Trinil remains. This is very interesting. The author gives us the names of the three groups of anatomists who consider the remains human, simian and intermediate, respectively. The first group is essentially English, the second German and the third composite. Duckworth joins the last group, though admitting that the femur may be human. It is unfortunate that, having given so much space to this interesting question, he has not discussed the evidence that the pieces belong to one individual.

There are many other points which it would be interesting, at least to your reviewer, to discuss at length; but enough has probably been said to show that in his opinion it is a very good and useful hand-book.

T. D.

SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. THE September issue of the Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology contains the following articles: 'A Study of the Functions of Different Parts of the Frog's Brain,' by Wilhelm Loeser. The brain was experimentally examined by the extirpation of various regions (twenty-two operations) and study of the deficiency phenomena and other symptoms. 'The Central Gustatory Paths in the Brains of Bony Fishes,' by C. Judson Herrick. This paper (which was awarded the Cartwright prize for this year) is a continuation of the author's previous studies on nerve components, in course of which the peripheral gustatory system has been isolated and experimentally studied in fishes. Selecting the types in which this system attains its maximum development, the central gustatory paths are demonstrated by various microscopical methods, the research including a description, accompanied by forty figures, of the conduction paths for all of the important gustatory reactions which have been experimentally observed in the normal life of these fishes. The central gustatory centers are found to be more closely related to the central olfactory system than to any other part of the brain.

PROFESSOR FRANK SMITH, of the University of Illinois, has been made zoological editor of

School Science and Mathematics. The biological section, of which Professor Caldwell was formerly editor, has been divided into two sections, a zoological section and a botanical section. Professor Caldwell remains the botanical editor.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. THE LETTER K IN ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE.

THERE are some influential zoologists who, in their zeal for the integrity of scientific Latin (or Neolatin), propose to change the letters k and w, wherever they occur, into c and v. Thus Sir G. F. Hampson, in his great work on the moths of the world, cites a species as Episilia voccei, the specific name being a new rendering of wockei, originally proposed by Moeschler. Unfortunately, this method results in some unexpected duplication of names. Thus Gray, in 1846, applied the generic name Kogia to the pygmy sperm whale. Butler, in 1870, used Cogia for

a valid genus of butterflies, which is recognized to-day by Dr. Dyar as occurring in our own fauna. Now Dr. D. G. Elliot, in a recent work, amends the name of the whale to Cogia, and if this is accepted the name of the butterfly-genus must fall. It is true that Elliot's Cogia is later than Butler's, but it is proposed as the correct way of spelling Gray's genus, and not intended in any sense as a new name.

Theobald has lately proposed Cellia as the name of a genus of mosquitoes. But in 1822 Turton named a valid genus of mollusca Kellia. According to the Hampson-Elliot method this becomes Cellia, and the mosquitogenus name is a homonym.

Kallima was proposed by Westwood in 1850 as the name of a well-known genus of butterflies. In 1860 Clemens named a valid genus of moths Callima. Now Dr. Dyar, because of Kallima, has named the moth genus Epicallima.

Again, Cnephasia, Curtis, interferes with Knephasia, Tepper.

A curious case occurs in a genus of African moths, Xanthospilopteryx. In 1893 Carpenter named a species X. kirbyi, but it is a synonym of pardalina, Walker. In 1897 Holland

named another X. kirbyi, but this is a homonym, as the rules are generally understood. Hampson calls Holland's species X. cirbyi, and it is imaginable that this might be interpreted as the necessary new name for the insect. Since, however, it is only intended as a new way of writing the old name, it seems that Holland's insect should be renamed, say, X. hollandi.

Enough has been said to show that the proposed abandonment of k and w, if it is not to prevail, should be checked as soon as possible; or if it is to be the rule, should be widely known, so that proposers of new names may guide themselves accordingly. Personally, I am totally opposed to it, on the ground that names are merely symbols designating particular objects, and the most we can ask is that they have a Latinoid ending, and are not too long. Nevertheless, the matter is at present an open one, and if most zoologists prefer to follow Hampson and Elliot, the minority will probably give in to their wishes, for the sake of uniformity. On the other hand, if nearly all are against the proposal, it would seem that a few should not persist in making such changes as those cited, unless they can convince themselves that a very important matter of principle is involved.

