July 28, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



111 



■which might lead a careless reader to think 

 that this was the sole source of Sperm Oil, 

 even though in dealing with the Sperm Whale 

 fishery it is apparent that this is not the case. 

 Another statement capable of misinterpreta- 

 tion is that the "entire Arctic fleet was 

 destroyed by pack ice in 1871," which happily 

 was not the case, as, while 34 ships were 

 crushed in the ice, seven vessels were left 

 which brought home the crews without the loss 

 of a single life. 



In the very useful bibliography, we miss, 

 among some others, any reference to Star- 

 buck's "History of the American Whale Fish- 

 ery" with its wealth of information and detailed 

 lists of vessels and their catch. That the 

 "Speckshioner" and his duties are not defined 

 nor his title mentioned in the index is possibly 

 a personal grievance due to "satiable curiosity" 

 aroused by Kipling. 



But these are trivial matters; destructive 

 criticism is the easiest thing in the world, and 

 to point out all the good things in the book 

 would be to write another. Jenkins' "History 

 of the Whale Fishery" is simply indispensable 

 to any one interested in the subject of whaling, 

 and in these days, when information in regard 

 to the early days of the industry is eagerly 

 sought for, and paintings, models and relies 

 of the old whale ships bring surprisingly large 

 prices, this book should be most welcome. 



F. A. Lucas 



American Museum of Natural History 



SPECIAL ARTICLES 

 BACTERIAL PUSTULE OF SOY BEAN 



Ever since 1904^ there have been scattering 

 references in phytopathological literature to a 

 bacterial leaf spot or bacterial blight of soy 

 bean, due, it was assumed, to Bacterium 

 phaseoU Erw. Sm., but there has been no pub- 

 lication of any experimental proof of this 

 theory. In 1917 Johnson and Coerper^ pub- 



1 Sniith, Erwin F. : " Bacterial Leaf -spot Dis- 

 eases," Science, N. S., XIX, No. 480, pp. 416- 

 418, 1904. 



2 Johnson, A. G., and Coerper, Florence M. : 

 "A Bacterial Blight of Soy Bean" (abstract). 

 Phytopathology, VII, 65, 1917. 



lished a note on a bacterial blight of soy bean 

 caused by a white organism which in a later 

 paper by Miss Coerper^ was named Bad. 

 glycineum. Since then Wolf*. ^ and Shunk° 

 have described a bacterial leaf spot caused by 

 an organism which the former has named Bac- 

 terium sojcs, but which is very similar to' if 

 not identical with Bact. glycineum Coerper. 



Since the publication of these papers there 

 have been an increasing number of references 

 in the literature, including the reports of the 

 plant disease survey of the U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture, to "bacterial blight" or "bac- 

 terial leaf spot" of soy bean without any men- 

 tion of the causal organism, due to the assump- 

 tion, presumably, that there is but one disease 

 and that due to Bact. glycineum Coerper. 



In 1917 the writer isolated from soy bean 

 leaves from Texas a yellow organism very 

 closely resembling Bact. phaseoli Erw. Sm. 

 With pure culture inoculation with this organ- 

 ism infection has been repeatedly produced 

 both on soy beans and several varieties of 

 garden beans belonging to the genus Phaseolus. 

 From these artificial infections the same yellow 

 organism has been re-isolated and with it in- 

 fections have been produced on sound plants. 

 The infections on Phaseolus when made in 

 favorable circumstances are not to be distin- 

 guished from those caused by Bact. phaseoli 

 isolated from Phaseolus, but, except under 

 very abnormal conditions to be described in a 

 paper in preparation, no infections have ever 

 been obtained on soy-bean with the latter or- 

 ganism, although repeated attempts have been 

 made. Furthermore, there are certain internal 

 markings very commonly though not univer- 

 sally present in the colonies of the soy-bean 

 strain of the organism which have been ob- 

 served in only two colonies of the many thou- 

 sands isolated from Phaseolus. The markings 



3 Coerper, Florence M. : " Bacterial Blig^ht of 

 Soy Bean," Jour. Agr. Res., XVIII, No. 4, pp. 

 179-193, 1919. 



^Wolf, F. A.: "Baoterial BUght of Soy 

 Bean," Phytopathology, X, No. 3, pp. 119-132, 

 1920. 



5 Shunk, I. v., and Wolf, F. A. : " Further 

 Studies on Bacterial Blight of Soy Bean, ' ' Phy- 

 topathology, XI, No. 1, pp. 18-24, 1921. 



