Roast pig, to those who like it, is not only a delicacy but a valuable article of diet, but nevertheless, as the Chinese presumably came to realize, it is possible to pay too high a price for it, and while a proposal to restrict rather than to promote meat production in the present crisis may appear both irrational and unpatriotic it may nevertheless be in the interest of true food economy.

This is because of one cardinal fact which the advocates of the multiplication of farm live stock, the prohibition of the slaughter of young animals, etc., overlook. That fact is that not only must the meat or milk producing animal be fed (and even this appears to be forgotten at times) but that the conversion of feed into animal products is a process of relatively low efficiency.

Man needs food primarily as fuel to supply the energy for his activities and secondarily to furnish the repair material (protein) for the bodily machinery. An active adult requires daily some 4,000 calories of energy, the amount varying more or less according to the amount of physical work done. He can get this energy from either vegetable or animal products. He may make his wheat or corn into bread and use that bread as body fuel, or he may feed them to animals and consume the resulting meat or milk. The latter are excellent body fuels and are de sirable ingredients of the dietary but their production from grains is a very wasteful process. It may be roughly estimated that about 24 per cent. of the energy of grain is recovered for human consumption in pork, about 18 per cent. in milk and only about 3.5 per cent. in beef and mutton. In other words, the farmer who feeds bread grains to his stock is unconsciously imitating the Chinese method and is burning up 75 to 97 per cent. of them in order to produce for us a small residue of roast pig, and so is diminishing the total stock of human food.

Now most of us like roast pig and its production in this way has doubtless been economically justifiable in years past when our food supply was vastly in excess of our needs. To-day the case is different. No longer can

we continue to take the children's bread and cast it to the brutes. If our meat supply is to be maintained or increased it must be in some other way. All the edible products which the farmer's acres can yield are needed for human consumption. The task of the stock feeder must be to utilize through his skill and knowledge the inedible products of the farm and factory such as hay, corn stalks, straw, bran, brewers' and distillers' grains, gluten feed, and the like, and to make at least a fraction of them available for man's use. In so doing he will be really adding to the food supply and will be rendering a great public sevice. Rather than seek to stimulate live stock husbandry the ideal should be to adjust it to the limits set by the available supply of forage crops and by-product feeding stuffs while, on the other hand, utilizing these to the greatest practicable extent, because in this way we save some of what would otherwise be a total loss. In particular the recommendation to raise more hogs seems to call for some qualification. It is indeed true, as several have pointed out, that the hog can make more pounds of edible meat from a given amount of concentrated feed than any other class of live stock. The point is that with the present demand for bread grains we can not afford the cost of the conversion. So far as hogs can be raised on forage and by-products the recommendation is sound, and this animal can play an important part in utilizing domestic and other wastes, but the hog is the great competitor of man for the higher grades of food and in swine husbandry as ordinarily conducted we are in danger of paying too much for our roast pig. Cattle and sheep, on the other hand, although less efficient as converters, can utilize products which man can not use and save some of their potential value as human food. From this point of view, as well as on account of the importance of milk to infants and invalids, the high economy of food production by the dairy cow deserves careful consideration, although of course the large labor requirement is a counter-balancing factor.

At any rate, it is clear that at the present time enthusiastic but ill considered "boom

ing" of live stock production may do more harm than good. If it is desirable to restrict or prohibit the production of alcohol from grain or potatoes on the ground that it involves a waste of food value, the same reason calls for restriction of the burning-up of these materials to produce roast pig. This means, of course, a limited meat supply. To some of us this may seem a hardship. Meat, however, is by no means the essential that we have been wont to suppose and partial deprivation of it is not inconsistent with high bodily efficiency. Certainly no patriotic citizen would wish to insist on his customary allowance of roast pig at the cost of the food supply of his brothers in the trenches.

STATE COLLEGE, PA., June, 1917

H. P. ARMSBY

A NEW CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICAN

GEOLOGY

UNDER the heading "Work going on at Kilauea Volcano" there was published in SCIENCE of September 12, 1913, an account from Hawaii by Mr. Geo. Carroll Curtis, of the field work, cirkut and kite camera surveys being conducted in the great active crater, in connection with the construction of a naturalistic model for the geological department of Harvard University.

After four years of continuous effort this work has been completed and installed in the university museum. While the size and time required distinguish it, the principles it involves of faithful and expressive reproduction of the earth surface is of special significance, as it seems to mark a distinct progress in the complex subject of representing our earth in true relief and character. A single glance at the great model is convincing, for in looking upon this vast collection of accurate data, one receives the impression that he is viewing the outdoor field itself! The model looks like the actual ground because it has been made like it, an immense amount of information never before collected having been incorporated from the special surveys. This is a signal triumph in the truthful interpretation of a splendid type of geological structure such as Kilauea

presents. It clearly indicates the novel and broad interest which awaits the earth sciences in the reproduction of their museum natural history specimens through the medium of serious work in land relief.