If the editor will allow it, I will herewith ask all working zoologists who are willing to take the trouble to send me a post-card voting for or against the substitution of c and v for k and w, and I will list the names and send them for publication in SCIENCE. I think that the names should be published, for several rather obvious reasons, not the mere numbers pro and con.

T. D. A. COCKERELL. UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, BOULDER, COLORADO.

'HAMMOCK,''HOMMOCK' OR 'HUMMOCK'? SOME recent botanical papers seem to indicate that there is still some uncertainty as to which of the above is the proper designation for a certain class of geographical features of frequent occurrence in some parts of the southeastern United States. These three words may represent three totally different

ing given the matter considerable study lately, both in field and library, I can present some observations which should clear up most of the existing confusion.

The lexicographers all seem to favor 'hummock.' Webster, for instance, says: "Hummock (probably an Indian word). (1) A rounded knoll or hillock; *** (2) A ridge or pile of ice ***. See Hommock. (3) Timbered land. (Florida.)" Under hommock' is the following definition: "Hommock (written also hammock and hummock). (Probably. an Indian word.) A hillock, or small eminence of a conical form, sometimes covered with trees. Bartram." The definitions in the Century and Standard dictionaries are somewhat longer, but do not differ materially from that of Webster, except that they say that hummock is probably a diminutive of hump. In all three, Bartram is the only authority cited for 'hommock'; and this word occurs on pages 31, 219-221, and perhaps elsewhere in the 1794 edition of his 'Travels." The same spelling is used throughout Dr. E. W. Hilgard's 'Report on the Geology and Agriculture of Mississippi,' published in 1860, and in that work several varieties of 'hommocks' are fully described. Dr. Hilgrade in a recent letter informs me that that spelling was in accordance with the pronunciation used by the natives, but that he now believes 'hammock' to be correct, and writes it that

way.

The published references to 'hammock' and hummock' are SO numerous that it would be impracticable to attempt to list them; but thus far I have noted the former in at least thirty different books and papers, the earliest dating back to 1839, and the latter in about half as many, beginning with 1834. Most of the occurrences of both forms are in works dealing with Florida, and a careful search through Florida literature would doubtless reveal many other cases of each. It is

very significant in this connection that most of the writers who use 'hammock' have spent much more time in the regions they describe than have those who use 'hummock'; also that some who preferred the latter have expressly stated that the natives always pronounced ithammock,' and yet their faith in the dictionaries seems to have been too firm to be shaken by this indisputable evidence. In some cases it is almost certain that 'hummock' was put in by the editor or printer, without the sanction of the author,' though I have indeed noticed one or two cases where the same may be said of 'hammock.'

If any

As far as my experience in the field goes, the natives in Georgia invariably say 'hammock.' I have heard this word in the counties of Chatham, Coffee, Lowndes, Pulaski, Tattnall and Wilcox, and it is doubtless used throughout the intervening ones. further evidence were needed, a good map will show a Gulf Hammock (also a post-office of that name) and a Hammock Creek in Florida, and a Hammock Island in Georgia. I have never yet seen 'hummock' on a map though, nor found any evidence that it is ever used in conversation anywhere (in the sense here indicated). As usage fixes the language, it follows that hammock' is the correct form.

Now as for the definition of this word. It is used for quite a variety of conditions, but from all the evidence obtainable it may be defined broadly as a limited area, with comparatively dry soil (at least never inundated, and thus distinguished from a swamp), containing a large proportion of trees other than pines, and located in a region where 'prairies,' marshes or open pine forests predominate. Topographically a hammock may be either a slight elevation, or a depression, or a slope, and its soil may be sandy, clayey or rocky. The soil is usually rather rich, and the trees growing in it are usually mostly evergreensthough there is probably no one tree which occurred in the above lines were

1 A case of this kind has columns of SCIENCE since the written and sent to the editor. In the issue of June 16, in the report of a paper I read before the Torrey Botanical Club in April, I am made to say hummocks' instead of hammocks.'

characterizes all hammocks-and they usually grow so close together as to shade the ground and allow the formation of humus, which is almost wanting in adjacent areas.

