monwealth Fund, New York City; George Eastman and Adolph Lomb, Rochester; E. A. Deeds and Charles F. Kettering, Dayton; Henry Ford, Detroit; Arthur H. Fleming, Pasadena; A. W. Mellon, Pittsburgh; Pierre S. duPont, Wilmington; Raphael Pumpelly, Newport; Mr. and Mrs. H. E. Huntington, Los Angeles; Corning Glass Works Corning, New York. Funds for the erection of the building have been provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

THE American Chemical Society has increased the annual dues from ten to fifteen dollars. The finance committee reports that for the present year the society will just about keep inside its budget as a whole, excepting for the matter of printing. In the item of printing, all the journals are necessarily running beyond their budgets due to the increases in costs of paper and printing that have already accrued. If the journals print the same amount of material for the next four months that they have been averaging, and the cost of paper, printing, etc., are the same as it has been for the last eight months, then the Journal of the American Chemical Society will exceed its budget by nearly $10,000; Chemical Abstracts will exceed its budget by nearly $8,000; and the Journal of Industrial Chemistry will exceed its budget by nearly $3,000.

THE Paris correspondent of the Journal of the American Medical Association writes that the president of France having decreed that the public welfare demands the creation of certain institutes, notably an institute of hygiene, in affiliation with the University of Paris, on grounds accruing from liquidation of the congregation of Jesuits, the minister of public instruction has been authorized to acquire this property by expropriation in the name of the state.

THE London Times reports that in a discussion on the Einstein theory of relativity at Bad Nauheim on September 23 Professor Grebe, of Bonn, declared that the third test had been passed. According to Professor Einstein, there should be a shift" towards the

red of the lines in the solar spectrum of from 0.62 to 0.63. The absorption bands of nitrogen had been selected and compared with a spectrum of a carbon arc. More than 20 measurements of each line had been made. There were differences in the "shift" of individual lines, but when allowance had been made for disturbing factors the "shift" was found to be about 0.66-a close agreement with prediction.

FOR many years Dr. Joseph Lane Hancock, of Chicago, has been recognized as an authority on the Tettiginæ or Grouse-locusts, and in that time has assembled probably the largest collection of these insects extant, numbering over five thousand specimens. Due to added medical responsibilities, Dr. Hancock has now closed his Orthopterological studies and his collection has been added to the Hebard Collection of Orthoptera at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. In order to continue the work in this group, Dr. Hancock's correspondents and collectors are invited to communicate with Mr. Morgan Hebard, Academy of Natural Sciences, 1900 Race St., Philadelphia, Pa. Every effort will be made to continue the growth of the collection of Tettiginæ as well as carrying on the systematic studies.

WE learn from the British Medical Journal that last spring a beginning was made at University College, London, with the foundation of a school of the history of science. Dr. A. Wolf, reader in logic, then made a first attempt at some organized presentation of the history of scientific ideas by arranging for a series of lectures; the course was inaugurated by Dr. Charles Singer last May in a lecture in which Greek science and modern science were compared and contrasted. This autumn much fuller arrangements have been made, and a series of courses of lectures will be given. The field to be covered is wide, ranging from Egyptian science to the most important developments of physical science in the nineteenth century, and from biology to mathematics in the eighteenth century. An introductory public lecture will be given on Thursday, October 7 by Professor Sir William

H. Bragg, F.R.S., and on October 13 Dr. Wolf will begin an introductory course of lectures on general history and development of science; this course will be illustrated by lantern slides, and visits will be made to museums. On October 12 at 5.15 P.M., Dr. Charles Singer will begin a course of twelve lectures on the history of the biological and medical sciences from early times till the eighteenth century. Dr. Singer's intention is to make his course a history of medical science, for down to a certain date the biological sciences are inseparable from medicine; he will omit all discussion of social phenomena and personalities. The history of the biological sciences since the eighteenth century will be dealt with by Professor J. B. Hill, F.R.S., in a course of six lectures, beginning next May.

