January 13, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



43 



35. $300 to Professor G. G. Bogert for re- 

 search into the law of conditional sales. 



36. $2,000 to Professor V. Karapetoff for 

 investigations on mechanical aids in the design 

 of electrical machinery and lines, and a study of 

 fields of force or flow, electric, magnetic and 

 hydraulic. 



Supplement to Xo. 19. $150 to Professor 

 Wallace Notestein to continue his work of editing 

 historical documents. 



37. $1,500 to Professors Bancroft, Chamot and 

 Merritt for the study of structural colors in 

 feathers. 



Supplement to No. 25. $150 to Professor A. A. 

 Allen to enable him to continue his experiments 

 in the artificial propagation of the ruffed grouse 

 and the canvasback duck. 



38. $450 to Professors Orndorff and Gibbs for 

 a study of the absorption spectra of orthocresol- 

 sulphonphthalein and other related compounds. 



39. $3,000 to Professor J. S. Shearer for the 

 study of the selective absorption of X-rays, and 

 of new methods of exciting X-ray tubes. 



Supplement to No. 3. $450 to Professor J. C. 

 Bradlej' to enable him to complete his illustra- 

 tions of the wing venation of Hymenoptera. 



Supplement to No. 11. An additional sum of 

 $450 to Professor F. K. Eichtmyer for further 

 investigations in the laws of the absorption of 

 X-rays. 



40. $3,000 to Professor H. Diederichs for study 

 of the infiltration of air into buildings through 

 walls and windows, the development of a satis- 

 factory heat treatment of ' ' Kinite ' ' alloy steel, 

 and of the combustion process in a Diesel engine. 



41. $700 to Professor C. E. Crosby for draw- 

 ings of the genitalia of a group of spiders, the 

 linyphiidas, to be used in devising a natural sys- 

 tem of classification of the species and to deter- 

 mine the limits of the general and tlieir affinities. 



42. $300 to Professor W. P. Willeox for statis- 

 tical investigations. 



43. $300 to Professor W. L. Westermann for 

 editing Greek papyri owned by Cornell University. 



THE STANDARDIZATION OF BIOLOGICAL 

 STAINS 

 The need of standardizing stains for bio- 

 logical uses has become increasingly evident 

 during the last four or five years. During this 

 period German stains have been either diffieult 

 to obtain or entirely unavailable; and the 

 American products, although often excellent, 

 have varied so much one from another as to 



give uncertain results. The manufacturers 

 have been willing to meet the demand of bio- 

 logists, but the latter have generally been un- 

 certain just what they wanted. The efforts of 

 the Society of American Bacteriologists to 

 clarify the situation have already been men- 

 tioned in this publication i. More recently 

 other societies have offered to assist in the 

 work, many of the men concerned expressing 

 a wish not to try to duplicate the Grubler 

 stains, but to secure domestic stains better than 

 their foreign predecessors. 



The interest thus awalvened led to a confer- 

 ence held on November 5, 1921, at the Chem- 

 ists Club, New York City, to discuss the stand- 

 ardization of biological stains and the steps 

 to be taken to develop a reliable American sup- 

 pl5'. The conference was under the auspices 

 of the National Research Council, Dr. L. R. 

 Jones, chairman of the Division of Biology 

 and Agriculture, presiding. Those present 

 were : L. R. Jones, H. E. Howe, and C. E. 

 McChtng, of the Research Council (Dr. 

 Me Clung also representing the American So- 

 ciety of Zoologists) ; E. D. Ball and J. A. Am- 

 bler, of the Department of Agriculture; W. F. 

 Keohan, of the Chemical Foundation; R. 

 A. Harper and T. E. Hazen, representing the 

 Botanical Society of America; H. J. Conn, 

 representing the Society of American Bacterio- 

 logists; and R. T. Will of the Will Corpora- 

 tion. 



H. J. Conn spoke for the Bacteriological 

 Society, stating the interests of this society 

 in the matter and showing what had been 

 accomplished during the past year by coopera- 

 tive work among the members of the society. 

 He stated that stains must be standardized by 

 three different methods : by chemical analysis, 

 by testing for bacterial staining, and by test- 

 ing for histological purposes. So far as bac- 

 terial staining is concerned, he considered his 

 society to be already in a position to select 

 satisfactory samples of basic fuchsin and 

 methylene blue, and believed that the work 

 now in progress on gentian violet would soon 

 lead to a similar result in regard to that stain. 



1 H. J. Conn. The Production of Biological 

 Stains in America. Sci. N. S., 58, 289-290. 



