SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII, No. 952 



As this volume will, in all probability, close 

 the collection of Sumner's printed works in 

 the line of essays and short pieces, those who 

 can assist us in securing available materials 

 will confer a substantial favor. 



Albert G. Keller 



lest we forget 



To THE Editor of Science: The new ad- 

 ministration, with democratic majorities in 

 both house and senate, was entrusted with 

 power in the belief that it will be responsive 

 to the needs and demands of the people. But 

 in the various programs suggested for the 

 amelioration of present-day abuses nowhere 

 has any mention been made of the early adop- 

 tion of the metric system as an obligatory 

 system in this country, accompanied by the 

 destruction of the old systems. The writer 

 has reached that second childhood when, at 

 the request of his children for aid in doing 

 their " sums," he must again wade through 

 the chapters in the arithmetic devoted to the 

 various tables of hodge-podge units, and he 

 realizes, as never before, the truth of the 

 statement that the whole thing is " a wickedly 

 brain-destroying piece of bondage under which 

 we suffer." 



To see young minds eager for the study of 

 live subjects forced to work hundreds of use- 

 less problems in this treadmill of heterogene- 

 ous dead and dying units is enough to rouse 

 the ire of any one against those selfish inter- 

 ests which are blocking the way of reform. 



When we consider the situation candidly 

 we must acknowledge that the matter is one 

 of extreme importance. A great part of the 

 under-weight and false-measure frauds are 

 directly due to our confused system of units, 

 and on the adoption of the metric system 

 under such protective regulations as are in 

 force in Germany, for example, a tremendous 

 saving would be effected in the cost of living 

 to wage earners especially. Can not all sci- 

 entists, who understand so well the merits of 

 the metric system, rouse themselves and make 

 a strong effort to have the bill passed which 

 has been before congress for many years, 

 backed by the various government bureaus 



and reform leagues? It took thirty years to 

 obtain the parcel post; must we wait that 

 long? Or can we not make a long pull, a 

 strong pull, and a pull all together, and get it 

 through next winter? 



A. H. Patterson 

 Universitt op North Carolina, 

 Chapel Hill 



to whom is the academic costume worth 



WHILE ? 



To THE Editor of Science: Even if we dis- 

 agree on the use of medieval costume in mod- 

 ern institutions as a matter of academic good 

 taste, may we not set our faces against any 

 participation in the decision by a commercial 

 propaganda aiming to extract large profits 

 from members of an underpaid profession? 



T. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Cambrian Brachiopoda. By Charles D. Wal- 



COTT. Monograph U. S. Geological Survey, 



Vol. 51. Part I., Text. Part II., Plates. 



1912. Pp. 872, 76 text figures, 104 plates. 



The dominating impression which this ex- 

 traordinary work leaves upon one who runs a 

 hasty eye over its pages and luxurious plates, 

 is that of the marvelous industry and en- 

 thusiasm of its author. If the paleontolog- 

 ical genius who controlled these facts here as- 

 sembled had nothing else to do, the wonder 

 might be less. But amid the responsibilities 

 of a great office and affairs of widest scientific 

 concern, the writer of this book seems to let 

 no minutes go to waste which can be made to 

 forward his expositions of that field in pale- 

 ontology of which he has long been the most 

 effective illumihator. 



Here are two quarto volumes devoted, by 

 title at least, exclusively to the Brachiopods 

 of the Cambrian fauna. Nearly twenty years 

 ago students of this multitudinous, variant 

 group of animals believed the sum of knowl- 

 edge concerning them enough to justify a 

 treatise on the broad lines of their generic 

 characters, so Professor James Hall and his 

 assistant published two big quartos on this 

 subject, therein searching out every nook and 

 cranny that might afford traits of generic sig- 



