UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY has received a gift of $400,000 by Charles F. Kettering, a trustee of the university, for medical research in connection with the college of homeopathy. W. A. CLARK, JR., of Butte, Montana, has presented a fund of $4,000 to the geological department of the University of Wisconsin. for the purchase of equipment for experimental work in structural geology. THE University of Wisconsin has obtained legal authority to offer a complete four year medical course. DR. CHARLES B. FULTON, of Cleveland Ohio, has been appointed a director of the School of Mines and Metallurgy, Rolla, Mo. DR. EMERY R. HAYHURST, professor of hygiene at Ohio State University, has been made head of the department of Public Health and Sanitation and Mrs. Norma Selbert, formerly of the University of Missouri, has been appointed assistant professor of public health nursing. DR. W. THURBER FALES, of Malden, Mass., has been appointed instructor in biology and public health in the medical school of the Johns Hopkins University. DR. V. J. HARDING, associate-professor of biological and physiological chemistry at McGill University, has been appointed professor of pathological chemistry in the University of Toronto. DR. DOWELL YOUNG, of Cornell University, has been appointed professor of biology in Dalhousie University, Halifax, in place of Professor C. Moore, resigned. Ar the University of Leeds Dr. W. E. S. Turner has been appointed professor of glass technology, Mr. J. Husband professor of civil engineering and Dr. Mellanby professor of pharmacology. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE States government 9,100 skins of fur seals, the net proceeds of which were $1,182,905, an average of $140.98 per skin. That sale marks an important period in the history of the most practical and financially responsive wild life conservation movement thus far consummated in the United States. In 1911 one of the stakes set by the advocates of the five-year close season was a return to a revenue of at least "$1,000,000 per year," and now it is no exaggeration to say that the results of the long close season that began in 1912 and ended in 1917 have been everything that the close-season advocates claimed that they would be. The steady and very rapid increase in the fur seal population of the Pribilof Islands during their five years of immunity from commercial slaughter is revealed by the following official census figures as made by the United States Department of Commerce, and kindly furnished by Secretary Alexander. In 1912 there were 215,738 seals of all ages. In 1913 there were 268,305 seals of all ages. In 1914 there were 294,687 seals of all ages. In 1915 there were 363,872 seals of all ages. In 1916 there were 417,281 seals of all ages. In 1917 there were 468,692 seals of all ages. In 1918 there were 496,432 seals of all ages. In 1919 there were 530,237 seals of all ages. The total number of fur seals killed for their skins since the open season began have been as follows: In 1918 the number was 34,890. The prices realized at the St. Louis fur auctions on the sale of fur seal skins are revealed by these figures: In 1918 there were sold 8,100 skins for $375,385. Average, $46.34 per skin. In 1919 there were sold 19,157 skins for $1,501,603. Average, $78.38 per skin. In 1920 there were sold 9,100 skins for $1,282,905. Average, $140.98 per skin. If the average price of $140.98 at which the lot of 9,100 skins sold on February 2, 1920, should hold for the entire catch of 27,821 skins taken in 1919, the total gross revenue for the lot would be $3,922,204.58. In view of the feverishly advancing prices of all kinds of real fur, the growing scarcity of the supply, and the clamorously insistent demands, both of the rich and the poor, there are good grounds for the belief that very soon we will see good raw fur-seal skins selling at auction at an average price of $250 each. With 110,000,000 people in America demanding "fur," the future of the trade in real fur is remarkably bright—so long as the supply lasts -and Congress may regard the future of the nation's fur seal industry with entire complacency. The saving of the fur seal herds was a good investment. In the future, when all other bearers of good fur have been utterly exterminated-as they soon will be the protected fur seal herds will produce, by sure-and-certain arithmetical progression, a really vast quantity of the finest fur in the world. It needs no stretch of prophecy to foretell the annual increment to the three nations who now are so sensibly preserving the fur seals of Alaska from killing at sea. When we begin to take, as we formerly did in the days of the fur seal millions, an annual catch of 100,000 skins, the importance of the salvaged fur-seal herd will be