The longest time previously given to any work we have had of this nature, was two years, in the naturalistic reproduction of the coral island Bora Bora,1 under the instigation of Alexander Agassiz. It was made to illustrate the typical "high coral island." This work, completed in 1907, was the first in the land where the necessary photographic survey and special field work were employed to truthfully reproduce a land form type, and marked the introduction of the naturalistic or landscape model in American exhibition. The character of the work was illustrated by the photographs made from it, bearing a surprising resemblance to those taken on the actual ground, a thing previously unlooked for in our land reliefs. This unique contribution to the progress of earth science is still considered the most complete exposition of a coral island known, and as the pioneer in naturalistic land relief (the completest expression which science and art can give of the earth's surface) will always remain a most significant piece of work.

The Kilauea model represents the progress of the intervening decade, in the new and developing art of the accurate reproduction of the surface of the planet, and is the culmination of the unique experience which has come through a training in both geology and in art, which Mr. Curtis has given to this profound though much misrepresented work of earth relief. Against precedent he has attempted to make a profession rather than a business of a work which calls for treatment adequate to the dignity of natural science. Valuable as may be the individual models to which Curtis has given so much time and study, it is in the establishment of a standard more in keeping with that called for by the natural sciences and by the meaning and interest of the face of our earth, that his most significant achieve1 Darwin, "Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs," p. 4.

ment lies. That this standard is to-day probably second to none is to be seen in the Kilauea model which presents several important innovations in the development of land relief, including the application of cirkut panorama and aerial photography and the cycloramic background.

The Kilauea undertaking marks the advent of the American geologist into the work most complete and effective of any known for representation of the immense forms with which he deals. Some conception of what this subject, calling for the best that modern science and art can offer, has in store, may be had from statements of those who have visited the active volcano and maintain that a better comprehension of the huge crater may be obtained from the model in Cambridge than in Hawaii itself, owing to the vast dimensions of the Kilauea region. What is yet in store for the earth sciences through the naturalistic reproduction in relief of remaining great types of land form, should give some measure of the value of this contribution.

GEOLOGICAL SECTION,

ROBERT W. SAYLES.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY MUSEUM

BOTRYTIS AND SCLEROTINIA

CONNECTION has recently been established between an apparently undescribed species of Sclerotinia occurring in woods in the upper end of Van Cortlandt Park on the rootstocks of wild geranium and a species of Botrytis occurring on the roots and rootstocks of the same host. The field observations were made by the writer and the culture work was conducted in the New York Botanical Garden by Professor W. T. Horne. A joint paper will be offered on the subject in connection with the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Torrey Botanical Club this fall. As it will be several months before this paper can appear in print, it was thought advisable to call attention to the facts at this time. While connection between Botrytis and Sclerotinia has been claimed by DeBary and predicted by more recent workers, this is one of the first and possibly the first case in which the connection has

A BRITISH REPORT ON INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH IN AMERICA

THE Advisory Council for Scientific and Industrial Research has issued the first of a series of papers in which, under the title of Science and Industry, it intends publishing information of value to manufacturers. The intention was announced in the report of the Committee of the Privy Council, of which an account appeared in these columns; and the present instalment by Mr. A. P. M. Fleming, of the British Westinghouse Company, on industrial research in the United States, is so full of information and practical suggestion that engineers will learn with regret that there is little prospect of further instalments appearing during the war.

The paper differs from much that issues from the Stationery Office in being essentially a practical work, not loaded with statistics and theoretical considerations. It is a plain statement of facts and practical suggestions very important to industry, set out for British manufacturers by one of their own body in such a way that what it describes and what it suggests can readily be understood; it is illustrated by 85 half-page or full-page blocks, and published at the public cost-at the price of 1 s. No appreciable expense either of time or brain-stuff or money stands between the message of the volume and the public for whom it is meant; and while there is no point in summarizing what can be easily acquired and digested, some of its facts and the consequences that they suggest are worth consideration.

The modern tendency of American manufacture to research may perhaps be seen most strikingly in what is being done by manufacturing and similar corporations themselves. Examples are to be found alike in the mechanical, electrical, and chemical industries, and are on every variety of scale, up to the £30,000 per year to which the Eastman Kodak Com

