458 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 742 



translation remarks as to this that the vinegar 

 of the present day does not have any such 

 property. If this commentator, however, had 

 had even a little knowledge of chemistry, he 

 might have remembered that the acid of 

 vinegar may cause a considerable effervescence 

 of carbonic acid when brought into contact 

 with chalky or calcareous soils. 



In testing the purity of minerals and 

 precious stones the ancients seem to have ac- 

 quired considerable dexterity. The use of the 

 touch-stone (Coticula) for determining the 

 purity of precious metals and their ores was 

 ■well known to the Eomans and employed with 

 ■such accuracy, according to Pliny (book 33, 

 ■ch. 43), that the proportion of gold, silver or 

 copper could be told instantly, even to the 

 smallest fraction. In detecting the imita- 

 tion of gems and precious stones — concerning 

 which Pliny (book 3Y, ch. 75) states that most 

 colossal deceptions were practised and in no 

 other kind of fraud greater profits made — the 

 ancients were in many ways as skillful as the 

 jewelers of to-day. They employed the bal- 

 ance, tested certain optical properties, and 

 even used a scale of hardness (book 37, 

 ch. 76), it being recognized that some stones 

 could be scratched with a blunt knife, while 

 others could not be marked with the hardest 

 obsidian. 



Lack of space forbids giving other examples 

 of the methods employed by the ancients in 

 testing the purity of the commodities of life. 

 The examples cited however show that the 

 fragmentary records of ancient science pre- 

 served by Pliny, full as they are of inac- 

 ■curacies and absurdities, contain a large 

 amount of reliable chemical knowledge. And 

 if the 474 authors whom Pliny consulted in 

 the preparation of his "History" had come 

 down to us intact we may be sure that our 

 knowledge not only of historical, but also of 

 practical, chemistry would be greatly enriched. 

 0. A. Browne 

 New Yobk 



'evolutionary collections as monuments to 



DARWIN 



To THE Editor op Science: In connection 

 ■with the recent announcements that special 



collections in honor of Darwin are to be 

 formed at the American Museum of Natural 

 History, and that Haeckel intends to devote 

 the remainder of his life to his phylogenetic 

 museum, I venture to call attention to the 

 subjoined selections from my address, " Edu- 

 cational Museums of Vertebrates," before the 

 Biologic Section of the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science in 1885 

 (see the Proceedings, vol. 34, and abstract in 

 Science, September 11, 1885) : 



A statue of Darwin has been unveiled in Lon- 

 don with honorable ceremonies. What monument 

 to his memory could be more appropriate or last- 

 ing than the formation, in all educational insti- 

 tutions, of collections especially designed to ex- 

 hibit the facts which he made significant, and the 

 ideas which his knowledge, his industry and his 

 honesty have caused to underlie the intelligent 

 study of nature throughout the world. Such col- 

 lections should particularly embrace series illus- 

 trating human peculiarities, not only as to skele- 

 ton, but as to brain, heart and other organs; 

 human resemblances to mammals in general; fea- 

 tures that luaite man with the tailless apes, and 

 separate them from all other mammals ; transitory 

 human organs and conditions that resemble the 

 permanent organs and conditions of other mam- 

 mals, especially apes; human anomalies resem- 

 bling the normal structure of apes; anomalies 

 and malformations aflfecting man and other verte- 

 brates in a similar manner; apparently uselesa 

 or detrimental organs or conditions. 



BuRT G. Wilder 

 Ithaca, N. Y., 

 February 13, 1909 



QUOTATIONS 



THE FUTURE OP YALE 



If I were president of Yale! But that is 

 inconceivable. I was never in the hereditary 

 line of descent. Besides I stepped out of aU 

 other lines that tend toward New Haven when, 

 forty years ago, after getting more or less 

 ready for Yale, I went as a pioneer to untried 

 Cornell. I went because botany and geology 

 and European history at Cornell counted for 

 as much as Latin or Greek ; and now I have to 

 take the consequences. 



