation of an All-India Chemical Service, the establishment of a central research institute at Dehra Dun, and of a similar laboratory in each province near the chief seat of industry. The broad object is to assist by scientific investigation in overcoming the difficulties and deficiencies in Indian industrial organization pointed out by the Holland Commission.

The summary in the London Times states that while it is the intention of Professor Thorpe and his colleagues that the research institutes should be staffed mainly by Indians, it is manifest that the universities and institutes of the country do not provide adequate training for the research work which will fall to the service. The qualifications laid down are an honor degree in the first and second class or its equivalent; a suitable training in

engineering (workshop practise and machine drawing); and one or two years training in the methods of research under a professor or teacher of a university or university institution who is competent to train in research. Sir P. C. Ray, who stands only second to Sir Jagadis Bose in eminence as an Indian scientist, in a dissentient note disapproves of the creation of yet another Indian service, and thinks the best results could be achieved by improving the teaching of chemistry in the universities. They should be encouraged to strengthen the staff of chemical teachers and to offer research scholarships. Technological institutes should be attached to each university as an adjunct to the chemical and physical departments.

The attractiveness prima facie to men of high scientific attainment of dependence on the universities has been shown in the last few months in the correspondence columns of Nature. In his introductory note to the report Dr. Thorpe, who may be presumed to have had strong leanings in the same direction when his inquiries began, is unhesitating in his conclusion that the development of chemical industries in India can only be adequately realized through the agency of an efficient Government Chemical Service. At the outset the report refers to the method, found satisfactory in England, of government subventions to research associations in the various branches of industry. But in India, with its comparatively undeveloped great natural resources, 66 a more intimate system of state assistance" is held to be necessary. Similarly, it is not possible at present to rely upon the Indian universities to complete the training necessary for appointment to the service, and selected students must be sent abroad under a system of maintenance agents.

It is pointed out that the formation of the service will necessitate a strengthening of the chemical departments of Indian universities and institutions. The professors of chemistry should be relieved of some of their routine work, and could then devote an appreciable amount of time to training their senior students in methods of research. The forma

tion of a service for the purpose of industrial research does not mean that university professors should be discouraged from doing similar work. Dr. Thorpe, in his introductory note, says that while it is impossible and unnecessary to have laboratories attached to the universities fitted with full-scale apparatus, there should be attached to the chemical department in every university a laboratory of comparatively small dimensions, containing types of every kind of plant used in chemical manufacture of about one sixtieth the size of the large scale plant.

The proposed Chemical Service touches the educational service or educational institutions directly only in so far as concerns the efficient training of its recruits in research methods. For this reason it is not proposed that professors and teachers of chemistry should normally be members of the service. It would be open to the Education Department or to an educational institution to ask for a chemist to be seconded from the service if it so desires. Such chemists would retain their lien on their appointment in the Chemical Service, and could revert thereto on promotion, on their own request, or on the request of the authorities to whom their services had been lent.

forestation of cut-over areas, the replacement of timber cuttings by natural growth, the control of insect pests and fungus diseases of forest trees, beneficial modifications of lumbering practise, the preservation of timber in use, the utilization of by-products, and the relation of forestry to rainfall, control of flood waters, grazing, etc.

The importance of the most penetrating study upon the conservation of our remaining forest resources is brought home by the recent announcement of the Forest Service that "three fifths of the original timber of the United States is gone and that we are using timber four times as fast as we are growing it." Our annual consumption of lumber alone is over 300 board feet per capita, and of newsprint is 33 pounds per capita. Cut and burned over forest lands in the United States, now waste territory, equal in area the whole of the present standing forests of Denmark, Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal. The total population of these countries is about 152,200,000, nearly 50 per cent. greater than the population of the United States.

OFFICE OF DEVELOPMENT WORK COMMERCIAL and industrial concerns will be helped to apply new processes and discoveries of chemists in the United States Department of Agriculture by an Office of Development Work just created by the Secretary of Agriculture in the Bureau of Chemistry. The staff of the new service will be made up of engineers rather than chemists. David J. Price, chief engineer in the dust-explosion investigations conducted by the department, will be in charge of the new work.

Dr. Carl L. Alsberg, chief of the Bureau of Chemistry, in a letter to the secretary stated that such a service is urgently needed to translate the work of the bureau into terms that could be understood and applied by the manufacturer and investor. Every year valuable discoveries are made concerning the utilization of manufacturing waste, or a new food is found, or a new dye, glue, or preservative. Without the service of a business office

such as is now provided the value of these discoveries is greatly reduced through the discoverers's inability to present his proposition in terms which the business man can understand, and the public runs the risk of losing a much-needed material. Under the new organization the engineers will look after the product as soon as it has passed beyond an experimental or laboratory stage and will prepare estimates for the convenience of the manufacturers.

