334 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VII. No. 167. 



The endowment of research is demanded 

 now as never before. The development of 

 technical education, the intellectual training 

 of men to fit them for positions formerly 

 held by mere tyros, has changed the ma- 

 terial conditions in America. The surveyor 

 has disappeared — none but a civil engineer 

 is trusted to lay out even town lots ; the 

 founder at an iron furnace is no longer 

 merely a graduate of the casting house — he 

 must be a graduate in metallurgy ; the 

 manufacturer of paints cannot entrust his 

 factory to any but a chemist of recognized 

 standing; no graduate from the pick is 

 placed in charge of mines — a mining engi- 

 neer alone can gain confidence ; and so 

 everywhere. With the will to utilize the 

 results of science there has come an inten- 

 sity of competition in which victory belongs 

 only to the best equipped. The profit 

 awaiting successful inventors is greater 

 than ever and the anxious readiness to 

 apply scientific discoveries is shown by 

 the daily records. The Eontgen rays 

 were seized at once and eiforts made to 

 find profitable application ; the properties 

 of zirconia and other earths interested in- 

 ventors as soon as they were announced ; 

 the possibility of telegraphing without wires 

 incited inventors everywhere as soon as the 

 principle was discovered. 



Nature's secrets are still unknown and 

 the field for investigation is as broad as 

 ever. We are only on the threshold of 

 discovery and the coming century will dis- 

 close wonders far beyond any yet disclosed. 

 The atmosphere, studied by hundreds of 

 chemists and physicists for a full century, 

 proved for Eayleigh and Eamsay an unex- 

 plored field within this decade. We know 

 nothing yet. We have gathered a few large 

 pebbles from the shore, but the mass of 

 sands is yet to be explored. 



And now the moral has been drawn. 

 The pointing is simple. If America, 

 which, more than other nations, has 



profited by science, is to retain her place, 

 Americans must encourage, even urge re- 

 search ; must strengthen her scientific so- 

 cieties and her universities, that under the 

 new and more complicated conditions her 

 scientific men and her inventors may place 

 and keep her in the front rank of nations. 

 John J. Stevenson. 

 New York Univeksity. 



RECENT PROGRESS IN MALACOLOGY. 

 The literature of the Eudistes in America 

 is very scant. One of the important contri- 

 butions to it that has yet appeared is due to 

 Professor E. P. Whitfield,* who has re- 

 cently described an interesting collection 

 from the Cretaceous rocks of Jamaica. This 

 comprises six species of Radiolites, one of 

 Caprina, two of Caprinella and one of Cap- 

 rinula. The descriptions are accompanied 

 by excellent photo-engravings of the speci- 

 mens, one of which reaches eighteen inches 

 in diameter. In the same BuUetinf Pro- 

 fessor Whitfield prints some extremely in- 

 teresting observations on the problematical 

 organism called Barrettia, first described by 

 Woodward in 1862, from the Cretaceous 

 limestones of Jamaica. The specimens 

 which form the subject of the present article 

 include, beside the original type of the 

 genus, two new species which, with the 

 others, are lavishly illustrated. Barrettia 

 was first regarded as one of the Eudistse 

 though certain features analogous to coral 

 structure were pointed out by Woodward. 

 Whitfield's observations, though not claimed 

 as decisive, lead in the latter direction and 

 indicate that this singular fossil is probably 

 related to the operculate corals, though 

 from many points of view widely separated 

 from any of the corals hitherto recognized 

 as such. It may be mentioned that the 



*Bun. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. IX., Art. XL, pp. 

 185-196, PI. VL-XXII., New York, 1897. 



fOp. cit., Art XX., pp. 233-246, PI. XXVII.- 

 XXXVIII. 



