THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



4i5 



Desert Formation ox Strand Three oh Four Hundred Years Old near Travertine 

 Point. Ancient high level shore-line of Blake Sea on cliffs. 



strands and abandoned shores of the 

 present lake are additional facts of in- 

 terest in this connection. 



Not since the sterilization of the is- 

 land of Krakatoa by a volcanic explo- 

 sion has an opportunity been offered 

 for the studv of the biological inoccupa- 

 tion of such an area, and in this case 

 the entire course of change has been 

 kept under careful observation. Sixty 

 species of plants apneared in dense 

 strand formations on the beaches dur- 

 ing the first seven years. Successions 

 were rapid toward the desert, and 

 within three years after the emergence 

 some strands bore two species which 

 were characteristic of the beach ranks 

 four centuries old. 



Even greater interest attaches to the 

 revegetation of hills emerging as is- 

 lands and which had been seed-steril- 

 ized. To these were borne seeds by 

 winds and waves, but not with certainty 

 by birds. Conjoined observation and 

 experiment showed that the seeds for 

 many plants which float or sink germ- 

 inate, and the buoyant seedlings float 

 for weeks, when stranded by chance 



their active roots strike into the mud 

 within a few hours, making this an ef- 

 fective type of dissemination which ap- 

 pears to have escaped attention hitherto. 



SCIENTIFIC ITEMS 



We record with regret the death of 

 James Ellis Gow, professor of botany 

 in Coe College; of Mr. Alfred John 

 Jukes-Brown, F.R.S., lately of the Eng- 

 lish Geological Survey; of Dr. Edouard 

 Reyer, professor of geology at Vienna, 

 and of Lieutenant Sedoff, while leading 

 an Arctic expedition to Franz Josef 

 Land. 



The American Chemical Society is 

 unable to hold the meeting which had 

 teen planned for Montreal in Septem- 

 ber. Nearly all international scientific 

 congresses and conferences, including 

 the International Congress of Ameri- 

 canists, which was to have met in Wash- 

 ington in October, have been postponed. 

 The New Zealand meeting of the Brit- 

 ish Association has been abandoned. A 

 number of distinguished American men 

 of science went to attend the meeting 

 as guests of the New Zealand govern- 