THE Carnegie Institute of Technology of Pittsburgh is completing the most elaborate coal mining laboratory in America. The laboratory, which will be finished by the opening of the fall term, is located beneath the building of the division of science and engineering of the institute. The equipment comprises a full-sized coal mine-a model mine, except that it yields no coal-a mine locomotive and a full set of coal and metal mine machinery, that has been furnished by manufacturers. In addition to the mining laboratories proper there will be a completely equipped ore-dressing and coal-washing plant. It is purposed to extend the mine, during the practise work of the students, along such a plan that it can be utilized for carrying some of the steam and water pipes of the institute.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL
NEWS

FROM October 7 through the 17, the University of Buffalo conducted an intensive campaign among the citizens of the city for a fund of five million dollars, to be used partly for endowment and partly for additional buildings. The "drive" was a complete success, and a total of about $5,500,000

was subscribed. The campaign was conducted in the absence of an educational head, Charles P. Norton, having resigned as chancellor of the university early in the summer. He was elected vice-chancellor in 1905, and chancellor in 1909. In his administration a new site for the university was secured, and the new buildings will be erected on a campus of 150 acres at the city line. A committee of the council is charged with the duty of securing a new chancellor.

DR. WALTER T. TAGGART, for many years professor of organic chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, has been elected to succeed Dr. Edgar Fahs Smith as Blanchard professor of chemistry at that institution. Dr. Smith resigned as provost and professor of chemistry last June. Professor Taggart is now the head of the chemical department of the university.

DR. EDWARD WYLLYS TAYLOR, professor of neurology in the Harvard Medical School, has been appointed to the James Jackson Putnam professorship.

MISS GLADYS BRYANT (Radcliffe '17), has become demonstrator in general physiology at Rutgers College.

THE department of chemistry of Cooper Union announces the appointment to its staff of William N. Pritchard, formerly with the Calco Company, Boundbrook, N. J., and of Harold Hurst, formerly with the Le Doux Company.

DR. ERNEST ANDERSON, for the past three years professor of Agricultural chemistry in Transvaal University College, Pretoria, has been appointed professor of general chemistry in the University of Nebraska.

J. B. FERGUSON has left the research laboratories of the Western Electric Company, of New York City, to accept an appointment as associate professor of research chemistry at the University of Toronto.

PROFESSOR ALBERT EINSTEIN, of the University of Berlin, has accepted the chair of science in the University of Leiden. He will divide his time between the two institutions.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE PROFESSOR FIELD'S USE OF THE TERM FOSSIL

IN examining copies of SCIENCE which accumulated during the vacation just closed, a contribution on the "Use of the Term Fossil" in the number of date June 25 has attracted my attention and challenges criticism.

The definition proposed by Professor Field in this contribution is faulty in that it errs in the time concept. He has committed the popular error of considering "historic" synonymous with the present geological epoch. The remains of an animal or plant may antedate human history (be prehistoric) by many thousands of years without belonging to a past geological epoch.

In constructing a definition of the term fossil, it is difficult to improve upon the essential ideas connoted by the term as used by Dr. Karl Von Zittel in his "Palaeozoologie." According to this authority fossils need not be mineralized, nor the remains of extinct organisms, but must possess a certain antiquity-they must have come down to us from a geological age earlier than the present.

We would propose then as a concise definition of fossil, "Any trace of an organism that lived in a past geological age."

While agreeing that accuracy in scientific definition is an object worth striving to attain, we can not concur with Professor Field in objecting to a use of certain scientific terms in a derived sense commonly figurative. Language is being constantly enriched by such usage.

