April 22, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



389 



, Buclmer was apparently the first to use litmus 

 media for bacteria, although the ophthalmologist 

 Leber preceded him by three years, employing lit- 

 mus gelatine to demonstrate acid production by 



Cahen, and not "Cohen (?)," published his 

 paper in the Journal given, 'in the next volume to 

 that cited. WhUe the citation is not correct as to 

 volume and page, still with the name and Jcmrnal 

 given it hardly justifies characterization as "ap- 

 parently altogether erroneous." 



It thus appears that both of us have been to 

 some extent guilty and the present note is 

 therefore offered in mutual condonation. 



The following list of authentic references 

 prior to 1890 was supplied by Professor 'Novj 

 and each has been confirmed by the under- 

 signed. 



Leber— 5erZ. Min. Wchnschr., 1882, 19. 163. 

 H. Buchner— 4rc7i. /. Hyg., 1885, 3, pp. 417, 



418, 419. 

 Marpmann — Centralhl. f. d. allgemeine Oe- 

 sundheitspflege ; Ergdnzungshefte, 1885- 

 1886, 2, Heft 2, p. 123. (The number 

 appeared in 1886 but the title page of 

 the volume bears date of 1889.) 

 Weisser—Ztschr. f. Eyg., 1886, 1, p. 334. 

 Gahen— Hid., 1887, 2, pp. 387, 394. 

 Neisser — Virchow's Archiv. f. pathol. Anat. 



u. Physiol, 1887, 110, p. 394. 

 Loeffler — Berl. Min. Wchnschr., 1887, 24, pp. 



610, 631. 

 Berhi-ing—Ztschr. f. Eyg., 1889, 6, p. 142; 



7, pp. 173, 177. 

 Petruschky— OewiraZJL /. Bakteriol., 1889, 6, 

 pp. 628, 657. 



Ivan C. Hall 

 Univeesitt of California 



another drift bottle which crossed 

 the atlantic 



In a previous note'- the writer gave the rec- 

 ord of a bottle which drifted from the Gulf of 

 Maine to the Azores. Eeoently record has 



i"Ou a bottle which drifted from the Gulf of 

 Maine to the Azores," Science, N. S., Vol. LIII., 

 No. 1365, February 25, 1921. Through a misprint 

 the writer 'a name was given as ' ' James W. Moor ' ' 

 instead of "James W. Mavor. " 



been received of a bottle which was picked up 

 in the Orkney Islands. This bottle, ISo. 

 230, was set out on the same day (August 29, 

 1919) as No. 198 which went to the Azores and 

 was put out about 6J miles to the southeast of 

 it, i.e., 7j miles southeast of Point Lepreaux 

 in the Bay of Fundy. It was picked up on the 

 Island of Papa Westray, one of the northwest- 

 ern islands of the Orkney group, on January 

 21, 1921, ^bout one year and five months after 

 it was set out. This bottle probably followed 

 the northern route of the North Atlantic wind 

 drift C'Gulf Stream") as indicated for 

 another bottle recorded previously.'- 



James W. Mavor 



Union College, 

 Schenectadt, N. Y. 



NEWSPAPER SCIENCE 



To THE Editor of Science: The recent 

 press reports quoting me as saying that I had 

 " obtained the closest approach to a perfect 

 vacuum ever recorded " are false and without 

 foundation. The daily press copied and added 

 to an item in the Utah Chronicle, a student 

 paper, which itself was inaccurate in saying 

 I had " perfected the apparatus." The stu- 

 dent reporter after seeing in the department 

 of physics a well-known form of vacuum 

 pump wrote the original article without sub- 

 mitting it to me before publication. I am 

 taking this opportunity to deny the state- 

 ments credited to me by the newspapers which 

 have given me so much undesirable and dis- 

 tasteful publicity. 



Orin Tuqman 

 University op Utah, 

 AprU 8, 1921 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



Atmospheric Pollution.^ Sixth Report of the 

 I Committee for the Investigation of Atmos- 

 ■ pheric Pollution. 



(In Science, November 28, 1919, a summary 

 of the fourth report of this committee, on the 

 work in 1917-18, is given.) 



1 Meteorological Office. Eeport on Observations 

 for year ending March 31, 1920, London, 1921. 



