hours, and in biology it was decided that six semester hours of college work were acceptable for students who had completed a year of biology in high school. DR. W. W. RowLEE, of Cornell University, gave an illustrated lecture on "Balsa Wood, its production and uses," at the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse, on April 2. The lecture included scientific data and experiences gleaned from an eight month's absence in Central America in the employ of the American Balsa Company. DR. JOHN C. MCVAIL delivered the Milroy Lectures before the Royal College of Physicians of London on March 13, 18 and 20; his subject being half a century of smallpox and vaccination. The Goulstonian Lectures, on the spread of bacterial infection was delivered on March 25, 27 and April 1, by Dr. W. W. C. Topley, lecturer on bacteriology Charing Cross Medical School and the Lumleian Lectures, by Sir Humphry D. Rolleston, on cerebro-spinal fever, were planned for April 3, 8 and 10. JOHN E. JOHNSON, JR., a director of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, died on April 4 in Scarsdale, N. Y., of injuries received when he was struck by an automobile earlier in the day. Mr. Johnson was fifty-nine years old. He was the author of books on mining and metallurgical subjects. DR. MARY SOPHIE YOUNG, for the past eight years instructor in botany and curator of the herbarium in the University of Texas, died on March 5 after an illness of a few week's duration. THE executive committee of the American Federation of Biological Societies has called the annual meeting for April 24, 25 and 26, 119, at Johns Hopkins Medical School, Baltimore, Md. IT is announced that the German government has decided to return to China the astronomical instruments which were transported from Pekin to Germany in 1900. Negotiations have been opened for the shipping of the instruments to China. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS THE legislature of Nebraska has recently appropriated for the College of Medicine at Omaha for the ensuing biennium a total of $380,000. This amount includes the maintenance of the University Hospital. A GIFT of $5,000 for a scholarship in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University has been made by Mrs. Arthur A. Stilwell, of New York City, in memory of her son, Thomas Vincent Stilwell, who lost his life in the war. FUNDS have been provided for a scholarship in the department of chemistry of the Univercity of Chicago, to be called "The Joseph Triner Scholarship in Chemistry." It is to be assigned to a Czecho-Slovak graduate of the Harrison Technical School, Chicago. MR. EMIL MOND has offered to the University of Cambridge £20,000 to be used for the establishment of a chair of aeronautical engineering. The chair is to be designated the Francis Mond professorship of aeronautical engineering after Lieutenant Francis Mond, the son of the donor. PROFESSOR EDWIN J. BARTLETT, senior professor at Dartmouth College and son of a former president of the college, has resigned from the chair of chemistry which he has held since 1883, his resignation to take effect in 1920. Leave of absence for the second semester has been granted to him. IT is reported that Sir Arthur Newsholme, the distinguished British physician and author of works on the prevention of disease, has been offered the chair of public health at The Johns Hopkins University. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE ON SOME PROBOSCIDEANS OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK Ar a meeting of the Geological Society of America in Washington, at the close of the year 1902,1 the question arose as to the former presence of the mammoth in New York. It was said that, when Theodore Roosevelt, as 1 SCIENCE, Vol. XVII., p. 297. governor of New York, had urged that the mammoth should appear on its coat of arms, it was evident that, although a mighty hunter of existing game, he was a bit weak as regards extinct types. Sad to say, it was the members of the society that were a bit weak on this particular type. The following examples appear to vindicate the knowledge of the mighty hunter. In 1842 J. E. De Kay2 described a molar tooth of Elephas primigenius under the name Elephas americanus. It has been found at Pittsford, in Monroe County. In Rochester University there is a molar of the same species which is said to have been found at Williamson, Wayne County. Since the meeting referred to, Dr. Burnett Smith, of Syracuse University, has reported to the present writer a tusk and a tooth from Minoa, Onondaga County. Of the great elephant known as Elephas columbi, a tooth was described from Homer, Cortland County, in 1847.3 In the American Museum of Natural History, New York, there is a part of a molar which was found near Elmira, Chemung County, and which appears to belong to this species. In 1843 Mather stated that bones of both the mastodon and of the elephant had been found in Orange County. The identification of the elephant is doubtful. In 1858 Emmons reported that an elephant tooth had been taken from the shore of Seneca lake. To which species this belonged is not known. It would be interesting to learn when the mastodon (Mammut americanum) became extinct. It is certain that the species was widely spread over at least the northern states after the disappearance of the last glacial sheet. In New York they are found in great numbers in the southeast corner and at the western end of the state, in marls and mucks overlying the Wisconsin drift. Along lakes Erie 2Zool. N. Y. Mamm.," p. 101, pl. XXXII., fig. 2. 