The expression "fossil botanist" may be criticized as objectional, because ambiguous, but "fossil ripple marks," "fossil suncracks," "fossil flood plains" (Shimer) are illuminating and apt and are valued contributions to geological phraseology. It is futile to inveigh against such usage or against "literary persons for coining the terms "fossil poetry" and "fossil statesman." Rather should we rejoice in this evidence that our science is not altogether out of touch with modern life. Whether we approve or not, such expressions have come to stay. Not only

new words, but old words with a new meaning content are being constantly introduced into a growing language. Words simply will not stay tied, but as Archbishop Trench put it are, as regards their meanings, "constantly drifting from their moorings." The term fossil, itself, is an illustration in point; also the names of certain fossils, as belemnite, ammonite and nummulite, which embody original erroneous conceptions as to their

nature.

As an illustration of a fossil that as the result of refusing to be straight jacketed has made an important contribution to English we have mammoth, from the Tartar word maimon. In the space of about one hundred years this word has given us in its adjective use a synonym for huge so thoroughly incorporated into our speech that few people recognize its exotic character. It may be of interest to some to learn that the first recorded use of the name of this animal in an adjective sense was in Kentucky. John Filson in describing Big Bone Lick in his History of Kentucky, written in 1784, referred to the animal as maimon. Within three years, however, we find Thomas Jefferson and others, also in describing Big Bone Lick, calling the animal mammoth. Within twentyfive years from this time we find the word beginning to be used as an adjective in the sense of very large. The earliest recorded instance of its use in this sense in in 1812, when in a deed it was applied to a very large saltpeter cave in what is now Edmonson but was then Warren county, Kentucky. That this use of the word had not spread to England by 1818 is evidenced by a passage in the letters of James Flint, who writing to England at that date and referring to this large cave in Kentucky remarks that "they call it Mammoth Cave, but why I do not know, for there are no mammoth bones found there." Evidently at that time the use of the word in the sense of large was too much of an Americanism to be comprehended by this Englishman.

ARTHUR M. MILLER

UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY,

GALILEO'S EXPERIMENTS FROM THE TOWER OF PISA

A

ex

MR. PARTRIDGE's declaration (SCIENCE, Sept. 17, 1920) that "we do not know exactly what experiment Galileo performed" from the leaning tower of Pisa appears to me too sweeping. In the first place, Vincenzio Viviani, in his life of Galileo, speaks of repeated experiments" not of one "experiment." series of trials is what one would pect. It is highly improbable that Galileo would perform an experiment before a university assembly which he had not previously tried out. The historic data are as follows: (1) Viviani tells us that Galileo at the leaning tower of Pisa used "different weights"; (2) Galileo in his "De Motu" (probably written before he left Pisa) speaks of dropping wood and lead from a high tower; (3) In his "Dialogues concerning two new Sciences," Galileo lets Sagredo say:

But I, Simplicio, who have made the test can assure you that a cannon ball weighing one or two hundred pounds, or even more, will not reach the ground by as much as a span ahead of a musket ball weighing only half a pound, provided both are dropped from a height of 200 cubits.

Later Salviati says that "the larger (iron ball) outstrips the smaller by two fingerbreadths." On the remark of Simplicio that perhaps the result would be different if the fall took place "from some thousands of cubits," Salviati replies:

If this were what Aristotle meant you would burden him with another error . . . since there is no such sheer height available on earth.

It is true that in the above "Dialogue" Galileo does not give the place of experimentation and does not mention the leaning tower. But what other locality in Pisa would have been as favorable? From the above data it follows that Galileo dropped different weights of a variety of materials and noticed which of them fell faster.

1 Translation by H. Crew and A. De Salvio, New York, 1914, pp. 62, 65, "First Day."

...

Supposing that there are two Particles or Atoms of Matter perfectly equal and alike, which God has placed in different Parts of the Creation. If they are perfectly equal and alike in themselves, then they can be distinguished or be distinct only in those Things which are called Circumstances; as Place, Time, Rest, Motion, or some other present or past Circumstances or Relations. . . . If God makes two bodies in themselves every Way equal and alike, and agreeing perfectly in all other Circumstances and Relations but only their Place. then in this only is there any Distinction and Duplicity. The Figure is the same, the Measure is the same, the Solidity and Resistance are the same, and every Thing the same, but only the Place.. The Difference of Place, in this (the former) Case,

...