realized. If we figure it out on a basis of the sale of February 2, 1920 at St. Louis, the answer is $14,098,000 per year, 75 per cent. of which will belong to the United States. Under the terms of our treaty with England and Japan we are dividing net proceeds with those two partner nations, who now help us to preserve the fur seals when at sea, on the perfectly fair basis of 15 per cent. to Japan, and 10 per cent. to England. During the five-year closed season we annually paid to each of those two nations the sum of $10,000. In its habits the fur seal-which in reality is not at all a true seal, but a fur-coated sealion-is one of the most remarkable of all sea-going mammals. There are writers who still insist that fur seals can be managed by man just as a farmer manages his herds of breeding cattle and horses. As a matter of fact, the fur seal is hopelessly wild and untamable, and the only "management" that man can bestow upon the free animal is in terms of slaughter. He can drive it and kill it by artificial or by natural selection, but that is absolutely all. The fur seal migrates, returns, breeds and feeds solely in accordance with its own erratic and persistent will, and man's so-called " management" lies solely in the use of the seal-killer's club and the skinning-knife. NEW YORK WILLIAM T. HORNADAY SIDE-TO-SIDE VERSUS END-TO-END CONJUGA- THE stonefly, Perla immarginata Say, is exceptionally fitted for chromosome studies as it has only five pairs (including the X-Y pair) of chromosomes, each pair of which is structurally differentiated from all others. My observation on this form made in 1917-18 forced me to the conclusion that in the prophase of the first spermatocytic division "homologous chromosomes are connected to each other telosynaptically in the spireme," and later "they bend toward each other at the synaptic point and become reunited parasynaptically before metaphase." These conclusions are in agreement with a limited number of workers but are so opposed to the general contention of the majority of cytologists to-day that it was considered then unprofitable to do anything more than describe the process as observed. This was done in my previous paper in the Journal of Morphology, in which no attempt was made at theoretical discussion in relation to certain genetical evidences. As so convincingly summarized in Morgan's recent book, Mendel's original law-the segre 1 Nakahara, W., "A Study on the Chromosomes in the Spermatogenesis of the Stonefly, Perla immarginata Say, with Special Reference to the Question of Synapsis, Jour. Morphol., Vol. 32, 1919. 2 Morgan, T. H., "The Physical Basis of Heredity," 1920. gation and independent assortment of factors --has been shown to have a close parallelism with the actual behavior of the chromosomes. The situation is quite otherwise, however, as to the mechanism of crossing over. Morgan is right when he states that "while the genetic evidence is favorable in all essentials to the theory of interchange between homologous chromosomes, it must be confessed that the cytological evidence is so far behind the genetic evidence that it is not yet possible to make a direct appeal to the specific mechanism of crossing over on the basis of our cytological knowledge of maturation stage." Morgan, however, assumes the side-to-side conjugation as a fact. His analysis of data on parasynapsis leads him to the conclusion that the early thin thread stage is most favorable for crossing over to take place. End-toend conjugation, or telosynapsis, according to Morgan, "would have serious consequence for genetics. . ., for while side-to-side union offers an opportunity for interchange between the paternal and maternal members of a pair, no such interchange could be postulated if end-to-end conjugation took place." It is the purpose of the present note to emphasize that the process of end-to-end conjugation, at least as described by Nothnagel3 for a botanical object, and by myself1 for a zoological one, does offer an opportunity for crossing over to take place, contrary to Morgan's statement. End-to-end conjugation simply restricts the stage in which such an opportunity is offered. This can be readily seen from the works of the above-mentioned authors, who describe essentially the following process: A separate loop or segment of double spireme, whatever the nature of its duality may be, gradually bends and halves of the loop come to lie closely side by side. In the tetrad thus formed there are four longitudinal strands or threads. It will be seen, then, by telosynapsis, an opportunity is offered for interchange between Nothnagel, M., "Reduction Division in the Pollen Mother Cells of Allium tricoccum," Bot. Gaz., Vol. 61, 1916. chromosomes at the thick thread stage, but at this stage only, in the manner originally