THE SECTION OF ZOOLOGY OF THE AMERICAN

ASSOCIATION

THE Convocation Week meetings of Section F (Zoology) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science will be held in conjunction with those of the American Society of Zoologists at Chicago University, Chicago, Illinois, December 28, 29 and 30. As the officers of the American Society for Zoologists are responsible for the program under the rules of the American Association, all titles and abstracts of papers should be sent to Professor W. C. Allee, Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, Illinois.

The address of the retiring vice-president of Section F, Professor William Morton Wheeler, will be given at the Zoologists Smoker, Tuesday evening, December 28.

H. V. NEAL, Secretary of Section F

TUFTS COLLEGE, MASS.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS

DR. SAMUEL JAMES MELTZER member of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research and head of the department of physiology and pharmacology, died on November 7 at the age of sixty-nine years.

THE address of Dr. Simon Flexner, as retiring president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, will be given at the Chicago meeting on the evening of Monday, December 27, instead of on Tuesday evening as originally planned.

SIR ALMROTH WRIGHT, has received the first award of a gold medal established through the gift of an anonymous fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and open to medical practitioners throughout the world.

AT the conclusion of the Harveian Oration, delivered by Sir Frederick Andrewes on October 18, before the Royal College of Physicians of London, the President, Sir Norman Moore, presented the triennial Bisset Hawkins memorial medal for distinction in public health to Dr. W. H. Hamer, medical officer of health to the London County Council.

DR. WALDEMAR T. SCHALLER has severed his connection with the Great Southern Sulphur Co., Inc., of New Orleans, La., and has returned to the U. S. Geological Survey, Washington, D. C.

MR. H. H. BROWN, formerly connected with the Bureau of Chemistry, Department of Agriculture, where he was in charge of the chemical investigations on the cause and prevention of dust explosions, is at present employed by the Pejepscot Paper Co., Brunswick, Maine, to establish a chemical research laboratory and to investigate chemical problems connected with the manufacture of paper and the utilization of waste products.

AT a meeting of the Institute of Medicine of Chicago, October 29, Professor Graham Lusk, New York, delivered the first Pasteur Lecture on "Some influences of French science on medicine."

DR. VICTOR G. HEISER, director for the East of the International Health Board, recently delivered a lecture at the School of Hygiene and Public Health of the Johns Hopkins Hospital on the work done by the United States government in the betterment of health conditions in its dependencies.

MR. ELMER A. SPERRY, president of the Sperry Gyroscope Company, of New York, is to give a demonstration lecture at the Harvard Union, November 15, at 8 P.M., on Applications of the gyroscope to navigation." The lecture is held under the auspices of the department of astronomy at Harvard University, and will be open to the public.

THE eleventh course of lectures under the Herter Foundation was delivered by Dr. Jules Bordet, director of the Pasteur Institute, Brussels, in the Johns Hopkins Hospital, on October 26, 27 and 28.

THE Emil Fischer memorial lecture was delivered by Dr. M. O. Forster at the meeting of the Chemical Society, London, October 28.

MEMORIAL exercises for the late Dr. Samuel Sheldon, professor of physics and electrical engineering at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, will be held in the auditorium of

the Engineering Societies Building in New York City on the evening of November 17. Addresses will be made by Dr. Arthur E. Kennelly, professor of electrical engineering at Harvard University; Dr. William H. Nichols, chairman of the corporation of the Polytechnic Institute; Mr. T. Commerford Martin, secretary of the National Electric Light Association; Mr. Bancroft Gherardi, vice-president of the American Telephone and Telegraph Co., and William N. Dickinson, president of the New York Electrical Society. Mr. Arthur W. Berresford, president of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, will preside.

M. LOUIS DU HAURON, a pioneer in the photography of color, died on August 31, at the age of eighty-three years.

THE death has occurred on the way to New York of Dr. Manuel C. Barrios, professor of physiology and later of legal medicine at the University of Lima, Peru. While a member of the national cabinet he organized the public health service and founded the National Academy of Medicine.

DR. J. P. MORAT, formerly professor of physiology at the University of Lyons, has died at the age of seventy-five years.

THE Berlin correspondent of the Journal of the American Medical Association writes that the first meeting in seven years of the Association of German Scientific Men and Physicians, held at Bad Nauheim, was attended by 2,600 members. Among the principal subjects of interest of the meeting were the newer researches in physical science, including the structure of molecules and atoms, and the Einstein theory of relativity. The papers of Dr. Max Rubner, Berlin, and Dr. M. von Gruber, Munich, on the problem of nutrition were probably the outstanding medical contributions.

THE Swedish government has approved the plan to found an institute for research on moral assistance for the furtherance of medical faculty to plan the institution. A committee from the faculty has been appointed for the purpose, comprising Drs. Lennmalm, Johansson, Müller and Gadelius, of the chairs

of neurology, physiology, anatomy and psychiatry, respectively.

