470 



NATURE 



[September 17, 1891 



Official Agricultural Chemists ; the Society for the Pro- 

 motion of Agricultural Science ; the American Chemical 

 Society ; the Conference of American Chemists ; the 

 Association of Economic Entomologists ; the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science ; the Geo- 

 logical Society of America ; and the International Geo- 

 logical Congress. 



The fortieth annual meeting of the American Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science was held from 

 August 19-25, President Albert B. Prescott, Professor of 

 Chemistry at the University of Michigan, in the chair. 

 The attendance of members was large ; about one-third 

 of all attending were residents of Washington, most of 

 them employed in the various scientific Bureaus of the 

 Government. 227 papers were read before the Sections, 

 and these together with the addresses of the President 

 and Vice-Presidents, Reports of Committees, and other 

 documents, brought up the entire number to 291. 



Prof. George L. Goodale, of Harvard University, deli- 

 vered the annual address as retiring President : subject — 

 " Some of the Possibilities of Economic Botany." 



After giving an account of the meeting of the Austral- 

 asian Association for the Advancement of Science, held 

 at Christchurch, New Zealand, in January last, which 

 he attended as delegate from the American Association, 

 he proceeded to consider the subject above mentioned. 

 An abstract of the address follows. 



There is an enormous disproportion between the num- 

 ber of species of plants known to botanical science and 

 the number of those which are used by man. The 

 species of flowering plants already described and named 

 number about 107,000, but the number of species used 

 oft a fairly large scale by civilized man does not 

 exceed i per cent. The useful plants which are 

 cultivated by man do not exceed one-third of this. 

 Can the short list of useful plants be increased to 

 advantage.? After calling attention to the influence 

 which synthetic chemistry exerts by the production of 

 artificial vegetable products which can replace the natural 

 products, he took up the cereal grains as illustrations of 

 the history and improvement of cultivated plants. If all 

 the cereals, like -wheat, maize, rye, barley, oats, and rice, 

 were now to be swept out of existence, we should not 

 know positively where to turn for new species of grasses 

 with which to begin again. He drew a picture of the 

 condition of civilized man if all the known varieties of 

 the cereal grasses should become extinct, and then 

 pointed out the probable manner in which our experiment 

 stations would have to choose and improve the grains of 

 certain grasses which are not used to-day. He expressed 

 the belief that our well-equipped stations would give us 

 satisfactory substitutes for our cereals within a period not 

 exceeding that of two generations of our race. But why 

 do not experimenters attempt to improve our present 

 neglected resources of this character ? Because we all 

 prefer to move in lines of least resistance, letting well 

 enough alone. Plants which have been long cultivated 

 are more susceptible to the influence of changes in 

 surroundings, and hence of improvement, than those 

 which are just removed from the field to the garden. 

 Tracing the recent history of our cereals, he expressed 

 his conviction that there is no probability that any new 

 cereals will be added to our present list, but improvem.ents 

 will continue to be made in those which we have. 



He included under the term vegetables all plants em- 

 ployed for table use, such as salads and relishes. The 

 potato and sweet potato, the pumpkin and squash, the 

 red or capsicum peppers, and the tomato, are of American 

 origin. All the others are, most probably, natives of the 

 Old World. Only one plant coming in this class has been 

 derived from Australasia— New Zealand spinach {Tetra- 

 gonia). 



Among the vegetables and salad plants longest in culti- 

 vation are turnip, onion, cabbage, purslane, the large 

 NO. I 142, VOL. 44] 



bean (/■a(Jfl!),chick-pea,lentil, and garden pea — which have 

 an antiquity of at least 4000 years. Next in age are radish, 

 carrot, beet, garlic, garden-cress and celery, lettuce, 

 asparagus and the leek, three or four legumes, and the 

 black peppers. The most prominent recent ones are 

 parsnip, parsley, oyster-plant, artichoke, endive, and 

 spinach. A few tropical plants, such as yams, are omitted 

 from the list. 



There is an astonishing number of varieties, which 

 represent an enormous amount of horticultural work, each 

 race (that is, a variety which comes true to seed) having 

 been envolved by patient care and waiting. 



For future development he recommends (i) Arracacha 

 esculenta, of the parsley family, which is now cultivated 

 in South America, near the Isthmus ; (2) Ulhicus or 

 Ollucus, of the beet or spinach family ; (3) the so-called 

 Chinese artichoke from Japan. 



He recommends a more thorough examination of 

 Japanese vegetables, owing to the similarity of Japanese 

 and Eastern North American flora. 



Attention was called to the extraordinary changes 

 produced in the commercial relations of fruits by canning 

 and swift transportation, and the opinion was expressed 

 that before long it would be possible to place many more 

 of the delicious fruits of the tropics in northern markets ; 

 and even, with increasing knowledge of microbes, to 

 preserve fruit for almost any reasonable time. Such 

 discoveries would diminish zeal in the search for new fruits. 



The improvement of fruits within historic times has 

 been such that fruits which would once have been highly 

 esteemed would to-day be passed by as unworthy of 

 notice. 



The list of seedless fruits may probably be materially 

 lengthened. The common seedless fruits are banana and 

 pineapple. Darwin mentions also bread-fruit, pomegra- 

 nate, azarole, and date-palms ; and says that their size and 

 development are usually regarded as the cause of their 

 sterility, whereas he regards sterility as rather the result 

 than the cause of increased development. 



Prof. Goodale expressed the conviction that there is no 

 reason why we should not have seedless strawberries, 

 blackberries, raspberries, and grapes, coreless apples and 

 pears, and stoneless plums, cherries, and peaches, 

 propagated by bud-division. 



Promising timbers and cabinet woods, fibres, tanning 

 materials, rubbers, and similar products were discussed in 

 turn ; the last class to be considered being fragrant 

 flowers and plants for the florist. The necessity for 

 caution in the introduction of new plants, lest they should 

 prove pests by their wide dispersion through arable lands, 

 as sweetbriar has in some parts of New Zealand, was 

 fully illustrated. The agencies for examining useful plants 

 were botanic gardens, museums of economic botany, and 

 experiment stations. 



Section A — Mathematics and Astronomy. 



The address by Prof. E. W. Hyde, of Cincinatti, the Presi- 

 dent of this Section, was on the evolution of algebra, in which 

 he traced the historical development of this branch of mathe- 

 matics, beginning with the almost prehistoric Egyptian Ahmes ; 

 then giving a very full account ot the Greek Diophantus, and 

 explaining his use of syncopated methods. He had only 

 one character to represent the unknown quantity; still he 

 achieved great results. The Hindoos, Arya Bhatta about 

 600 li.C, and Brahma Gupta, 700 A.D., were discussed, and 

 were presented as the source of Arabian algebra, and thus of the 

 knowledge of that science in modern Europe. 



Papers read before this Section include one on the latitude of 

 the Sayre Observatory, by C. L. Doolittle, and on the secular 

 variation of terrestrial latitudes, by George C. Comstock. The 

 results of the investigations appear to be proof of a secular varia- 

 tion of the North Pole amounting to about 45 seconds in a 

 century. 



Frauk H. Bigelow exhibited and described a new aurora- 

 inclinometer which will be sent to Alaska this autumn, and 

 valuable results are expected in the study of the aurora. 



