136 CONN, ATKINS, KLIGLER, NORTON AND HARMON 



desire methods that give uniform and reasonably reliable results 

 with as little labor as possible, rather than methods giving the 

 most accurate scientific data. As a society of bacteriologists, 

 however, we should be interested in the accuracy of technic 

 rather than in simple and inexpensive methods. 



WORK ON THE DESCRIPTIVE CHART 



The use of the descriptive chart has lately come to be mainly 

 for instruction purposes. Hence the recent committee on the 

 chart drew up a folder especially designed for instruction. There 

 has been considerable demand for this chart, but two modifica- 

 tions have been quite generally called for : its condensation into 

 smaller space, and the omission of the old and illogical group 

 number. To see how generally this opinion is held among bac- 

 teriologists, an enquiry was addressed to each instructor who has 

 ordered the Society charts during the last two years. The 

 replies received have almost unanimously been in favor of a 

 single sheet chart without the group number. These two modi- 

 fications, it was pointed out, would make the chart more useful 

 not only to instructors but to investigators as well. Accordingly 

 both modifications have been adopted in the new chart which 

 the committee is proposing to the Society this year, together 

 with various minor changes which it is hoped will be found to 

 be improvements. 



The new chart is like the instruction folder in the omission 

 of the detail which made the old card poorly adapted to the 

 instruction laboratory, but a few of the more commonly used 

 tests, omitted from the instruction chart, such as that for indol, 

 are included on the new form. By the use of finer type and the 

 reduction of the space left for sketches, all this material has been 

 condensed on two sides of an 8^ by 11 inch sheet. Nevertheless, 

 some blank space is still retained for sketches and for recording 

 the results of special tests. The group number, as such, is 

 omitted entirely; but all the useful purposes of the group number 

 are retained by adopting a new form of marginal characterization. 

 In place of the group number, an "Index number" has been 



