Makch 3, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



245 



Extolled by LeConte as the "founder of 

 American geology," and by McGee as the 

 "founder of American stratigraphy," said by 

 Dana to be the man without whom "the geo- 

 logical history of the North American con- 

 tinent could not have been written," Hall's 

 present biographer concludes that he "was in 

 truth the apostle of historical geology." Much 

 praise is due Dr. Clarke for the lively way in 

 which he sets Hall — and many of his contem- 

 poraries — before us in these pages. The task 

 was a great one, attended with peculiar diffi- 

 culties, and its accomplishment reflects high 

 credit upon the author. The paleontologic sun 

 rose in New York in 1836, and its warmth still 

 radiates from the Empire State throughout the 

 North American continent! 



Charles Schuchbet 



SPECIAL ARTICLES 



THE SYNTHESIS OF FULL COLORATION 



IN PHLOX 



In the issue of Genetics for March, 1920, 

 the writer published facts bearing on the color 

 of the flower blade in Phlox Drummondii. 

 Certain E^ purples that were full-colored and 

 self-colored appeared as the progeny of two 

 plants whose blades were a clear white. These 

 F^ purples, when self-pollinated, gave rise to 

 an F, group comprising several t3rpes of co- 

 rolla. A bluing factor in heterozygous condi- 

 tion in the F^ individuals doubled the number 

 of F^ colored sorts. Ignoring the differences 

 caused by this factor there were in the F, 

 gToup the following general types (illustrated 

 in colors in Plate 1 in Genetics, Vol. 5) : 



1. Showy full-colored purple or rose type 

 resembling the F^. The color is evenly suf- 

 fused over the blade, i. e., the blade is self- 

 colored. 



2. A lighter type whose color is bright pink- 

 ish or light purplish. This kind also has its 

 color uniformly suffused over the blade. 



3. Dusky type whose dull magenta color 

 is merely stippled on to the blade giving the 

 flower the appearance of a dusty or dirty-look- 

 ing white. 



4. Pure white-bladed type. 



Proceeding to the F3 generation it was found 

 that the lighter unifoi-mly colored Type 2 never 

 gave rise to duskies (Type 3) on inbreeding, 

 nor did the duskies ever contain plants of Type 

 2 among their offspring. Moreover, neither of 

 these two types, on self-pollination, ever pro- 

 duced Type 1. The deep-colored F, plants of 

 Type 1 were capable of throwing out Types 

 2 and 3 besides repeating themselves. Such 

 analysis led to the hypothesis that full or deep 

 coloration in Phlox must be due to the presence 

 together of the second and third types, or rather 

 to the genes for these two types, -i\-hich are not 

 allemorphic. 



During the past year this hypothesis was 

 tested out by the actual putting together, 

 through hybridization, of Types 2 and 3. In 

 all, seven matings of Types 2 and 3 were made 

 yielding 59 ofl'spring and from every crossing 

 the progeny were both full-colored and self- 

 colored. 



Type 2 + Type 3 = Type 1. 

 This synthesis supplements and confirms the 

 author's earlier work on the genetic relation- 

 ship of color types in Phlox Drummondii. 



Pennsylvania State College 



J. P. Kelly 



THE PROPOSED FEDERATION OF 

 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETIES 



A CONFERENCE of officers of a number of 

 biological societies was held in Toronto on 

 December 27, 1921, to discuss the feasibility of 

 closer cooperation among these societies. This 

 conference was the outgrowth of two some- 

 what informal meetings in Chicago, the first in 

 December, 1920, upon the initiative of the sec- 

 retary of the American Society of Naturalists, 

 the second in April, 1921, at the instance of the 

 officers of the American Society of Zoologists 

 and of the Botanical Society of America. At 

 the request of those in attendance at the second 

 conference the call for the Toronto meeting 

 was issued by the Division of Biology and 

 Agriculture of the National Keseareh Council. 

 The discussion of the Toronto conference was 

 in a measure directed in accordance with a pro- 

 gram arranged by the chairman of the Division 