THE will of the late Dr. Lloyd Roberts, of Manchester, contains the following bequests: To the Rylands Library, Manchester, such of his bound books as the trustees may select; to the Corporation of Manchester, for the Art Gallery, such of the mezzotints, water-colors, and paintings as they may desire; to the Royal Society of Medicine £5,000; to St. Mary's Hospital, Manchester, £5,000; to Manchester Royal Infirmary, £3,000; to the Royal College of Physicians, London, £3,000; to the Medical Society of London, £2,000; to St. David's College, South Wales, £2,000. The residue of his estate is left to University College, Bangor, with provision that £5,000 be set aside to found a Lloyd Roberts professorship in any subject the authorities think fit.

PROFESSOR A. F. ROGERS, of Stanford University, is engaged in a mineralogical study of fossil bone and will welcome any specimens that may be sent to him. Small specimens, 2 or 3 inches in size, will suffice. They may be sent by express, collect to the Mineralogy Laboratory (care of A. J. Rogers), Stanford University, California.

THERE has recently been formed at Brussels a Fédération belge des sociétés des sciences mathématiques, physiques, naturelles médicales et appliquées. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association thirty-three societies have already joined the federation, and many others have promised to become affiliated in the near future. The group includes various scientific societies which give evidence of their activity by the publication of original work, and the movement is designed to unite and coordinate all efforts for the general advancement of the pure and applied sciences, although the component societies retain their own autonomy. The federation will endeavor to encourage initiative and to procure the requisite material and moral assistance for the furtherance of scientific work, and it will collaborate in perfecting scientific publications. It may, especially, summon congresses, organize confer

ences and expositions, and found or support useful scientific institutions. Among the principal aims of the federation may be mentioned: (1) an increase of the resources of affiliated societies sufficient to continue their publications, and (2) the collection of works published by the federated societies and exchange of publications with analogous federations in allied and neutral countries. A general council of fifteen members administers the affairs of the federation. The officers for 1920 are Professor de la ValléePoussin (Louvain), president; Paul Pelseneer (secretary of the Académie royale de Belgique), vice president; J. Wauters (secretary general of the Société chimique de Belgique) treasurer, and Messrs, Zunc and Lucien, secretaries.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL

NEWS

THE Hudson's Bay Company, as one means of celebrating the 250th anniversary of its foundation and its long connection with Western Canada and with Winnipeg, has given the University of Manitoba a fellowship of the annual value of $1,500 for the years 1920-29 inclusive, open to graduates of any Canadian university. Each fellow will devote his entire time to original research in some branch of pure or applied science.

A LABORATORY for research on dyestuffs and explosives has been established at George Washington University, under the general supervision of Professor H. C. McNeil, and in charge of Mr. G. W. Phillips, formerly of the Chemical Warfare Service. Dr. Charles E. Munroe will be consulting chemist of the laboratory.

DR. S. A. MAHOOD, of the Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, will have charge of chemistry at Tulane University.

DR. JAMES W. PAPEZ, professor of anatomy and neurology at Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Ga., has resigned to accept the assistant professorship of neurology at Cornell University Medical College, Ithaca, New York.

DR. KENNETH D. BLACKFAN, associate professor of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Medical School, has been appointed professor of pediatrics at the Medical College of the University of Cincinnati.

OLAF P. JENKINS has returned to Pullman, Washington, as assistant professor of economic geology in the State College of Washington, having spent the last year with the Sinclair Exploration Company as chief geologist in Alabama.

DR. C. NUSBAUM, formerly of the Magnetic Section of the Bureau of Standards, has been appointed research associate in the division of industrial research and cooperation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

DR. HENRY W. STAGER, for many years head of the department of mathematics in Fresno Junior College, Fresno, California, and more recently with the United States Railroad Administration, has been appointed instructor of mathematics in the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.

MR. W. VERNON GODSHALL, formerly assistant professor of chemistry at Miami University, has accepted a similar position in physiological chemistry in the department of physiology of the University of Wisconsin. He is also chemist on the Interdepartmental Board for the estimation of the elimination of arsenic from patients treated with arsenical drugs.

AT the Montana School of Mines Assistant Professor Gerald S. Lambert, of Leland Stanford University, has been appointed associate professor of geology, and Dr. A. E. Koenig, assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin, associate professor of chemistry.

DR. RODNEY B. HARVEY has resigned as plant physiologist, Bureau of Plant Industry, Washington, D. C., to accept the position of assistant professor in plant physiology at the University of Minnesota, and assistant plant physiologist in the Minnesota Experiment Station.