Mr. Price and his associates will furnish data upon raw-material supply, cost of production, and the uses to which the product is adapted-in short, they provide an unbiased practical prospectus to show the public exactly what may be expected from the new material or process on a quantity-production scale. It is believed this cooperation will develop many neglected sources of public and private profit.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS

PROFESSOR GEORGE M. StewART, director of the H. K. Cushing Laboratory of Experimental Medicine of Western Reserve University, had conferred on him the degree of doctor of laws at the recent commencement exercises of the University of Edinburgh.

THE honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England has been conferred on Professor A. Depage, of Brussels; M. Pierre Duval, of Paris; Prof. John M. T. Finney, of The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and Dr. Charles H. Mayo, of Rochester, Minnesota.

THE University of Ottawa has conferred the degree of doctor of literature on Dr. J. C. McWalter, high sheriff of Dublin, and president of the Dublin Branch of the British Medical Association.

BARON GERARD DE GEER, of Stockholm, has arrived in this country to study the geological chronology since the ice age in the United States and Canada. He is accompanied by his wife and Drs. Ernest Antevs, and Ragnar Lidén.

DR. N. L. BRITTON, director of the New York Botanical Garden, accompanied by Mrs. Brit

ton will visit the botanical institutions of Great Britain, France and Switzerland, particularly in reference to investigations of the flora of northern South America.

DR. FRANKLIN L. HUNT, physicist in the aeronautic instruments section of the Bureau of Standards, who has been detailed to Paris, France, for a period of twelve months, to serve as the bureau's representative in relations with the scientific and aviation authorities of England, France, Italy, Belgium and Holland, is expected to return about the first of October.

DR. DAVID MARINE, associate professor of experimental medicine in Western Reserve University, Cleveland, has been elected director of laboratories in the Montefiore Home and Hospital, New York City.

MR. R. G. UPTON, formerly with the Texas State Board of Health as assistant sanitary engineer, now has charge of inspection and laboratory work for the city of Port Arthur, Texas, where he is chemist and sanitary engi

neer.

DR. NICHOLAS KOPELOFF has accepted the position of associate in bacteriology at the Psychiatric Institute of the N. Y. State Hospitals, after resigning the position of bacteriologist of the Louisiana Sugar Experiment Station.

CLAUDE WAKELAND, deputy state entomologist of Colorado and in charge of alfalfa weevil investigations from 1917 to 1919, has accepted the position of state extension entomologist with headquarters at Boise.

THE Robert Koch endowment at Berlin has granted Professor Flügge of Berlin 15,000 marks and Professor Selter of Königsberg 6,000 marks to aid in continuing their research on tuberculosis.

DR. R. S. MORRELL has been elected president of the British Oil and Color Chemists' Association in succession to Dr. F. Mollwo Perkin.

MAJOR W. E. SIMNETT has retired from the direction and editorship of the Technical Review on his appointment to direct the Intelligence Branch of the British Ministry of Transport.

DR. J. G. LIPMAN, director of the New Jersey Experiment Station, has been appointed consulting editor of Annales de la Science Agronomique Française et Etrangère.

HARVEY BASSLER and J. B. Mertie, Jr., on furlough from the U. S. Geological Survey, are engaged in oil geology with Eugene Stebinger in Bolivia.

PROFESSOR C. O. SAUER, of the University of Michigan, is in charge during the month of September of a summer geological camp at Mills Springs, Wayne County, Ky.

DR. STEPHEN TABER, professor of geology at the University of South Carolina, has been giving courses in geology and seismology at Stanford University during the summer quarters.

THE Royal College of Physicians of London has appointed lecturers as follows: Dr. F. Parkes Weber, Mitchell lecturer, 1921; Dr. G. Graham, Goulstonian lecturer, 1921; Dr. T. Lewis, Oliver Sharpey lecturer, 1921; Dr. A. Whitfield, Lumleian lecturer, 1921; Dr. R. O. Moon, FitzPatrick lecturer, 1921; and Dr. G. M. Holmes, Croonian lecturer, 1922.

In memory of Dr. John B. Murphy, of Chicago, who died in 1916, it is proposed that there be constructed at an estimated cost of five hundred thousand dollars, the John B. Murphy Memorial Hall of the American College of Surgeons on a site in Chicago given by a number of prominent citizens and accepted by the regents in behalf of the college. In this memorial the college will acquire a building architecturally beautiful and much needed for important conferences and convocations and meetings for national and local medical societies. Space will be provided also in which it is proposed to maintain a pantheon of American medicine and surgery.

JOHN PERCY, professor of mathematics at the Finsbury Technical College and later at the Royal College of Science, London, died on August 4 at the age of seventy years.

THE death is announced at the age of eightythree years of Dr. Armand Gautier, formerly professor of chemistry at the University of