May 3, 1912] 
To offset in some measure the foregoing 
criticisms of the terminology of Mr. Chand- 
ler’s paper let me commend his use of pial, 
dorsal, caudad and cephalad. 
Burt G. WILDER 
A FISTULA IN THE DOGFISH 
In a shipment of dogfish pups (Mustelis 
canis) sent from Woods Hole to the Biolog- 
ical Laboratory of New York University dur- 
ing the summer of 1910, there was a specimen 
about 20 inches long with a cclomic fistula 
which had been closed in a curious manner. 
The opening was on the ventral surface, just 
posterior to the left pectoral fin. Externally 
it was not conspicuous, the tissue of the oval 
sear being much the same color as the sur- 
rounding skin, although evidently of a some- 
what different texture. 
On laying open the body cavity it was found 
that the fistula had been plugged by a growth 
from the left lobe of the liver, which had 
filled the wound completely without adhering 
to the structure of the body wall. The edge 
of the cicatrice, after the liver had been drawn 
away intact, was smooth and thoroughly 
healed. 
Rozert CusHMAN Murruy 
MUSEUM OF THE BROOKLYN INSTITUTE 
NOTE ON “SOME EARLY PHYSIOGRAPHIO 
INFERENCES ” 
Amone the interesting physiographic com- 
ments quoted from early writers by Dr. Emer- 
son on page 374 of Science for March 4, the 
one by James Hall is evidently misinterpreted. 
The quotation is as follows: 
About midway between St. Louis and the mouth 
of the Ohio, masses of limestone rock are seen on 
either side, which, though now unconnected, have 
the appearance of once having formed a continuous 
ridge crossing the river in an oblique direction. 
This is supposed by Emerson to refer to the 
bluffs bordering the new trough of the Miss- 
issippi River near Thebes, IIl., where it leaves 
its old valley and crosses into another form- 
erly occupied by the Ohio River. It seems 
practically certain, however, that Hall had in 
SCIENCE 
693 
mind a conspicuous ridge of limestone beds 
dipping steeply northeastward, which appears 
on the west bank of the Mississippi in Perry 
county, Mo. Just below Wittenberg, this ridge 
has evidently been obliquely intersected by the 
river, the obvious southeastward continuation 
in a direct line appearing on the east bank 
in the picturesque series of isolated rock 
masses known locally as the Devil’s Bake- 
oven and Devil’s Backbone; the latter ending 
abruptly at the town of Grand Tower, Il. 
This is about three fifths of the distance 
from St. Louis to the Ohio, while the Thebes 
eut is only a short distance above the mouth 
of the Ohio; and at the cut neither the rock 
masses nor the oblique direction are especially 
evident. 
Cuartes A. Hart 
ILLINOIS STATE LABORATORY 
or NATURAL HISTORY 
SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 
The Mechanical Factors of Digestion. By 
Water B. Cannon, A.M., M.D., George 
Higginson Professor of Physiology, Har- 
vard University. Illustrated. London, Ed- 
ward Arnold; New York, Longmans, Green 
and Co. 1911. Pp. 297. 
The motor activities of the muscle tube 
which forms the digestive system has long 
been a favorite subject of investigation, and 
a considerable mass of valuable information 
is at our disposal. But this evidence often 
shows a marked lack of harmony, even though 
the observations were made upon the same 
organ in the same animal. The fault, how- 
ever, lay not so much with the experimenters, 
as with the methods employed; there was no 
single procedure which was applicable for the 
study of the entire gastro-intestinal canal 
without grave operative interferences, and 
these interferences often altered or even abol- 
ished the very function which was to be in- 
vestigated. It was therefore natural that 
varying interpretations and consequent con- 
fusion should arise. In 1896, a method was 
developed by means of which the motor func- 
tions of the entire digestive tube, from 
pharynx to rectum, could be observed without 
