Mabch 26, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



501 



Till a great sea-bird, tern or ptarmigan, 

 Caught by the whiteness of Ms lonely face, 

 Swooped low exultantly; huge swish of wings 

 Measuring Ms body, as he struck him once. 

 Thud of the ribbed beak, like a call to arms 

 Stirring the wounded soldier, etc." 



What would not Mr. Chapman give for a 

 moving picture of the author's mental image 

 of a ptarmigan? Would it be in order, since 

 Miss Florence Wilkinson is the writer to 

 whom we are indebted for a description of this 

 new species, to call the Ribbed-beaked Ptar- 

 migan, Lagopus willcinsonif 



Hubert Lyman Clark 



science and politics in cuba 

 To THE Editor op Science: I have just 

 learned that the new Cuban administration 

 has asked for the resignation of all the Amer- 

 icans on the staff of the Cuban Agricultural 

 Experiment Station. This is purely a polit- 

 ical move made to supply more places for the 

 horde of hungry office seekers. No comment is 

 needed when a government is willing to make 

 a political football of its only efficient scien- 

 tific institution. The following is a list of 

 those who have been so suddenly and unjustly 

 deprived of their positions. I know all of 

 these gentlemen personally and am familiar 

 with their work. Many of them are former 

 colleagues. I take a great pleasure in heart- 

 ily recommending them to any institutions 

 who may have vacancies in these respective 

 lines. 



Dr. N. S. Mayo, Chief, Department of Animal 



Industry. 

 Mr. J. S. Montgomery, Assistant, Department of 



Animal Industry. 

 Professor Wm. T. Home, Chief, Department of 



Vegetable Pathology and Entomology. 

 Mr. J. S. Houser, Assistant, Department of Vege- 

 table Pathology and Entomology. 

 Professor E. S. Stark, Chief, Department of 



Chemistry. 

 Dr. H. Hasselbring, Chief, Department of Botany. 

 Professor C. F. Austin, Chief, Department of 



Horticulture. 

 Mr. C. F. Elinman, Assistant, Department of 



Horticulture. 



F. S. Earle 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Laboratory Notes on Industrial Water Analy- 

 sis. A Survey Course for Engineers. By 

 Ellen H. Eichards, Instructor in Sanitary 

 Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of 

 Technology. 8vo, pp. iii + 49. Cloth, 50' 

 cents net (2s. net) . New York, John Wiley- 

 & Sons; London, Chapman & Hall, Limited. 

 1908. 



The book is written for the use of students 

 of engineering and deals with " boiler waters "' 

 principally. 



Part I. is divided into five laboratory exer- 

 cises: First, Classification of a Water as; 

 " Scale-forming," " Moderately Scale-form- 

 ing," or " Corrosive " ; second. Determination 

 of "Total Solids," " Incrustants," "Iron"" 

 and "Sulphates"; third, "Alkalinity,"' 

 " Magnesium as Hydrate " and " Permanent 

 Hardness"; fourth, "Action Upon Metals,"' 

 " Oxygen Consumed " and " Dissolved Oxy- 

 gen " ; fifth, " Eemedies for Defects Found in; 

 Waters." " Only special methods are con- 

 sidered, leaving out the ordinary analytical 

 processes to be found in text-books." 



Part II. is devoted to the preparation of 

 " standard solutions " and to sundry tables- 

 useful in water analysis. 



The following sentence is well worthy of 

 attention, as it points to a fact often lost 

 sight of : " Water unsatisfactory for one pur- 

 pose may be, or may be made, quite satisfac- 

 tory for another." 



Mrs. Eichards has had such extended ex- 

 perience in matters dealing with water ex- 

 amination that anything from her pen is al- 

 ways of value. 



W. P. Mason 



A Laboratory Guide for Histology. By Irvin& 



Hardesty^ A.B., Ph.D., with a chapter on 



Laboratory Drawing, by Adelebert Watts 



Lee, M.D. With 30 illustrations, 2 of which 



are in colors. Pp. 193. Philadelphia, P. 



Blakiston's Son & Co. 1908. 



That there is a place for such a well-planned, 



practical series of laboratory outlines for the 



study of histology and microscopic anatomy as 



are found in this guide the reviewer has no- 