pany devotes something under 1 per cent. of its profits, and the £80,000 to £100,000 a year spent by the General Electric Company of Schenectady. Mr. Fleming gives particulars of what is being done by each of some twenty corporations, but the list could easily be made very much longer. Most of these laboratories have sprung up in quite recent years; and their number is constantly increasing. The increase is not merely in number. It is as remarkable in its growing breadth. The laboratories of these firms undertake not merely the routine of testing of materials and products and the more or less empirical adventures after new products that was formerly the business of a works' laboratory. At the one end of the scale they carry out experiments on the discovery of new products and the elaboration of new designs into the full manufacturing scale, and the laboratory supplies the needs of the market as if it were itself a works, until they outgrow the capacity of its plant and call for a new works of their own. At the other end of the scale they undertake inquiries into questions of pure science, of the solution of which no one can see any industrial application. They keep men investigating such problems constantly and perseveringly, and give them admirably equipped laboratories for the purpose. This sort of thing is being done in works after works, and every year adds to their number and the elaboration of their equipment. All the time, in spite of the enormous sums that are being spent on what at first sight is not only unproductive work, but work which tends to subordinate the wholesome rule of practise to the fantastic and costly demands of laboratories, the thing pays. The fact that the habit has grown so far is good prima-facie evidence that it must pay, for American business houses do not fling good money after bad. But there is no need to depend on inference or prima-facie evidence. The individual experience of those who have tried it shows that in fact it has paid, and the air in America is thick with plans to extend the practise of applying science to help industry; for great as is the extent of what has been done already, it is only a tiny fraction of what in

American industry there is still room and the intention to do.

Side by side with these corporations and firms three groups of institutions are working to the same ends. Mr. Fleming quotes a dozen or more separate industries with their trade associations, each of which is undertaking research for the common benefit of their members; sometimes in their own common research laboratories, sometimes in those of their members, sometimes through university or the Bureau of Standards staffs. An excellent instance of an important trade of which all members, great as well as small, have gained greatly by research work communicated to all alike, is that of the canners. The Canners' Association spends some £6,000 or £7,000 a year on its central laboratory, besides a good deal more on work done in the factories of individual members; and it is considered that the largest members have as much interest as the small in the results being made common to all, because the risk of the whole trade being discredited by imperfect production is thus minimized. Over a dozen universities and colleges, again, are now running laboratories devoted not only to investigations in pure science which may ultimately find a practical application, but to industrial researches for which the application is waiting as soon as the solution of the problems is found. In many instances such work is done not on the strength of foundations, but at the request and expense and for the benefit of commercial firms and other industrial bodies, such as railway companies.-London Times.

SCIENTIFIC BOOKS

Use of Mean Sea Level as the Datum for Elevations. (Special Publication No. 41.) By E. LESTER JONES, Superintendent, U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, Washington, Government Printing Office. 1917.

This pamphlet presents a very strong case in favor of the adoption of a single datum for the elevations of the country in order to eliminate the confusion which results from the employment of arbitrary planes of reference.

The selection of a fundamental datum is a matter of great importance. Only slight consideration leads one to conclude that the ideal datum for a nation is one which may be established at many places. The only one of this kind is mean sea level.

Mean sea level may be established within a very small fraction of a foot by continuous tidal observations for at least a year. It has been found from precise leveling observations that mean sea level, as established at different points on the open coasts, is at all such points in the same equipotential surface; that is, if there were no resistance of the water and wind to the movement of an object floating on the ocean, the object could be moved from one point on the coast to another without performing any work-there would be no lifting necessary. While this statement may not be absolutely true, yet it is so nearly the case that for all engineering and surveying purposes it may be accepted as rigidly true.

Mean sea level is used exclusively in the work of the Coast and Geodetic Survey and the U. S. Geological Survey. It is used to a certain extent by many other engineering bureaus of the government.

In December, 1916, the Coast and Geodetic Survey sent the following letter, or one similar to it, to the chief engineers of most of the large cities of the country, to the State Engineer of each state, and to the chief engineer of each of about 150 railroads in the United States:

As you know, one of the important questions of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey is the extension over the country of a network of precise leveling which will give elevations of great accuracy, based upon mean sea level.

We believe that this precise leveling is essential in the surveying and engineering work done in this country by various public and private agencies. The network will enable engineers to use the sealevel datum on new projects and to reduce to this datum existing elevations referred to arbitrary datums. We believe that this country should eventually have but one datum, in order that all engineering and surveying work may be easily coordinated. We believe also, that the presence of various datums leads to much confusion and waste.

In order that we may get into closer touch with the needs of the engineering profession, I should be glad if you will let me know to what extent your state is basing the elevations of its road and other surveys and engineering works upon mean sea level; also whether the use of various arbitrary datums by counties, cities and private organizations within your state is a serious matter in the industrial development of your state.

Replies were received from many of the engineers to whom the above letter was written. The opinions expressed were almost unanimously in favor of the adoption of mean sea level as the datum for elevations.

The pamphlet under discussion contains quotations from many of the letters received by the Survey. One of the quotations, typical of most of them, reads:

So far as our experience has taught us there can be no question as to the desirability of a universal datum plane, and I think there can be no doubt in the minds of engineers engaged in municipal work that mean sea level is the only logical datum to adopt.

In your advocacy of an extension of such bench marks you deserve the support and cooperation of every engineer in the country.

Another reads:

We agree with you that it would be very valuable to the state if a system of levels could be established, and believe that such will need to be done in the near future in order to correlate the drainage, highway and other engineering work in

the state.

It is realized by the members of the Coast and Geodetic Survey that much of the confusion in datums which now exist, is due to the fact that the precise level net of the United States was not extended in the past as rapidly