3 Amer. Jour. Agricult. and Sci., Vol. VI., p. 31, fig. 4 Geol. 4th Distr., pp. 233, 636. 5 Geol. Surv. N. C., East Counties, p. 200. and Ontario they are found on the lakeward side of the Iroquois beach, an indication that the species survived there until the waters had shrunken quite into their present limits. Professor H. L. Fairchild has recently shown that, while the foot of the Wisconsin glacier was occupying the northern side of Long Island, the sea occupied the remainder of the island; and that during this occupation a thick deposit of stratified drift was laid down. After the ice had retired from the island, probably well toward the north of the state, the region south of the ice sheet began to rise, and Long Island at length became dry land or swamp. In depressions on the surface of these sea-laid deposits, there afterwards accumulated silts and muck; and in these pond deposits at three or four places on the island, there have been found remains of mastodons. In one case at least, at Riverhead, the land had probably risen to nearly its present level, for the mastodon was found between present low and high water. This must have been well along towards the end of the pleistocene. An interesting case is that of a mastodon found in 1866 at Cohoes, near the mouth of the Mohawk. This skeleton, nearly complete, was mounted by G. H. Gilbert and is yet in the State Museum at Albany. It formed the subject of an essay by James Hall and also the first writing of Gilbert. At Cohoes there are found some hundreds of potholes, some in the bed of the present river, many of them in process of forming, others on the banks a hundred feet or more above the present river and long ago filled up. One of the latter, of irregular form, because of the coalescence of two or more originally distinct holes, proved to have a depth of more than 60 feet, and diameters of 33 and 73 feet. Out of this excavation had been taken thousands of loads of muck, with trunks and branches of decayed trees. At a depth of about 50 feet from the • Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., Vol. XXVIII., pp. 297– 308. 7 Twenty-first Ann. Rep. N. Y. State Cab., 1871, pp. 99-148, with plates. original surface there was found the principal part of the skeleton, considerably scattered about, but with the skull nearly intact and with unbroken tusks. The bones lay on a bed of clay, broken slate, gravel and water-worn pebbles. This was probed to a depth of ten feet without finding bottom. The right fore leg of the skeleton was missing, but was later found in another pothole 60 feet farther up stream and at least 25 feet higher. Hall thought that the potholes were of glacial or preglacial origin, but I am assured by Professor Fairchild that they have been drilled since the Wisconsin ice sheet abandoned that vicinity. When the ice began to withdraw, the region was depressed about 350 feet below its present level, as a result of which the site of Cohoes was covered with a thick deposit of sand and clay. As the land slowly emerged, the old Mohawk River (Fairchild's Iromohawk) cut through the estuary deposits and finally reached the underlying Hudson slates. Then under the action of strong currents the drilling of the potholes began. The land had then risen, as Professor Fairchild writes, at least 150 feet. At the same time the stream bed was being worn down into the rock and the falls were moving up stream past the potholes. When the mastodon entered the pothole this had long before ceased being cut; for, as already stated, it had became filled to a depth of at least 10 feet with rock débris. It had quite certainly been abandoned by the river waters, except at times of flood. How now did the mastodon get into that hole? Hall concluded that it had been frozen up in the glacial ice and had been dropped part in one pothole, part in the other. But when those potholes were ready for occupation as a tomb for the mastodon, there was no part of the general glacial sheet from which the cadaver could have reached Cohoes. As a recently dead body it might indeed have been floated down the Mohawk; but the animal could as well have lived and died at Cohoes. We may fairly assume that it had only recently died and was lying on the flood plain not far above the potholes. No disarticulated bones could ever have been distributed as this skeleton was. The bones must, perhaps without exception, have been held together by the ligaments and probably much of the flesh remained. At this moment the river rose and