published by Richards in London in 1906. Specifically the account is found in Dampier's narrative of his "First Voyage to the Bay of Campeachy" which is dated 1676. Dampier was, of all the early English ship captains and circumnavigators, by far the keenest observer. His "Voyages" fairly bristle with the most interesting and valuable natural history notes, and it seems not improbable that if they were better known they might constitute his best bid for fame. His text seems to indicate quite clearly that these "Carrion Crows" are our well-known "Turkey Buzzards," and if so it may be that this is the first and possibly the only recorded occurrence of albinos among them. E. W. GUDGER

STATE NORMAL COLLEGE, GREENSBORO, N. C.

AN OPEN LETTER

My dear Professor Jeffrey: In your delightful volume (excuse the word, but it expresses my feeling) on Woody Plants, you make a division of Archigymnospermæ and Metagymnospermæ on the basis of pollen chamber, fertilization by motile sperms, and presence of cryptogamic wood. In other places you show the close relationship of Cordaitales, Ginkgoales and Coniferales. Could you explain briefly, in this journal, for the benefit of many who will undoubtedly be interested, why you split the gymnosperms between the Ginkgoales and Coniferales rather than between the pithy stemmed Cycadean series and the woody Cordaites-Ginkgo-Conifer series?

Sincerely yours,

HENRY S. CONARD

Dear Professor Conard: Your open letter has been submitted to me by the editor of SCIENCE. My motive in dividing the Archigymnospermeæ from the Metagymnospermeæ on the basis of the presence of antherzoid fertilization and cryptogamic centripetal wood is largely one of expediency, since there are fortunately almost no gaps in the series of vascular plants outside the very considerable one which separates the Angiosperms from the Gymnosperms. The cryptogamic wood (or the bois centripete) has been an important

criterion for the lower gymnosperms since the days of Renault and Brongniart. Zoidogamy, predicted by Hofmeister for the lower gymnosperms and discovered in the Cycads and Ginkgo by Hiarase Ikeno and Webber is a prominent character on the gametophytic side. The combination of these two accepted criteria makes the line of separation come above the Ginkgoales. The large pith and large leaves which you emphasize were also possessed by many Cordaitean forms. Some of these had leaf bases very fern-like in organization, as described by Dr. D. H. Scott and myself in remains from the lower Waverly of Kentucky. I would repeat that the term Archigymnospermeæ is one of convenience, and like most scientific terms falls short of covering the situation. I would quite agree with you that the Ginkgoales are fully as closely allied to the Coniferales as to the Cordaitales, yet convenience and the present state of our knowledge includes them with the ancient gymnosperms. I may add that your "Cycadean Series" appears to me to be a very natural one, and in fact is generally admitted. Hoping I have made my position clear I remain, Yours sincerely, E. C. JEFFREY

SCIENTIFIC BOOKS

Studies in the History and Method of Science. Edited by CHARLES SINGER. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1917. xiv + 304 p. 4°, XLI plates (many colored), 33 illustr. in text. As Sir William Osler tells us in the introduction to these essays, they are the outcome of a quiet movement on the part of a few Oxford students to stimulate a study of the history of science. Upon the generous initiative of Dr. and Mrs. Charles Singer, a bay has been set apart in the Radcliffe Camera of the Bodleian for research work in this field. The objects pursued are: first, to place at the disposal of the general student a collection that will enable him to acquire a knowledge of the development of science; secondly, to assist the special student in research: (a) by placing him in relationship with investigations adready undertaken, (b)

by collecting information on the sources and accessibility of his material, (c) by providing him with facilities to work up his material. In spite of Dr. Singer's absence on military duty, the work has been carried on with conspicuous success. Ten special students have already used the room: Ramsay Wright has made a study of a Persian medical MS.; Walter Libby of Pittsburgh, during the session of 1915-16, collected material for his well-known book on the history of science; E. T. Withington is investigating the Greek medical texts for a new edition of Liddell and Scott's dictionary. Miss Mildred Westland has helped Singer with the Italian medical MSS. Reuben Levy has worked at the Arabic medical MSS. of Maimonides. Mrs. Jenkinson is engaged on a study of early medicine and magic. J. L. E. Dreyer has used the room in connection with the preparation of the "Opera Omnia" of Tycho Brahe. Miss Joan Evans is engaged upon a research on medieval lapidaries. Mrs. Singer has begun a study of the English medical MSS., with a view to a complete catalogue.