A few varieties of hammocks may be briefly mentioned. On the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, at least in the vicinity of Savannah, a hammock is a low sandy island in a salt marsh, conspicuous for its dense growth of evergreen woody plants; and in the Everglades of Florida, according to the accounts of several different explorers, it is a sort of rocky oasis, elevated a few inches above the adjacent prairies, and densely wooded. For these two kinds of places the term 'hummock' (diminutive of hump) would not be altogether inappropriate, and this fact doubtless accounts for some of the confusion above mentioned. But in central Florida, by all accounts, it seems that a hammock is usually a depression; while in the interior of the coastal plain of Georgia it is nearly always a sandy slope forming an intermediate zone between the river or creek swamps and the sand-hills which border them.

The published references to the subject show hammocks to range from North Carolina to Florida and Mississippi, and, like many other interesting things, they seem to be strictly confined to the coastal plain. The natives of other parts of the country seem to have no knowledge of such a word, and as no lexicographers, and few writers of any kind, live in the regions where hammocks occur, it is not surprising that this word should be incorrectly treated in all dictionaries.

As for the etymology of 'hammock' (in this geographical sense) I have no suggestions to offer, other than that given by Webster for 'hommock' and 'hummock.' As a hammock as here defined is always characterized by its vegetation rather than by its topography, it can hardly have anything to do with 'hum

In a paper published by Dr. Arthur Hollick about twenty-five years ago (Bull. Torr. Bot. Club, 7: 14, 1880) there is a reference to a hammock of soapstone and iron ore' on Staten Island, which looks like a surprising extension of range; but Dr. Hollick tells me that hummock' is what he intended to say.

mock,' if that is a diminutive of hump, as seems most likely. Whether there is any connection between our hammock and 'hammock' in the ordinary sense (German Hangematte) perhaps some philologist can tell us. If 'hommock' could be universally adopted by the natives of the southeastern coastal plain, then 'hammock' could be restricted to the familiar manufactured article and hummock' to a heap of ice or something of that sort; but this is obviously out of the question at present.

Before dismissing the subject I should like to suggest to those botanists who believe in giving names of classical derivation to every kind of plant-habitat, that they find a Latin or Greek equivalent for the word under discussion, and thus do away with all this uncertainty at one stroke, at least as far as botanists are concerned.

ROLAND M. HARPER.

COLLEGE POINT, NEW YORK, June, 1905.

INDIAN BONE COMBS.

TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: Some of your readers may receive the valuable archeological reports of David Boyle, of Toronto, annually made to the minister of education, Ontario. Mr. Boyle fully believes that the bone combs found on Indian sites in Canada and New York are a purely aboriginal idea, while I as firmly hold that this idea came from Europeans. Such differences are common and natural, but the report for 1904 mistakes my position saying:

The contention of Dr. Beauchamp is simply this, that without metallic tools it was impossible to make a comb, and the inference is that before the appearance of Europeans, the Indians had no use for any article of this kind.

The latter statement is correct, the former an error of my valued friend. If I have made such a statement I gladly retract it. I certainly do not believe this impossible in a general way, but metallic tools were used in most

cases.

