LECTURERS before the graduate summer quarter in medicine of the University of Illinois included Dr. Sidney I. Kornhauser, assistant professor of zoology in the Northwestern University, on "Sex determination and the nature of secondary sexual characteristics"; Dr. Reuben M. Strong, associate professor of anatomy in the Vanderbilt University, on "Adaptation in bone architecture"; Dr. Orville H. Brown, of Phoenix, Arizona, on "Asthma," and Dr. Addison Gulick, assistant professor of physiology in the University of Missouri, on "Over-feeding and the calorie problem in human metabolism." WE learn from Nature that the fifth annual meeting of the Indian Science Congress will be held in Lahore on January 9 to 12 next, under the presidency of Dr. G. T. Walker, F.R.S., Director-General of Observatories. The sectional presidents will be: Dr. L. Coleman (Agriculture), Dr. Wali Mahomed (Physics and Mathematics), Dr. G. J. Fowler (Chemistry), Dr. Choudhuri (Zoology and Ethnology), Mr. R. S. Hole (Botany), Mr. E. S. Pinfold (Geology). Dr. J. L. Simonsen, of the Presidency College, Madras, is the honorary secretary for the meeting. SECOND LIEUT. EDWARD OSLER, R.A., only son of Sir William Osler, died in England on August 31. He was wounded recently while on active duty in France, and had been taken to England for treatment. PROFESSOR S. B. KELLEHER, Erasmus Smith professor of mathematics in the University of Dublin, died on August 18. It is reported from London that A. Chester Beatty, a Columbia alumnus, has offered his London house as an American Officers' Hospital under the supervision of the Columbia Hospital Unit. The Columbia Unit is under the direction of Dr. George E. Brewer, of the College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Presbyterian Hospital. The unit is now in England. It is also stated that American medical officers will take charge of the military hospitals at Manchester, Salford, Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham, and Cardiff, and the civil medical practitioners at present in charge of those hospitals will be informed that their services are no longer required. It is understood that the reason for the change is that the services of the civilian doctors are required for the needs of the population, who have been inadequately served, owing to the attendance of so many physicians at the military hospitals. A CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES BUREAU is in course of formation in Sweden, the object of which will be to bring together the Swedish chemical industrial interests. THE Tootal Broadhurst Lee Company of Great Britain announces that "assured of the importance of research and education in the struggle for the world's trade, the directors have decided to set aside £10,000 a year for five years for this purpose." The provisional committee on research and education for the cotton industry will, at the close of the current holiday season, issue a prospectus of the new government-incepted and aided organization. This definite industrial research federation of the cotton trade will be followed by the establishment of institutes and laboratories. A provisional committee to organize textile research associations in the woollen trade has been formed. THE Proceedings of the Nineteenth International Congress of Americanists, held at Washington, December 27-31, 1915, has just made its appearance. It is a handsome royal octavo volume of 717 pages, with many illustrations, and in addition to the proceedings of the congress includes ninety articles on American archeology, ethnology, folklore and tradition, history, linguistics, and physical anthropology. The work was prepared by Dr. A. Hrdlička, of the United States National Museum, who was general secretary of the congress, and edited by Mr. F. W. Hodge, of the Bureau of American Ethnology. By the will of Julian A. Hellman, a residuary fund, which may amount to $100,000, is created to be used by Mount Sinai Hospital for the purpose of cancer research work. FREE public lectures of the New York Botanical Garden are being delivered in the Lecture Hall of the Museum Building of the Garden, Bronx Park, on Saturday afternoons, at four o'clock, as follows: September 1. "Collecting fungi in the Catskills," by Dr. W. A. Murrill. September 8. "The origin and history of soils," by Dr. A. Hollick. September 15. "Growing fresh vegetables in the back yard," by Mr. H. G. Parsons. September 22. "Some botanical features of northern Cape Breton," by Dr. G. E. Nichols. (Exhibition of Dahlias, September 22 and 23) September 29. "Growing nut trees," by Dr. W. C. Deming. October 6. "Autumn coloration," by Dr. A. B. Stout. October 13. "The relation of forests to water supply," by Dr. G. C. Fisher. (Catskill Aqueduct Celebration Lecture) October 20. "Fall planting and winter protection," by Mr. G. V. Nash. THE Paris Academy of Sciences has decided to establish a National Physical and Mechanical Laboratory for the purpose of scientific research, directed in a marked degree to the benefit and use of the industries. The laboratory will be controlled by a council, of which half the members will be nominated by the academy, one fourth by the state department, and the remainder by the chief industrial associations. The executive control will be in the hands of a small technical committee. Existing laboratories engaged in similar work will be affiliated with the National Laboratory, and will work in close relationship with it. Substantial funds are to be provided for working expenses and for the assistance of the affiliated institutions. AT the request of the government, the council of the British Medical Association has submitted the following plan for the creation of the Ministry of Health: "That a ministry of health should be created to take over from existing government departments such duties as are concerned with the health of the community, and to deal with those duties only; that the administrative functions of the min istry should be carried out by a board presided over by a minister of cabinet rank; that the country be divided into suitable administrative areas under local administrative health centers consisting of representatives (a) of the rating authorities; (b) of the education authorities; (c) of the persons contributing to a scheme of health insurance (including employers of labor); (d) the medical profession; (e) public hospitals; (f) dentists; (g) pharmacists, and (h) nurses; that the principal medical officers of each center should be two, of equal status, one representing the clinical side (chief clinical officer) and the other the preventive side of medicine (medical officer of health); that for each area, hospitals, clinics or treatment centers should be recognized or established at which persons entitled to treatment under the public scheme should be able to obtain institutional, consultative or specialist services on the recommendation of their medical attendant." The meeting passed a resolution by an overwhelming majority in favor of the appointment of a ministry of health. