OcToBER 12, 1916] 
= 
_ tuberculate mammals occur, however, on the upper 
horizons, and may still have existing representatives. 
H. F. Osborn discusses the ‘‘Close of Jurassic and 
Opening of Cretaceous Time in North America ” (Bull. 
Geol. Soc. America, vol. xxvi., 1915, p. 295), as an 
introduction to a symposium on the Morrison forma- 
tion. This discussion has a special application in 
England to the Purbeck-Wealden question. 
The Wisconsin, Geological and Natural History 
Survey has reported on the north-western area of the 
State (Bulletin No. 45, Madison, 1915), where very 
little geological work had been done prior to the 
official entry of Mr. W. O. Hotchkiss and his assistants 
in 1913. Since the area lies in the Lake Superior 
iron district, great stress has been laid upon a con- 
tinuous magnetic survey, the principles of which are 
set out in chapter iv. This illustrated essay of sixty 
ages will be of service to mining students in general. 
he ores are the well-known sedimentary masses of 
Huronian age, and the extent of the Huronian beds 
beneath the glacial drift has been largely determined 
by magnetic readings. Bush-covered ground and 
rivers, as indicated in the sympathetic pictures of 
geologists at work, have often hindered observation, 
and only the most careful organisation could have 
carried out the survey in so comparatively short a 
time. G. A, J. C. 
NATURE 
119 
In notifying this auspicious change the Government 
expresses the hope that the establishment of a zoo- 
logical survey will be of value to India; and when it 
is remembered—apart from all the economic reflections 
of the matter—that in territories like India more than 
75 per cent. of the annual mortality is due either 
directly or proximately to noxious animals and animal- 
cules, so that rural sanitation in such countries must 
rest in the first instance upon accurate and compre- 
hensive zoological foundations, there seems every 
assurance that this hope will be justified, 
Apart from these internal changes, which bring 
field-work from a precarious position in the rear into 
the very front rank of the duties of the staff, and 
transform the trustees from responsible guardians into. ~ 
authorised visitors of the collections, the zoological 
section of the museum as a going concern will not be 
altered in any way. Nor is_any extra expenditure 
anticipated for the immediate future, since the avail- 
able museum grant is ample for the intended purpose, 
and the collaboration of the Marine Survey Depart- 
ment and the close co-operation of the Forest and 
Agricultural Departments are assured. 
Under the new régime the national zoological 
museum of India promises to be, like some other Indian 
official organisations, an institution of an exemplary 
kind. 
THE ZOOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
Wie the sanction of the Secretary of State the 
Government of India has recently converted the 
professional staff and entire working machinery of 
the zoological section of the Indian Museum into an 
autonomous Government department, under the name 
and style of the Zoological Survey of India. 
This conversion, if it were—as to superficial view it 
might appear—merely a change of name, could pass 
without comment in a momentous time like the pre- 
sent; but inasmuch as it effects a long-desired and 
fundamental improvement in the prospects and official 
status of zoology in India—a country where, private 
enterprise in the domain of natural science being un- 
developed, no branch of science that lacks independent 
and avowed recognition in the highest official quarters 
can hope to expand to its full extent—it deserves some 
notice. 
In times not very long past the zoological section of 
the Indian Museum was administered by trustees, on 
the model of the British Museum, an arrangement ill- 
suited to a polity where, outside official circles, trustees 
with the necessary academic experience are not easy 
to find. One of the most unsatisfactory results of this 
system was that, although all ate of one salt and owned 
the Government as their father and mother, the zoo- 
logical officers—irrespective of professional seniority 
or length of service—had always to be the official 
subordinates of their confréres in kindred scientific 
departments, who were constantly associated with the 
museum as trustees. f 
This anomaly was rectified by making the senior 
zoological officer eligible for the office of trustee, a 
resort to legal fiction which, although it placed zoology 
in proper official perspective, was calculated to offend 
tender consciences. 
All such fictions are now obviated by bringing the 
whole zoological staff and its appurtenance into line 
with other scientific departments of the Government of 
India, and placing the senior representative of zoology 
on the same footing as the directors of the kindred 
scientific surveys—a position in which his opportunities 
of advocating and initiating research are much aug- 
mented and his responsibilities as an independent 
oe adviser to Government are distinct and 
irect. 
NO. 2450, VOL. 98] 
GENETIC STUDIES IN PLANTS. 
‘ihe a paper on ‘Growth and Variation in Maize" 
(Zeitschr. f. indukt. Abstammungs- und Vererb- 
ungslehre, xiv., 1915, Nos. 3-4), Drs. Raymond Pearl 
and F. M. Surface combine the statistical and indi- 
vidual methods of inquiry. ‘‘We have tried,’’ they 
write, ‘‘by studying the growth of the individual to 
analyse the adult variation curve into its component 
elements.’’ Height is the character chosen for inves- 
tigation; the relative variability as observed through- 
out the season “shows a marked progressive diminu- 
tion,’ and the authors believe that the maize plant 
grows ‘‘in a series of cycles.’’ In a second part of the 
paper they discuss the relation of variation to growth, 
and from the distribution of small, medium, and large 
plants conclude that the manner of growth is de- 
pendent on Mendelian factors. 
Maize is also the subject of a paper in the Journ. 
Agric. Research (vi., No. 12) by G. N. Collins, who 
deals with ‘“‘correlated characters’? in the species. 
Eleven characters were selected for study, and of fifty- 
five possible combinations twenty were found to show 
significant correlations; but in all but five these appear 
to be physiological rather than genetic, and in no 
instance is the coefficient higher than 0-5. The author 
fears, therefore, that the method of isolating types is. 
inapplicable tu maize, though desirable characters de- 
rived from different parents may be easily combined. 
The “Suppression of Characters on Crossing,” illus- 
trated by experiments on species of wheat, is discussed 
in a paper by R. H. Biffen (Journ. of Genetics, v., 
No. 4). He finds that dominant features, such as grey- 
ness of chaff or redness of grain, may be suppressed, so 
that ‘‘recessives make their appearance in F, genera- 
tions from crosses of parents showing dominant char- 
acters only." This may perhaps be due to the existence 
of more than one factor giving rise to apparently the 
same dominant character, and the consequent possi- 
bility that two factors determining the recessive may 
meet in some of the zygotes that give rise to the F, 
generation. 
Dr. T. Tammes contributes a paper to the Pro- 
ceedings (xviii., No. 7) of the Kon. Akad. v. Wetensch. 
Amsterdam ‘‘On the Mutual Effect of Genotypic 
Factors.’’ She has experimented by crossing varieties 
of flax differing in colour (blue or white) and breadth 
