March 8, 1918] 



SCIENCE 



233 



parently irreconcilable objects can be effec- 

 tively attained through the establislimcnt of 

 municipal bread bureaus, which should sub- 

 sidize or tax the bakers according to the 

 fluctuations in the price of corn. This ex- 

 pedient was successfully resorted to during the 

 Crimean War. 



It is urged that the home production of 

 manures should be fostered by using every 

 measure to increase the output of sulphate of 

 ammonia, by developing the synthetic manu- 

 facture of nitrates and ammonia from the 

 atmosphere, and by increasing the production 

 of superphosphate, all of which industries, it 

 is urged, should have the same privileges as 

 munition factories. To secure increased crops 

 arrangements should be made for free dis- 

 tribution of manures to small cultivators. 



Measures must be taken for restoring the 

 head of live stock. To this end restrictions 

 must be placed upon slaughter of home stock ; 

 the colonial resources of Madagascar and 

 Africa must be drawn upon for meat, to be 

 prepared there in frozen or otherwise pre- 

 served condition in order to reduce costs of 

 transport. For the same reason abattoirs and 

 refrigerating plants should be established in 

 the home meat-producing districts, whereby 

 cheaper production and reduction in the num- 

 ber of middlemen would be secured. The 

 strong prejudice of the people against re- 

 frigerated or preserved meat must be broken 

 down, and much could be done in this di- 

 rection by the use of such products through- 

 out the Army and Navy. 



THE SHALER MEMORIAL EXPEDITION 



After the death of Professor Nathaniel 

 Southgate Shaler a group of more than 700 

 Harvard alumni raised an endowment for the 

 " Shaler Memorial Fund," the income of which 

 was to be used for geological research. The 

 Harvard Alumni Journal reports that carry- 

 ing out of the purpose for which that fund was 

 created, a Shaler Memorial Expedition was or- 

 ganized last year to cover much the same 

 ground which Professor Shaler himself tra- 

 versed in a journey during the summer of 

 1873. The expedition of 1917 set out to study 



the stratigraphy of the Ordovician formations 

 from Pennsylvania to Alabama; were Professor 

 Shaler alive, he would be especially interested 

 in the attempt to correlate formations over so 

 large an area, or, as he expressed it, the study 

 of " that wonderful record of the first stages 

 of the life and sea." 



Professor J. B. Woodworth conducted the 

 first Shaler Memorial Expedition; it went to 

 Brazil in 1908. The expedition of 1917 to the 

 Appalachians was conducted by Dr. Percy E. 

 Raymond, associate professor of paleontology 

 and curator of invertebrate paleontology at 

 Harvard University, who started from Cam- 

 bridge on August 1. He was joined at Salem, 

 Va., by Mr. Richard M. Field, lecturer at 

 Brown University. Thence the party worked 

 southward as far as Bristol, Tenn. Dr. Ellis 

 W. Shuler, of the Southern Methodist Univer- 

 sity, Texas, acted as guide from Blacksburg to 

 Bristol. 



As in Professor Shaler's expedition of 1873, 

 the travelers of 1917 had to be " free to move 

 in any direction." Even with the greatly im- 

 proved railroad facilities, it was next to im- 

 possible, without independent means of trans- 

 portation, to cross and recross the mountains 

 along their entire length, in the time allowed. 

 The Appalachians still remain a great barrier 

 to the interior of our country, a fact of consid- 

 erable military significance. But the automo- 

 bile solved the problem of transportation, as 

 the wagon did in 1873 ; although tire and en- 

 gine troubled occurred, the car was a great aid 

 in reaching distant and out-of-the-way sections, 

 and bringing in si)ecimens. 



During the first field-season the party was 

 able to work the principal sections between 

 Pennsylvania and Tennessee, and it is hoped 

 that two additional years of intensive study, 

 especially the northward, will supply the ma- 

 terial for a thorough description of the Ordo- 

 vician rocks and faunas of the Appalachians. 



The first year's work has already brought to 

 light facts regarding the nature and distri- 

 bution of sediments and faunas which are 

 original and contrary to some preconceived 

 ideas. The field work in Central Pennsylvania, 

 which was started independently in 1915 by 