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS BROWN UNIVERSITY receives $100,000 for a teachers' fund and $4,000 for the purchase of volumes of American poetry by the will of the late Samuel C. Eastman, of Concord, N. H. The Concord Public Library is given $2,000, the New Hampshire Historical Society $4,000, and $3,000 will go to charity. One half the residue of the estate is willed to Brown University, one fourth to the Concord Public Library, and one fourth to the New Hampshire Historical Society. THE University of Maine and Bates and Colby Colleges have postponed their opening for about a month to allow students to continue their work on farms and in industries. PROFESSOR WILLIAM A. SCHAPER, of the department of political science of the University of Minnesota, has been dismissed, following an investigation of the attitude on the war of members of the faculty. Professor Schaper denies that he has been disloyal. DR. WILLIAM ALLEN NEILSON, professor of English at Harvard University, has been elected president of Smith College. He succeeds Dr. Marion L. Burton, who has become president of the University of Minnesota. JAMES C. NAGLE has been appointed dean of engineering and professor of civil engineering in the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, succeeding D. W. Spence whose death occurred in June. PROFESSOR W. S. FRANKLIN, formerly of Lehigh University, has accepted a position as special lecturer and teacher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, partly in the department of physics and partly in the department of electrical engineering. Professor Franklin requests his correspondents to note his new address. DR. C. H. SHATTUCK, for the past eight years head of the department of forestry, University of Idaho, has accepted the position as professor of forestry with the University of California. DR. WRIGHT A. GARDNER, formerly associate professor of plant physiology in the University of Idaho, has been appointed professor of plant physiology and head of the department of botany in the Alabama Polytechnic Institute. DR. ALFRED H. W. POVAH, formerly instructor in botany in the University of Michigan, has been appointed special lecturer in forest mycology in The New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University. MR. RALPH HUBBARD, formerly of Cornell University, has been appointed assistant in the museum and zoological department of the University of Colorado. MR. SAMUEL WOOD GEISER, formerly professor of biology and geology in Guilford College, has been appointed professor of biology in Upper Iowa University. AT the University of Oregon, Charles H. Edmondson, Ph.D. (Iowa, '06), assistant professor of zoology, and Albert E. Caswell, Ph.D., (Stanford, '11), assistant professor of physics, have been promoted to full professorships, and Raymond H. Wheeler, Ph.D. (Clark, '15), instructor in psychology, has been made an assistant professor. During the present summer Dr. Edmondson has been studying the clams of the North Pacific Coast with a view to their conservation for food purposes. DR. LLOYD BALDERSTON, of Ridgway, Pa., has been appointed professor of leather chemistry and technology in the college of agriculture of the Tohoku Imperial University, at Sapporo, Japan. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE ON THE "RAWNESS" OF SUBSOILS IN the interest of accuracy the writer feels impelled to call the attention of investigators of soils to some facts with reference to the infertility of subsoils which do not seem to be generally appreciated. This statement is called forth at this time by the recent paper of Alway, McDole and Rost'; the observations upon which it is based are of long standing but have not been described because of matters of greater importance which have intervened to prevent such description. The authors just cited call attention to the characteristic sterility of subsoils of humid regions with which every student of soils is of course familiar. No one can deny that fact. They go on, however, to cite Hilgard, and Wohltmann who had visited California, to the effect that subsoils of arid regions are not sterile, but serve just as well or better than surface soils in that region for the support of plant life whether the latter be of legume or non-legume order. Neither Hilgard's nor Wohltmann's observations are in full accord with mine except in certain cases which I shall refer to below. In studying the soil conditions of the Great Valley of California and particularly those of the citrus and alfalfa growing districts, I have repeatedly observed the vegetation, natural or planted, which is to be found on the freshly graded fields. Grading is done, of 1 Soil Science, Vol. 3, p. 9, January, 1917. course, in preparation of soils for irrigation and may result frequently in the removal of several inches to two, three or even more feet of surface soil in order that a level field may be produced. This is particularly striking in the case of the well-known and, on genetic grounds, highly interesting "hog wallow" lands which comprise very large areas of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys. On the citrus lands either barley or alfalfa may be grown for a year or more in the preparation of the soil for the citrus trees. Wherever barley is sown, it is always possible to distinguish between the spots in the field from which the surface soil has been removed and those which still consist of surface soil. On the latter the barley looks as nearly normal as the given soil type will permit it, whereas on the former the barley growth, if it is at all visible, is