This is a splendid beginning the right beginning and one can not bestow too much praise on Dr. and Mrs. Singer for their enthusiastic and contagious activity.

This volume of essays is issued as a ballon d'essai, but we earnestly hope that a welldeserved successs will encourage its editor to publish periodically a similar one. That this first one has been issued at all, and “got up " with such admirable scholarship and taste in the fourth year of the war, is a credit to Oxford.

One half of the book is Singer's own work. He has contributed two very important studies. One on the scientific views of Saint Hildegard. The author traces the sources of her knowledge, by no means an easy task, one whose accomplishment implies a great familiarity with medieval science. It is interesting to compare this study with earlier ones devoted to the same subject: it illustrates the whole difference between historical studies of the old literary type and those permeated with the scientific spirit-a genuine understanding of scientific problems and values. The other

is a study in early Renaissance anatomy with a new text: the Anothomia of Hieronymo Manfredi (1490). Both studies are very accurate, clear and complete; they are magnificently illustrated.

There is a suggestive paper on vitalism1— in fact the most comprehensive short statement of this question which I have read-by the much lamented John Wilfred Jenkinson, (with a portrait). Dr. Jenkinson was killed in action in 1915, at the Gallipoli peninsula. He had already produced excellent embryological work, but was still very young and his friends had placed considerable faith in him. I must quote more briefly the other papers: Raymond Crawfurd deals with "The blessing of cramp-rings. A chapter in the history of epilepsy." E. T. Withington's essay is devoted to one of the most clear-minded men of the sixteenth century: Dr. John Weyer, the first serious opponent of the witch-mania. Any one acquainted with the history of witch-craft will at once appreciate his greatness. Most historians probably know very little about him, and yet this man was far greater than the contemporary kings and princes about whom they know and tell us so much. And do you think it was by mere coincidence that the first opponents of the witch-mania were scientists? Reuben Levy shows that the tractatus de causis et indicis morborum" attributed to Maimonides, is most likely not his own work. Lastly there is a long essay by F. C. S. Schiller: "Scientific Discovery and Logical Proof." Interesting as it is, I think that this paper is here somewhat out of place. A book chiefly devoted to the history of science, should only harbor such philosophical and methodological studies as are based on historical information.

66

The publication of this book is highly gratifying. It proves that in England, as well as in Italy, France and Germany, the idea of the history of science is crystallizing and growing fast.

In America also, the year 1917 has brought to light some important contributions to this movement. I refer to the publication of two

1 It is a revised edition of a paper published in the Hibbert Journal, IX., 545–559, 1911.

remarkable text-books. The first in point of date is Walter Libby's "Introduction to the History of Science" (Boston, Houghton Mifflin), a very well written and interesting account of some of the most typical conquests of science throughout the ages. The second is Sedgwick and Tyler's "Short History of Science" (New York, Macmillan), whose more ambitious purpose is to outline the whole of its development. The authors have been teaching the history of science for a great many years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They have taken great pains to make their book as serviceable as possible to the student. It contains a large number of relevant quotations, and some longer extracts from Hippocrates, Roger Bacon, Copernicus, Harvey, Galileo, Newton, Jenner, Lyell; also notes on the main inventions of the last two centuries, and chronological and bibliographical summaries.

With books like these, the American teachers will have no excuse for not knowing at least something on the subject. It is not unlikely that now that such convenient textbooks are provided, courses based upon them will grow like mushrooms; those giving them will gradually become acquainted with the history of science, and some of them will wish to know more of it. That is also a beginning.

The reader should not be left under the impression that no real research work has been undertaken in this country. It will be enough to remind him of the two beautiful studies contained in the eleventh volume of the Humanistic Series of the University of Michigan. The first is an admirable edition of Robert of Chester's Latin translation of the "Algebra " of Al-Khowarizmi, with an introduction, translation, and notes by Ch. L. Karpinski (1915). The second, an English version of Nicolaus Steno's "Prodromus," with notes by J. G. Winter (1916). This volume is to be completed by an essay on the "Vesuvius in Antiquity," contributed by the editor of the series, Francis W. Kelsey.

