198 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. I.VI, No. 1442 



of California officials are about ready to adopt 

 for their publication material of all depart- 

 ments the settled policy of curtailing or ex- 

 eluding generally explanatory discussion which 

 is plainly redundant or needlessly explicit, and 

 of curtailing or excluding tabular, statistical 

 or other exhibitive matter which is likely to 

 receive little or no attention from most readers. 

 But, in order that such exhibitive material shall 

 not be lost to pennanent record (where its 

 value may be far superior to mere textual dis- 

 cussion) it is expected that limited numbers 

 of copies of such matter will be mimeographed 

 or otheiTvise duplicated and placed in certain 

 repositories designated because of their accessi- 

 bility to those persons most likely to need such 

 records. 



Such a plan seems to offer the best possibili- 

 ties for meeting the adverse conditions men- 

 tioned, but since it is probable that in many or 

 most oases the individuals or organizations con- 

 cerned will be expected to arrange matter for 

 deposit there is danger of much confusion in 

 the process of accumulation at points of 

 deposit. 



Possibly the National Research Council can 

 give early assistance in the matter by obtaining 

 the consent of available institutions to act as 

 repositories and also by classifying them ac- 

 cording to local interests if that should seem 

 desirable. For example, an institution in 

 Indiana would not be very favorable as a place 

 of deposit for most marine material. 



Provision should also be made for putting 

 deposited documents in fairly uniform pack- 

 ages. In the case of statistical tables such as 

 my own the ordinary typewriter sheets (8 x 11 

 inches) would probably be most satisfactory. 

 It would then be an easy matter for the insti- 

 tution of deposit to tie them up or put them 

 in clip binders for convenient and economical 

 storage. 



If definite plans can be made for some such 

 dispersal they will surely greatly expedite the 

 issuance of papers using large volumes of 

 quantitative and statistical records. Such 

 papers may then get into print and into use 

 while still comparatively fresh. Furthermore 

 the worker in such lines will not have so much 

 reason to be discouraged by long delay in pub- 



lication, following the monotony (and some- 

 times dreary drudgery) of making, accumu- 

 lating and interpreting the records. 



W. E. Allen 

 ScKiPPS Institution for 

 Biological Eeseaech, 

 ■University op Calitornla. 



ALFRED GOLDSBOROUGH MAYOR 



To THE Editor of Science : When I saw the 

 name "Alfred Goldsborough Mayor" at the 

 head of Dr. Woodward's most interesting and 

 appreciative notice of his late associate I sus- 

 pected a typographical error, but when I saw 

 the same name "Mayoi'" throughout the article 

 and found it the same in "Who's Who" and 

 in the list of members of the National Acad- 

 emy of Sciences, I realized that a change, 

 which had escaped my notice, in the spelling 

 of this well-known name had been made by 

 the son of my old friend, Professor Alfred 

 M. Mayer, the ohanning and accomplished 

 professor of physics who for so many years 

 was the head of that department at the Stevens 

 Institute of Technology. 



One would like to know the reason for this, 

 which may have been due to the not infrequent 

 pronunciation of the original spelling as if it 

 were "Myer," but this seems an insufficient 

 excuse for abandoning a form so long and so 

 well known in the world of science and art. 



Besides the distinguished father of the late 

 biologist, his uncle, Frank Blackwell Mayer, 

 was an eminent artist who studied in Paris, 

 exhibited in the French salon, won a prize for 

 his paintings at the Centennial exhibition in 

 Philadelphia and made special studies of 

 Indian types in the west. 



His father's uncle, Brantz Mayer, was a dis- 

 tinguished historian and archeologist, the 

 author of numerous volumes and the founder 

 of the Maryland Historical Society. 



Alfred M. Mayer also studied in Paris and 

 always exhibited a fondness for and even a 

 prejudice in favor of French men, methods 

 and books, and I had always assumed that the 

 family was of French origin, a hypothesis 

 which received some confirmation in the fact 

 that one "Constant Mayer," a French artist, 

 came to this country about the middle of the 