swept the flood plain, carrying the cadaver over the potholes. First the right leg became detached and was swept into the upper one of the two holes; then the remainder of the body was carried on and dropped into the second hole. Here the swirling waters either at once or during subsequent floods scattered the skeleton somewhat. As time went on, all sorts of materials were borne into the potholes during freshets. Possibly some trees growing on their margins fell into them. At any rate, they finally became filled up. It appears quite certain that when the Cohoes mastodon was buried the deposition of marine sediments in the Champlain and the upper St. Lawrence valleys had largely taken place and the Champlain epoch, about the last leaf of the last chapter of the Pleistocene, had nearly ended. Did mastodons end their career at this stage of geological history or did they continue on into the Recent epoch? It may be impossible to determine this. If they did continue to exist, it might be supposed that remains of them might be found in deposits of marl and muck overlying the Champlain deposits along Lake Champlain, and the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers; but the writer has not learned of any such cases. At any rate, the close of the Pleistocene or the beginning of the Recent became an insalubrious time for this species, a mighty race which can be traced back possibly to the Pliocene and which had weathered the vicissitudes of four or five glacial periods. At approximately the same time there perished two species of elephants, the giant beaver (Castoroides), the moose (Cervalces), and perhaps other great animals. O. P. HAY U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM HUMAN FLYING TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: While engaged in some scientific research, my attention was called to an editorial article with the above caption, in the American Journal of Mining, April 25, 1868, Vol. V., p. 264, which later became the well-known Engineering and Mining Journal. A comparison of what is accomplished now with the scientific view of that day, a little over fifty years ago, may prove interesting to the readers of SCIENCE. In part, the article states: Inventors have puzzled their minds for ages to compass the problem of air navigation by machines or by flying men; and but little advance has been made. . . It would of course be absurd to affirm that anything could not be done, in this age of the world; but while this feat may be accomplished to an extent "enough to say so,' we are incredulous of any practical benefit of the thing to man. . . . The force which a man is able to expend in rapid ascension of heights, even with the firm earth under his feet, is very small; and we have never seen any principle elucidated which was able by apparatus to increase his power or lessen his gravity in proportion to it. The balloon remains; but that, if used, presents such a surface to the atmosphere that it can not be accurately guided without, by means of steamboilers or other weighty machinery, storing up power for propulsion, in a manner of itself too cumbrous and heavy for successful navigation. So that, whether it is for his own personal flight through the air or the management of a great atmospheric ship, man seems to be hemmed in on every side by almost insuperable natural difficulties. And besides, even were all this obviated, who would run the risk of accidents at a great height above the earth, beyond the reach of helpbut not of gravitation? It is an interesting problem, and may result in pretty scientific toys; but for real helpfulness to humanity we see but little in Aeronautics. Taking the vast change that has been worked out in the life time of many of us, does it not afford encouragement to our young people to endeavor to solve the many problems lying before them, ere the next fifty years shall pass? M. E. WADSWORTH, Dean Emeritus SCHOOL OF MINES, KEEPING STEP TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: Sound travels about 1,060 feet per second at 0° C., or 265 feet in one fourth second. The soldier next the drummer steps with the drumbeat, the soldier 265 feet in the rear is one fourth second late and has his foot in the air when the foot of the front man is on the ground. This is because they march at 120 steps per minute (2 steps per second), which gives one half a step in one fourth second. Hence the soldier who hears the signal one fourth second late will fall one half step behind. I have seen this in columns turning into Victoria Street from Westminster Cathedral, at Lancaster Gate or Holloway Road, on Salisbury Plain, etc. When tired out or on rough roads soldiers left to themselves do not keep step; but it is a remarkable fact that the only time they keep perfect step is when they are without sound signals. If the drum begins they lose perfect step at once and the feet are seen to strike the ground in receding waves as the sound passes down the line. If the drum stops, the men in two or three seconds get into perfect