600 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIV. No. 1407. 



tions received in this office tas increased by leaps 

 and bounds. The number of applications for 

 patents has increased 34 per cent, during the period 

 under discussion, while the trade-mark applications 

 increased eighty-five and a half per cent. In July, 

 1919, when Commissioner Newton testified, there 

 were 18,000 patent applications awaiting action. 

 There are now about 50,000 appUeations awaiting 

 examination. It is further shown that a number of 

 divisions are over 11 months behind in their work, 

 and to illustrate the large turnover in the personnel 

 there is cited one of the chemical divisions where 

 five out of the nine examiners have been appointed 

 in the last few months. At the close of the fiscal 

 year, one of these had been in the office only 1 

 week, another 3 weeks, another 7 weeks and another 

 2 months. One out of every four examiners has 

 resigned in 16 months and more than half have re- 

 signed in 32 months. Belief is, therefore, impera- 

 tive. 



Reference is made to the entrance salaries of the 

 assistant examiners, who are a highly educated and 

 picked corps of scientific men, who receive the same 

 initial salary as clerks who perform routine duties 

 in other branches of the government service. Note 

 is made of the inadequacy of the salaries paid to 

 these technical men as compared to their qualifica- 

 tions and the requirements of their position, show- 

 ing the necessity of correcting the disparity of con- 

 ditions. 



The receipts of money for the fiscal year just 

 closed increased from $2,615,297.33 of the previous 

 fiscal year to $2,712,119.69, or almost $100,000. 

 A net surplus of $284,342.93 was earned and if 

 the bonus be subtracted therefrom, the surplus 

 amounted to $71,743.73, making the total net sur- 

 plus to date — that is, the excess of receipts over 

 expenditures during the history of the Patent Office 

 —$8,376,769.92. 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS PUBLISHED BY THE 

 GOVERNMENT 



Practically all the technical and scientific 

 periodicals which the Government is issu- 

 ing have been suspended. These include the 

 Journal of Agncultural Research and the 

 Experiment Siation Record, issued by the 

 Department of Agriculture. 



The matter goes back two years or more 

 to a time when Senator Smoot secured the 

 adoption of a resolution terminating the issue 

 within a specified period of all periodicals 

 not authorized by the Congress. Hearings 



were held and assurance was given that the 

 committee was not concerned with scientific 

 journals, but was particularly interested in 

 certain war-time periodicals which had 

 sprimg up. The time for action was ex- 

 tended once or twice, and, as the committee 

 had failed to decide what should and what 

 should not be printed, an item was inserted 

 in the Sundry Civil Bill last March, extend- 

 ing the time to December 1, 1921, and pro- 

 viding that such publications as were not 

 approved prior to that time should be dis- 

 continued. 



Near the close of the last Congress, Sena- 

 tor Moses, the present chairman of the joint 

 committee on printing, secured the passage 

 of a measure in the Senate placing the 

 matter of continuance or discontinuance in 

 the hands of the joint committee on printing. 

 The resolution went to the House in the 

 closing days of the session, where it was 

 amended by the House committee to provide 

 for a further extension of time to March 1, 

 1922, in order that the committee might have 

 further time for consideration. No action 

 was taken on the resolution and the periodi- 

 cials in question ceased publication with De- 

 cember 1. The latest proposal is not to give 

 any further authorization for the continu- 

 ance of any of them. Discussion of the 

 matter will be found in the Congressional 

 Record for December 7. 



THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF ZOOLOGISTS 



The Toronto meeting of the Am erican So- 

 ciety of Zoologists will convene on Wednesday,* 

 December 28, in the biological building of the 

 University of Toronto. The sessions will con- 

 tinue until Friday night. The program of con- 

 tributed papers numbers 109, the largest in the 

 history of the society. The tentative program 

 follows : 



WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 28 



AM. 

 Section A. Embryology, Cytology and Compara- 

 tive Anatomy. 



Section B. Genetics. 



P.M. 

 Genetics. 