I believe that no greater service can be rendered to the history of science, at this juncture, than by relentlessly insisting upon

the necessity of raising the standard of scholarship as high as possible. It will gradually dawn upon the people that inaccurate historical facts are as worthless as inaccurate scientific facts. It is true, historical errors are less obvious. At least they are not automatically detected, as is the case in the positive sciences, where most errors lead sooner or later to inconsistencies. But does the fact that there is no material check of our accuracy in historical matters not increase-rather than decrease-our duty to be accurate?

The Past can not rise up and arrest the historian, crying out: "You inconsiderate tattler, you liar, how dare you. . . . ?" The historian is a judge. Upon his shoulders rest the immense responsibilities of a judge. And those upon whom he sits in judgment have been silenced forever.

It is not always easy to appreciate the merit of a contemporary, because we can not justly estimate the value of a discovery until we have got far ahead of it, and tasted a great many of its fruits. And so it happens all the time that some people enjoy a very high reputation, which they do not deserve, while others traverse life unrewarded and unnoticed.

From the idealistic point of view, this does not matter much, because, sooner or later, justice is done. That is the historian's trust. If he be unfaithful to it-if he says for instance that the air pump was discovered by Robert Boyle instead of by Otto von Guericke -this is not a mere trifle. It is a protracted injustice; the supreme crime.

But the ultimate purpose of those who are now fighting under the banner of the history of science only a few to-day but legion tomorrow-is even higher. To put it briefly, their purpose is to reconcile knowledge and idealism. We need both equally. I do not know which is worst, knowledge without idealism or idealism without knowledge, and yet our whole system of education is leading to their growing estrangement.

It would be foolish to imagine that scientists and literary people, the so-called humanists, will come together spontaneously. Such a miracle will not come to pass, unless we

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prepare for it. Scientists are too busy to undertake historical studies, and literary people can hardly be expected to reeducate themselves along scientific lines. A bridge must be built. The task of unification must be intrusted to specialists, equally well trained as scientists and historians. There is no other way out. Complete courses on the history of science must be organized, and at least a few men must be given the material possibility of devoting themselves entirely to this work of synthesis.

The books of which I have spoken are new tokens, among many, of the irresistible movement which is leading to the organization of these studies and we must be grateful to all those who are helping either as scholars or as vulgarizers. It remains to be seen which university will take the lead; the others will follow.. GEORGE SARTON

INVERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY

IN 1879 Hall described in a Report of the New York State Museum a curious fossil from the Silurian, giving it the name Camarocrinus stellatus. It was a large globose structure, internally divided into several chambers, attached at one end to a stem agreeing with that of the crinoids. Hall surmised that it represented the base of some crinoid species, the other end of the stem, with its calyx, being still unknown. This explanation was generally accepted, but the peculiar chambered bulbous form was supposed to represent a special adaptation for a floating mode of life, the bulb being in fact a float, from which the crinoid hung suspended. in the water. In 1904 Dr. R. S. Bassler, of the U. S. National Museum, found an apparently promising locality for Camarocrinus a few miles north of Cape Girardeau, Mo., along the bluffs of the Mississippi River. This led Mr. Frank Springer in 1912 to send Mr. F. Braun to the locality, with the result of uncovering the most marvelous specimens of crinoids, completely solving the mystery of Camarocrinus, and furnishing the National Museum with a slab about 4 by 5 feet, covered with remains of the animals. This slab, now mounted in the hall of invertebrate paleontology, will always

remain one of the most striking paleontological specimens in existence, for it shows the animals as they died, probably smothered by a deposit of mud brought by a swift current from some higher level. Mr. Springer has prepared a detailed and beautifully illustrated account of the new materials, and has taken occasion to review all the congeneric species found in America.1

It turns out that Camarocrinus is the basal end of a well-known crinoid, described first from Bohemia by Zenker in 1833. Zenker called it Scyphocrinites, and according to the rules of nomenclature this is the proper name, but students of crinoids have chosen to shorten such names, in the present case writing Scyphocrinus. The Missouri slab proves to belong to Zenker's original species, S. elegans, the American specimens agreeing in all respects with those from Bohemia. The basal bulb was not afloat at all, but was embedded in the mud, acting as a root. In its resemblances to and differences from the calyx end it suggests some interesting reflections in connection with the researches of Professor C. M. Child, of Chicago. To what extent is it purely adaptive, and how much of its form and structure de

pends upon a principle of partial repetition of

the fundamental structure of the animal?