MR. F. B. SMITH, who recently retired from the position of secretary of agriculture to the

Union of South Africa, has been appointed a reader in estate management at Cambridge

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE

THE PRESERVATION OF WILD LIFE

THE Ecological Society of America's committee on the preservation of natural conditions, while unable to deal with problems concerning wild life not in reserves, continually encounters the fact that individual species are menaced with extinction by agricultural encroachments. Two of these menaces are:

1. Clean-culture (roadside mowing and burning) as distinguished from roadside and streamside shrubbery and bird and original life preservation.

Birds are decreasing for lack of nesting sites, on account of destruction of breeding conditions. Entomologists and some agriculturists maintain that this condition is necessary to agriculture. Bird men insist that birds are also essential. It is known that a few states encourage roadside shrubbery while several require roadside mowing. The practise in the various parts of the United States and Canada should be ascertained. The effect of different procedures should be determined. The areas in which specially destructive and drastic measures such as burning for insect pests are necessary should be clearly defined and limited and the public informed as to the dangers of such burning.

2. Upland marshes are important as sponges storing water and letting it out slowly during dry seasons, thus controlling floods. Such marshes are gradually being drained and the flood menace is increasing every year.

The only way to save these natural resources and at the same time, the swamp faunas, especially the birds, is to utilize the swamps for aquiculture. To this end several water-culture experiment stations should be established. For the present there should be one, perhaps at Cornell University, to deal with the upland marsh problems. There should be another in connection with Okefinokee swamp and one in connection with the coastal swamps of New Jersey. In addition to frogs,

fish, and birds, a number of plants are good for food, etc.; e. g., cattail flour and cattail paper have recently been tried with success. Swamp potatoes, the corns of arrowhead, and seeds, roots, and stalks of our native lotus served as food for the American aborigines and pioneers. Hedrick (SCIENCE, 40:611), Claussen (Sci. Mo., 9:179), and Needham and Lloyd ("Life of Inland Waters ") have discussed these questions and suggested or advocated the improvement and culture of aquatic plants.

It is the belief of the committee that all organizations in any way interested should combine efforts for the investigation of these questions.

For a list of the committee members, see SCIENCE, March 26, 1920; since that date the following have been added: Z. P. Metcalf, University of North Carolina; C. A. Shull, University of Kentucky; R. M. Harper, College Point, N. Y.; and Jens Jensen, Ravinia, Illinois. V. E. SHELFORD, Chairman

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

PREDILECTION AND SAMPLING OF HUMAN HEIGHTS

TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: Extensive reliable data showing the distribution of human heights in "unselected" populations are surprisingly hard to obtain. The Association of Life Insurance Medical Directors and the Actuarial Society of America have, however, undertaken a very careful statistical study of men accepted for life insurance, which provides, among other things, a distribution of the heights of 221,819 men. Here, at last, we might expect to settle the question of the form of distribution that would hold for a population, but we discover in the distribution curve a remarkable inversion that it is difficult to explain as anything other than an artefact.

This distribution curve is the solid line of the figure. The average height is 5 ft. 8.49 in. Since the curve is plotted in units of an inch,

1 "Medico-Actuarial Mortality Investigation," Vol. I., 1912, esp. 11-22.

during January of the odd years and July of the even years throughout a sixteen-year period were included. It would seem probable, therefore, that the selection must have occurred when the measurements were made. Many persons who were nearest 5 ft. 9 in. must have been recorded as 5 ft. 8 in. or 5 ft. 10 in. Here we would have a case of artificial selection that depends on the factors involved in obtaining measurements, a case analogous to the predilection that occurs when estimates are made in "round numbers

or, as happened in this investigation, to the predilection to give weights as multiples of five pounds. We may hazard that the error occurred not so much in reading the measuring stick as in the acceptance by the examining physician of the person's own statement of his height. There may be a tendency for a person to prefer an even 8 or 10 in. height to an odd 9. There is, however, no similar inversion obvious at 4 ft. 8-10 in., although this may be obscured by the effort of men of this height to have themselves recorded as 5 ft.; there is a suspicious bump in the curve just above 5 ft. And the cases at 6 ft. 8-10 in. are too few to show.

The further question arises whether the predilection is simply against the 9 in. or whether all even heights are favored. It is not possible to determine this accurately, since an inversion can not so readily appear in the steeper parts of the curve. If we take the Gaussian distribution (dotted line in the figure) as ideal we see that it is not true that even inches fall above this ideal and odd below. But then it is doubtful whether the Gaussian distribution should be ideal. You can not, at least, prove it from these data, since the probability that an ideal Gaussian distribution would turn out as this observed distribution has is only (by Pearson's chicriterion) about one chance in 10.

We appear to have, then, a special predilec

2 For a complete discussion of the influence of these communal mental habits upon scientific measurements and other quantitative judgments, see J. E. Coover, "Experiments in Psychical Research," 1917, 229-290.