step again, and go with a sway and swing absent at other times. The French term it rapport or esprit du corps. Is there a mutual subconscious force passing between the men? In a short brochure of experiments in such matters to be found at public libraries I have suggested an explanation. Is it the right one? I should be glad to hear from American observers of the pheWALTER MOORE COLEMAN, nomena. Fellow of the Physical Society of London HARSTON, CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND QUOTATIONS THE ORGANIZATION OF RESEARCH IN In a paper on the state organization of research, read at a recent meeting of the Royal Society of Arts, Sir Frank Heath, K.C.B., Secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, succeeded in compressing into a few pages a lucid amount of the work of his department. His characterization of research in general is, so far as it goes, excellent, and ought to be taken to heart by the public, but the treatment of a vast and complex subject which approves itself to one thoughtful man can not be expected to satisfy all his readers. If, then, we dwell upon points of disagreement, we are not the less conscious that Sir Frank's paper compares favorably with the lucubrations of most administrators. In the earlier part of his paper he emphasized the novelty of the departure made by the government in 1915, and, without the assertion in so many words, rather implied that our government has handled the problem of national research with more courage and on more satisfactory lines than did that of the Germans. While we agree that the course followed here since 1915 was the best in the circumstances, we are emphatically of opinion that this is only true in consequence of past errors; that the idea inspiring the memorandum of v. Humboldt, quoted by Sir Frank Heath, is correct, and that the system of the German government was in principle thoroughly sound. The German ruling caste appreciated the importance of scientific knowledge a century before ours, and conceived that the best way to foster research was to create a number of adequately equipped university departments; they believed that the multiplication of opportunities for disinterested investigation would lead to the production of trained minds capable, in Sir Frank Heath's words, "of extending the powers and capacities of man in relation to the world in which he lives." They had their reward; all that scientific ingenuity and foresight could do to safeguard the Teutonic hegemony was done there was no need of hasty improvisations. The German state system has perished in scenes of death and disaster, but of the many crimes and blunders committed by its makers, the neglect of science is not one. In this country, generations of neglect have compelled us to adopt in our hour of need an expedient which would not have found a single defender if proposed as a normal method of evolution. The courage of the government in 1915, which Sir Frank Heath extols, was the courage of despair; we could not then, we can not now, escape the penalty of a hundred years' sloth. It is too late to build from the ground on the German model, but we need not pretend that we have discovered for ourselves a better model, but should, with humble and contrite hearts, try gradually to improve our temporary structure into something like a real university system, keeping it free from such defects and abuses as in Germany that system revealed in practise; of these the worst was the prostitution of scientific appointments and scholarly reputations to the uses of political propaganda. -British Medical Journal. SCIENTIFIC BOOKS Bastardierung als Ursache der Apogamie im Pflanzenreich. Eine Hypothese zur experimenteller Vererbungs- und Abstammungslehre. By ALFRED ERNST, professor of botany in Zürich. Jena, Fischer. 1918. Pp. 650, with 172 figures and 2 plates. The ultimate practical aim of the theory of mutation is avowedly to discover the means of producing new qualities in plants and animals at will and in arbitrarily chosen directions. Some investigators assume that one of the chief causes of mutation is to be looked for in crossing, whereas others think that crosses are far too rare in nature to have had any appreciable effect in the production of species, except for the polymorphous genera. Obviously the best way to decide between these two opinions is to study the influence of hybridizing on the origin of a new character. The author of this book has attacked this problem from a special side, proposing to try to induce a definite character, viz., apogamy, or the production of seeds and spores without fecundation, by means of artificial crosses. The book does not bring any new results, but a collection and discussion of the facts, available for the choice of the material and the method of experimentation to be used. From this point of view it may be commended to the student of rich questions. It gives a full description of all known cases of apogamy, including algae and fungi on one hand, Marsilia, Antennaria, Alchemilla and |