Although the Missouri slab represents the Bohemian species, Mr. Springer finds that there are no less than seven other forms of Scyphocrinites (or, as he writes it, Scyphocrinus) in American rocks. S. stellatus is Hall's original Camarocrinus; S. pratteni is a very fine species from Tennessee, described under another generic name by McChesney as early as 1860; S. ulrichi was described by Schuchert as a Camarocrinus; and finally S. spinifer, S. mutabilis, S. pyburnensis and S. gibbosus are published as new by Mr. Springer.

The Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) rocks of Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Illinois have in recent years yielded a most interesting assemblage of fossil insects, which

1 Frank Springer, "On the Crinoid genus Scyphocrinus and its Bulbous Root Camarocrinus, Washington, Smithsonian Institution, 1917, 74 pp. and nine plates.

seem likely to afford important aid in working out the stratigraphy, and also to throw new light on the relationships between the fauna of the old and new worlds in Carboniferous time. Many of the American species, though described and figured, still await publication. In the meanwhile, it is satisfactory to find that, in spite of the war, the insects of the European coal-measures are being fully described and well figured by Mr. Herbert Bolton, of the Bristol Museum. The apparent poverty of England in fossil insects of Paleozoic age may prove illusory, due merely to lack of interest in their discovery and identification. At all events, Mr. Bolton is making known a number of new types, his latest paper on this subject2 containing accounts of new species, and a very fine new genus, for which he unfortunately uses the preoccupied name Palaeomantis. In another paper3 Mr. Bolton gives an account of some insects from the coal measures of France, describing among other things the singular new genus Megagnatha, which appears to have long slender jaws, recalling those of the modern Corydalis male. The name Megagnathus has been applied to a genus of beetles, but it is to be hoped that no one will think it necessary to alter the name of Mr. Bolton's genus. Those who propose to change names in zoology, merely because they are thus similar, can hardly understand what confusion would result from the universal application of such a method. We all agree that absolute homonyms can not be permitted to stand, but a difference in the ending of the word is abundantly sufficient to prevent confusion. In connection with the evolution of cockroach types in America and Europe, particular attention must be called to Mr. Bolton's Neomylacris lerichei, which certainly has a strongly American facies. I should call it Promylacris lerichei, referring it to a genus described from Mazon Creek, Illinois.

2"On some Insects from the British Coal Measures,'' Quart. Jour. Geol. Society, Vol. 72 (1916), pp. 43-62.

"The Mark Stirrup Collection of Fossil Insects from the Coal Measures of Commentary (Allier), Central France," Mem. Manchester Lit. and Phil. Society, May 11, 1917.

While the European Paleozoic insects are thus being elucidated, very welcome information reaches us from Australia, of the discovery of a rich fauna of Mesozoic insects. It appears that the specimens represent a Triassic fauna, and consequently tend to complete our ideas of insect phylogeny, filling in a gap which has hitherto existed in the record. One of the Neuropteroid faunas is referred by Mr. Tillyard to a new order, Protomecoptera, having the surface of the wings finely reticulated. In modern Panorpa traces of the primitive reticulation can be seen in a good oblique light, and it really seems unnecessary to recognize more than a superfamily (Archipanorpoidea).

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO

T. D. A. COCKERELL

SPECIAL ARTICLES

THE EVOLUTION OF BACTERIA

DR. I. J. KLIGLER has recently contributed a paper on The evolution and relationship of the great groups of bacteria." The conclusions reached are so surprising and so in conflict with commonly held opinions that the contribution is well worthy of careful scrutiny to determine whether or not the premises are reasonable, and the deductions logical. It appears to the writer that in several instances Dr. Kligler has failed to prove his points and that his conclusions, at least when based upon the premises and the reasoning used, are open to serious question.

Probably no fault can be found in the introductory statement that the bacteria are “ among the most primitive of living forms." It should be remarked, however, that this does not prove that the present living bacteria are any of them identical with, or even closely related to, the original types of bacteria which appeared upon earth. The next statement can not be accepted quite so readily. The author says:

4 R. J. Tillyard, "Mesozoic Insects of Queensland," Proc. Linn. Soc. New South Wales, July 11, 1917. Also publication 253, Queensland Geological Survey (1916).

1 Journal of Bacteriology, March, 1917.