suggested by Janssen in his chiasma type It must be remembered that the condition of the chromatin threads at the early stage when the double spireme develops is extremely difficult to study minutely and accurately with the method and apparatus at our command. Under such circumstances, any inclination on the part of the observer will have a considerable influence on the interpretation. If one is so disposed, he may consider the condition of the threads as representing the process of pairing up. Dual threads develop out of reticulum at this stage, and that was all I could be sure of. There was certainly no observable evidence of the process of pairing up of two simple threads at least in the stonefly I studied. On the contrary, the formation of a tetrad or ring by the bending of a loop of double spireme, which appear in haploid number is a clearly demonstrable fact. It is from this ground that I interpret the haploid as being composed of two homologous chromosomes jointed up end-to-end, and its duality as indicating primary splitting. No one has ever seen two chromosomes actually coming into conjugation, but the subsequent bending, reconjugation in side-to-side position, and the ultimate segregation at metaphase, of the halves of the loop is explicable only under the assumption that two chromosomes were united end-to-end in the loop. Whether I am right in this interpretation or not will be decided by future studies-perhaps in very near future. Detailed comparison of the premeiotic stage with the prophase of somatic mitosis would throw some light on the situation. Also, a careful re-examination of forms (Orthoptera, for instance), in which parasynapsis is customarily claimed to occur, with special reference to the haploid loops in the thick thread stage would help settle the question. Possibility no doubt exists that the Janssen, F. A., "La théorie de la chiasmatypie. Nouvelle interprétation des cinèses de maturation," ," La Cellule, T. 25, 1909. theory. process may be different in different organisms, but I consider it rather improbable in view of the fact that both para- and telosynapes have been described for different groups of plants and animals, and especially since certain "evidences" involved in the argument are not easily observable. Summing up: contrary to the general belief, so-called end-to-end conjugation does offer an opportunity for interchange between chromosomes at the late thick thread stage in the prophase of maturation division, but at this stage only. If telosynapsis is a universal phenomenon, it would seem that crossing over must take place at the stage here specified. Of course, no morphological evidence has yet been produced for crossing over, and the most that can be said from the present cytological data is that such an interchange is not impossible at a certain stage in the muturation division. WARO NAKAHARA DESTRUCTION OF ZOOSPORES OF PLANT DISEASE ORGANISMS BY NATURAL ENEMIES In making some motion-picture photomicrographs of the liberation of zoospores from the sporangia of Physoderma zeæ maydis (see Tisdale, Jr. Agr. Res., Vol. 16, p. 137, 1919) the author observed destruction of the zoospores by certain animalcules which are commonly found in decaying vegetable material. No reference has been found regarding the importance of these natural enemies of the plant diseases which are disseminated by zoospores. The number of zoospores swallowed by one rotifer (Proales sp.) is remarkable. When the animalcules are abundant there is a speedy disappearance of the zoospores. One infusorian (Keronia sp.) was observed to devour a perfect stream of the zoospores of Physoderma, at the same time increasing in size until it became gorged almost beyond recognition. In active cultures one may see a field in the microscope filled with millions of zoospores swimming about. In a few hours large numbers of these have been devoured by the animalcules, which rapidly increase in numbers. A few hours after this one then sees these same protoplasm constituents swimming about not as zoospores but as animalcules. The process of change is so rapid it makes one wonder if there is always cleavage of the proteins and resynthesis or whether there may not be some shorter method of assimilation especially in the unicellar organisms in which the cytoplasms of the infusorian and the zoospore ingested are in such intimate contact. In starting from dry material collected from cornstalks infested with Physoderma, the animalcules appear first and are on hand for each crop of zoospores. It would be desirable to determine just how important such animalcules are as natural enemies of those plant diseases which are disseminated by zoospores. Also we should collect data to determine if the destruction of the soil animalcules by excessive liming may