298 
departments; and, further, that the professional 
opinions of technical officers too frequently 
are not given the due weight which they de- 
serve. Science has done much for the civil 
service; it has not, in return, received the 
recognition which it merits.—Nature. 
SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 
The Physical Chemistry of the Proteins. By T. 
BraitsrorpD Roprrtson. New York, Long- 
mans, Green and Co. Pp. 483. $5.00. 
The limiting adjective “ physical” might be 
omitted from the title of Robertson’s new edi- 
tion, so completely does it cover the field of 
protein chemistry. Part I., including the first 
third of the book, is devoted to the chemical 
constitution of the proteins, their preparation, 
methods of estimation, and the various types 
of compounds which they form with each other 
and with acids, bases, salts, heavy metals, etc. 
Part IT. is devoted to the electro-chemistry of 
the proteins; Part III. to their physical prop- 
erties, such as gelatinization, swelling, coagu- 
lation, viscosity and surface tension, not in- 
eluded under Part II.; and Part IV. to the 
hydrolytic and synthetic actions of enzymes 
on proteins. Throughout the work statements 
and discussions are placed on a quantitative 
basis by the use of mathematical treatment 
wherever data sufticiently complete and accu- 
rate to justify it are available. Biological ap- 
plications are kept continually in view. De- 
spite the fact that he covers so wide a field and 
thoroughly reviews the literature, the author 
seldom fails to augment the interest of his 
material ‘by presenting it from a view-point 
developed from his own experimental and in- 
tellectual researches. 
Donatp D. Van SLYKE 
SPECIAL ARTICLES 
UNLIKE REACTION OF DIFFERENT INDIVID- 
UALS TO FRAGRANCE IN VERBENA 
FLOWERS 
In classifying the floral colors in a certain 
pedigree of verbenas, the writer noticed a con- 
siderable difference in the amount of fragrance 
evident in their flowers. Some plants ap- 
peared to have flowers devoid of odor while 
SCIENCE 
[N. 8. Von. XLVIITI. No. 1238 
the flowers of others were strongly fragrant. 
One with pale pink flowers, which may be 
called plant A, was especially pleasing in this 
respect.. In showing it to my assistant, Mr. 
B. T. Avery, Jr., I remarked that it should be 
called an arbutus verbena since the flowers re- 
sembled the arbutus in both color and odor. 
To my surprise he failed to find any fragrance 
at all in the flowers of this plant. Moreover, 
when he arranged the pedigree according to 
the strength of fragrance which they gave to 
him it was roughly in the reverse order from 
that in which I should have arranged them. 
The most fragrant of all to him was a red- 
flowered plant the flowers of which to me were 
absolutely without fragrance. This for con- 
venience we may call plant B. The flowers 
of plant B then were fragrant to him but not 
to me while those of plant A were fragrant to 
me but not to him. Each of us agreed that 
the other’s favorite had a very slight odor that 
could be best described as a leafy or plant odor 
which apparently was the same as that of the 
foliage. Moreover, he described the fragrance 
from plant B as of a spicy nature resembling 
that from a carnation flower to which J am not 
insensible, while the fragrance of plant A 
seemed to me to closely resemble that of 
arbutus, with which he is also familiar. It 
did not seem to be the case that we both per- 
ceived the same odors but, having different 
preferences, dignified the one which we liked 
with the term fragrant. Rather the facts in- 
dicated that he was insensible to the odors in 
the flowers of A while I was insensible to odors 
in those of B. We repeated the tests many 
times under various conditions with the same 
results. He never was able to perceive any 
fragrance from A while, except upon a few oc- 
casions when I detected a slight odor such as 
he had described, I was unable to find any 
fragrance in his favorite. 
In addition to ourselves, others in the com- 
munity were tested for their reaction to fra- 
grance in our plants A and B. The later tests 
were made in October. Due perhaps to the 
lateness of the season or to other conditions, 
the few remaining flower clusters then pro- 
duced by plant A were not always fragrant. 