I have figures of forty-five of these combs from Iroquois sites in New York and they are found there on no others as yet. Ten of these are from Mohawk sites, found with glass and

brass ornaments, and there are others there. Four are from Cayuga sites of similar character. Onondaga sites have furnished seven, of which two are as early as 1600. Seneca sites have furnished twenty, mostly made about 1687, with two more which are in a sense prehistoric. Some recent ones have not been figured. From Oneida sites I remember none, though they should occur there. Two others were from Jefferson County, where they are certainly rare. One of these may be classed as early and the other recent. Some brass beads found on sites there now place these in the sixteenth century, as had been surmised. Of those enumerated forty were found with European articles, and five may be dated anywhere from 1550 to 1600. The earlier and ruder ones were made with stone tools; the more elaborate with metallic implements. The soundness of my position will thus be seen. All known New York combs of

this character seem to have been made between 1550 and 1700, and may be ascribed to European contact. A few were made with stone tools, soon replaced with those of metal, and I certainly do not think it was impossible to have made the ruder forms without the later tools. Why the Indians did not think of these combs before we can not tell. It is evident they did not till after European con

accepted by all codes of zoological nomenclature.

In

In a preliminary introduction to the Fauna japonica entitled 'Coup d'œil sur la faune des îles de la Sonde et de l'empire du Japon,' published in 1837, and issued in the fourth fascicule of the work, which also contained the Japanese snakes, Temminck briefly diagnosed the Japanese deer, on p. xxii, as a new species under the name of Cervus nippon. 1844, seven years later, in the second decade of the mammals of the same work, a plate illustrating this deer was published as Cervus sika. The text describing it more in detail under the latter name did not appear until many years later, probably not until 1852 or 1853. The diagnostic features given are essentially the same as indicated in the preliminary discourse of 1837.

The Japanese deer must, therefore, in the future stand as Cervus nippon Temminck. LEONHARD STEJNEGER.

U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM,
September 7, 1905.

THE POSSIBILITY OF ABSORPTION BY HUMAN BEINGS OF NITROGEN FROM THE ATMOSPHERE.

THE physiological value of nitrogen is to provide the staging or framework for the support and functional efficiency of the construction and nutritive processes at work in the living animal organism. The absorption of nitrogen by the animal organism has lately been regarded as resulting from the intermediary action of the vegetable world—a mode of nature-economy which there would be no reason for limiting to compounds of nitrogen, but should be extended to the entire range of animal-mineral absorption.

From this point of view, which seems to be based on close scientific observation, there has lately been extended a good deal of apparently well-qualified criticism with regard to the efficacy of the animal body-tissue to absorb and assimilate drugs derived from the mineral kingdom. Thus the administering of iron, strychnine, arsenic and other mineral tonics has been vigorously and justly condemned, not only by lay students, but also by the more

advanced students in the medical profession themselves.

Yet, in the light of still more recent researches, it has been ascertained that the true reason for condemning certain drug medication does not lie in the assumed failure of the mineral compound to yield to absorption, but rather in the fact that such absorption is really possible. For, while the power of the mineral to generate changes in the animal a mechanical organism largely proceeds on basis, the fact remains that the changes wrought, let us say, by arsenic in the hemoglobin of the blood can be rationally explained only by admitting an action due to processes of physiological chemistry.

To discover the character of the forces and conditions at work in these processes of absorption has recently been the aim of some eminent French and German scientists. Thus, in his extensive studies of the character and genesis of nitrifying bacteria, Dr. Wohltman, of the Agricultural Institute in Bonn-Popelsdorff, Germany, has brought to light some highly interesting points with regard to the relations existing between nitrogenous compounds and organic substances. Among other observations he has found that the action of certain bacteria, hitherto considered indispensable in the elaboration of the nitrogen molecule for its absorption by the vegetable, is so only under certain conditions. In his 300 experiments with the soil in the valley of the Rhine, Dr. Wohltman ascertained that wherever the soil is rich in nitrogenous fertilizers, preferably ammonium nitrate, the leguminous plants are found to grow and absorb nitrogen without the presence of bacteria. From this fact Dr. Wohltman draws the conclusion that the 'association of the plants with the bacteria is not a necessity, but an expedient, and whenever there is a rich supply of nitrogenous elements in the soil, they (the plants) dispense with the bacteria. and with the free nitrogen, which the latter make available, by directly secreting it from the chemical combination of soil or air in which it is held suspended.'

From this fact, it would certainly be justifiable to draw the inference, that whatever