stunted and yellow and frequently does not live though the growing season. Only in places where considerable surface soil has in the process of grading become admixed with the subsoil, have I ever noted an approach to good barley growth. In the case of alfalfa, however, I can only recall one or two instances of failure to grow as well on the raw subsoil as on the surface soil. The difference between the behavior of barley and alfalfa on the subsoil in question is probably to be ascribed to the paucity in available nitrogen which is known to characterize subsoils. Under such conditions, barley can, at best, only make very poor growth, whereas the alfalfa, if inoculated, is independent of the available nitrogen supply in the soil. It should be added that with the admixture to some extent of surface soil with the subsoil in the process of grading a large enough number of B. radicicola is introduced all through the graded land to insure to alfalfa the necessary nitrogen for its growth, an advantage which that legume in common with others does not share with non-legumes. The case noted in Berkeley by Hilgard regarding which the latter is quoted by Alway, McDole and Rost, is undoubtedly that of an observation on the campus of the University of California, on the surface of which there has been so much filling and cutting for a number of years as to render questionable in any instance the real origin of the soil or subsoil observed. In my knowledge of the campus, I have known the excavation of subsoil material which had not long before been surface soil to result in bringing it back to its original condition again. We should not expect such material to be as inert and as unresponsive in growing nonlegumes as real subsoil material. Arguing, however, from direct observation, I should like to add that I have frequently observed on the same campus, in places in which deep excavations were accomplished, that very little vegetation appeared for a year or more after the true subsoil material had been opened to air, light and the sun's warmth, as well as to the effects of inoculation by dust from surface soils. Such vegetation as did establish itself consisted almost invariably of bur clover. Medicago denticulata. When other plants were present, they were usually found to be alfilaria, Erodium cicutarium, a plant which is most commonly associated with bur clover on California soils and which probably profits by the nitrogen fixed by the clover. The bur clover plants found on such sterile subsoil material as is above described have always been found to be abundantly supplied with nodules. The writer's observations lead him to believe, therefore, that subsoils of arid regions are nearly if not quite as raw as those of humid regions and that despite the great differences between the two in many respects, the first will not support plant growth to a much greater extent than the latter. The close resemblance which obtains between our subsoils and our surface soils, and which does not characterize the soils and subsoils of humid regions, appears, therefore, to be no index to the productivity of our subsoils. I should judge, in fact, from the statements of Alway, McDole and Rost, that the California subsoils are not superior to the Nebraska subsoils in any respect from the point of view here under consideration. As above pointed out, it seems fairly certain that the chief cause of the rawness of subsoils is the lack of available nitrogen in them for the support of the non-legume. This deduction seems to be supported by the fact that legumes when inoculated will grow in the raw subsoils, whereas the non-legumes will not. That legumes will not grow on subsoils of humid regions as is claimed by Alway, McDole and Rost is not, so far as I am aware, proved. In any case their claim that the failure of such inoculated legumes to develop on humid subsoils "is to be attributed to a lack of availability of the phosphoric acid or of the potash or of both," appears to be an assumption which is unsupported by fact. Data on the content of water-soluble phosphoric acid and potash in subsoils of humid regions give no indication, so far as the writer is aware, of a paucity in those respects which would at all account for the total failure to develop manifested by the inoculated legume plants mentioned above. If inoculated legume seeds do fail to develop on humid subsoils, such failure must be accounted for, it would seem, on other grounds than those proposed by Alway, McDole and Rost. 4. The poor aeration of subsoils which indirectly results in their rawness, may be accounted for more simply than by Hilgard's explanation of the washing down of fine particles into the subsoil, which prevents proper aeration. CHAS. B. LIPMAN UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA NORTHERN LIGHTS TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: Readers of SCIENCE will be interested to note the following observation of the northern lights. We noted them here on the evening of August 9 at about 8:45. They extended across the sky from northwest to east by northeast. They appeared as streaks, not very wide, and there was little or no flickering. A diffuse glow in the sky was more evident than the streaks. The night was clear and bright, so that this may account for the fact that they were not very prominent. They seemed to extend from 40° to 70° in height. At 9:35 P.M. they were still visible, but shortly after 10 there was no trace of them. The northern lights, of which so many accounts were published in SCIENCE about this time last year, were observed here also, although I do not recall that any one reported the fact. THOMAS BYRD MAGATH U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES THE NEW MOON TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: In making some computations last March about the occurrence of New Moon, an error of statement was discovered in the 9th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica under "Calendar," Vol. IV., p. 594, and repeated in the 11th edition, Vol. IV., p. 993; it is also given in Barlow & Bryan's "Mathematical Astronomy," p. 215. The erroneous statement is that New Moon occurred on January 1 in 1 B.C. New Moon in January, 1 B.C., occurred on January 25, 12h 26 Jerusalem Mean Civil Time. DOMINION OBSERVATORY, July 31, 1917 OTTO KLOTZ |