2 Antonio Favaro, "Amici e Corrispondenti di Galileo Galilei. XXIX. Vincenzio Viviani." Venezia, pp. 8-19.

1"A Careful and Strict Enquiry into the modern prevailing Notions of that Freedom of the Will which is supposed to be essential to Moral Agency, Vertue and Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise and Blame," 1754, p. 243; “Of God's Placing differently Similar Particles."

proves no more than the Difference of Time does in an (the) other.

Edwards, about to become president of the College of New Jersey, and at this date writing as a missionary to the Indians; "Pastor of the Church in Stockbridge," has in the same chapter, these Princetonian thoughts on evolution suggested by Sir Isaac Newton's "Laws of Motion & Gravitation."

Let us suppose two Bodies moving the same Way, in strait Lines, perfectly parallel one to another; but to be diverted from this Parallel Course, and drawn one from another, as much as might be by the Attraction of an Atom, at the Distance of one of the furthest of the fix'd Stars from the Earth; these Bodies being turned out of the Lines of their parallel Motion, will, by Degrees, get further and further distant, one from the other; and tho' the Distance may be imperceptible for a long Time, yet at Length it may become very great. So the Revolution of a Planet round the Sun being retarded or accelerated, and the Orbit of it's Revolution made greater or less, and more or less elliptical, and so it's Periodical Time longer or shorter, no more than may be by the Influence of the least Atom, might in Length of Time perform a whole Revolution sooner or later than otherwise it would have done; which might make a vast Alteration with Regard to Millions of important Events. So the Influence of the least Particle may, for ought we know, have such Effect on something in the Constitution of some human Body, as to cause another Thought to arise in the Mind at a certain Time, than otherwise would have been; which in Length of Time (yea, and that not very great) might occasion a vast Alteration thro' the whole World of Mankind.

Thus the describer of the Ballooning Spiders. Einstein, Conklin; Behold your King!

ALBANY, N. Y.

SCIENTIFIC BOOKS

J. M. C.

Heredity and Evolution in Plants. By C. STUART GAGER. Philadelphia, 1920. P. Blakiston's Son and Co. Pp. xiii+265. Figs. 113.

This very readable book is in part a reprint of certain sections of the author's

"Fundamentals of Botany" but with considerable new matter added and much of the old recast. An account of the life history of the fern lays the foundation for a discussion of cell structure and the fundamentals of cell behavior in reproduction and at the critical periods of fertilization and reduction. Then comes a chapter on heredity followed by a consideration of results from experimental studies of Mendel, Johannsen, and others.

Chapters entitled "Evolution," "Darwinism" and "Experimental Evolution" give the views of Lamarck, Darwin, Wallace and de Vries. The statement of the mutation theory of de Vries is excellent but there is nothing to indicate to the reader how difficult it is to distinguish between mutations and the results of segregation in impure species the breeding behavior of which is complicated by the presence of lethal factors. There is no reference to the remarkable genetical complications which are known for Enothera material rendering it among the most interesting and puzzling under investigation although correspondingly less favorable for the demonstration of mutations.

The latter half of the book considers the evolutionary history of the plant kingdom from evidence supplied by comparative morphology and life histories, geographical distribution, and paleobotany. In this section is brought together much scattered information which together with the discussion is likely to prove of particular interest to the general reader not familiar with geographical botany and with the striking contributions of recent years from studies of ancient plant remains. BRADLEY M. DAVIS

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

NOTES ON CLIMATOLOGY AND
METEOROLOGY

AEROLOGICAL WORK IN THE UNITED STATES

METEOROLOGY, until recent years, has been largely a two-dimensional science. Indeed, so strongly has the conception become rooted in the minds of meteorologists, that now, when