not be correlated with epidemics of these diseases. R. B. HARVEY U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE THE JOURNAL OF MORPHOLOGY AT its annual meeting in St. Louis, the American Society of Zoologists voted to accept the proposition made by Dr. M. J. Greenman, of the Wistar Institute, that in the future the society should assume control of the scientific policy of the Journal of Morphology and elect the editorial board, while the Wistar Institute retained control of the financial management of the journal. A committee composed of M. M. Metcalf, Caswell Grave and W. E. Castle was appointed to initiate a scientific policy; to nominate an editorial board; to consult with the advisory board of the Wistar Institute and to refer its recommendations for final decision to the executive committee of the society. This committee on publication and the executive committee and the Wistar Institute have agreed to the following action which accord ingly forms the basis for the cooperation between the American Society of Zoologists and the Wistar Institute regarding the Journal of Morphology. The full report of the committee will be published in the proceedings of the 1920 meeting of the society, but on account of the general interest the following summary is presented at this time: I. That there be elected a managing editor of The Journal of Morphology to serve for a period of five years and that he be eligible for reelection at the expiration of his period of service. II. That there be elected nine associate editors of The Journal of Morphology; three to serve until January 1, 1922; three to serve until January 1, 1923; and three to serve until January 1, 1924. That beginning with the annual meeting of the society at the end of the year 1921, and annually thereafter, there be elected by the society upon nomination, by the same method as is provided for the nomination of other officers, three assoeiate editors to serve for three years to take the places of the three retiring associate editors. That before making nomination of such associate editors, the nominating committee shall consult the board of editors of The Journal of Morphology and also the director of the Wistar Institute and through him the Board of Advisers of this institute. This is suggested as a matter of courtesy to the institute, not as a matter of necessity, for the election of the editors of this journal shall lie with the society. That a retiring associate editor shall not be eligible for reelection until after the expiration of one year subsequent to his retirement. III. That the three incoming associate editors be constituted a consulting committee to visit the Wistar Institute at its invitation and expense, to serve as a means of cooperation between the two organizations. IV. That the board of editors make annual report to the society upon The Journal of Morphology and any matters of publication that they may wish to include. V. That the consulting committee, or any of its members, if they desire to do so, may report any year to the society any suggestions or recommendations growing out of their visit to and consultations with the Wistar Institute. VI. That Professor C. E. McClung be elected managing editor of The Journal of Morphology. VII. That associate editors be elected as follows: 1. To serve until January 1, 1922: 8. To serve until January 1, 1924: Professor J. T. Patterson, VIII. That matters of editorial policy and method, not covered by the present report, be left to the board of editors, subject of course to any action of the society. It may be well to state that no fundamental changes in the character or conduct of The Journal of Morphology are contemplated. W. C. ALLEE, Secretary-Treasurer SPECIAL ARTICLES A SIMPLIFIED NON-ABSORBING MOUNTING FOR POROUS PORCELAIN ATMOMETERS SINCE the introduction of porous-porcelain atmometers1 into general use among physiologists, ecologists and agricultural experimenters, it has been realized that one of the most important details of the operation of these instruments in the open depends upon the fact that the porous, water-imbibed surface absorbs water during rains unless special precautions are adopted to prevent this. Mounted on a simple tube, as for laboratory use, these instruments always give negative readings for periods of rapid precipitation. At the end of a rainy day the reading may be considerably smaller than it should be to represent merely the summation of all incre 1 Livingston, B. E., "The Relation of Desert Plants to Soil Moisture and to Evaporation," Carnegie Inst. Washington Publ, 50, 1906. Idem, “A Simple Atmometer,'' SCIENCE, 28: 319-320, 1908. Idem, "Atmometry and the Porous-cup Atmometer," Plant World, 18: 21-30, 51-74, 95-111, 143-149, 1915. Other references are given in these papers. |