May 26, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



567 



of the seed-plants do not appear to fit into 

 tills conception in even an approximately satis- 

 factory manner. 



E. C. Jeffrey 

 Labokatoeies of Plant Morphology, 

 Habvaed TJniveksity 



RIVER-BANK MOVEMENTS DUE TO THE 

 EARTH'S ROTATION 



To THE Editor of Science: In Science, 

 March 17, Mr. 0. E. Jennings calls attention 

 to a difference between the east and west banks 

 of one of the short streams flowing across the 

 almost flat southern slope of Long Island : "An 

 almost imperceptibly sloping eastern bank and 

 a western bank rising quite steeply." Mr. 

 Jennings says, "This peculiar situation has long 

 l>een accepted rather generally by geologists 

 and ■ physiographers as due to the westerly 

 deflection of streams by the earth's rotation" 

 (italics mine). The statement just quoted is 

 doubtless an accidental slip. The fact is that 

 because of the earth's rotation longitudinal 

 rivers in the northern hemisphere erode their 

 right banks — whether they flow south or north. 



In offering another hypothesis for those 

 Long Island banks Mr. Jennings makes the 

 justifiable suggestion that the stream in ques- 

 tion — as regards length and velocity — is incom- 

 petent for securing through the earth's rota- 

 tion the effects observed. If it has a narrow 

 channel and carries a small volume of water 

 these items should be added to its other dis- 

 qualifications. And finally, the latitude of 

 Long Island — less than half the distance from 

 ' the Equator to the North Pole — is none too 

 favorable for river-bank movement due to the 

 earth's behavior as a heavenly body. 



In this connection reference may here be 

 made to the unquestionable evidence of the 

 earth's rotation afforded by the Yenisei. There 

 is probably nowhere else in the world any other 

 stream so favorable for the study of bank 

 movement on a vast scale. This for three rea- 

 sons : This Siberian river is closely longi- 

 tudinal; of great size; and so far north that a 

 considerable section of it lies within the Arctic 

 Circle. Dr. Fridtjof Nansen, who has sailed 

 up this river from its mouth to Yeniseisk — a 

 distance of more than a thousand miles — 

 writes of the very pronounced contrast be- 



tween the east and west banks. "Every one 

 going up the Yenisei must be struck with the 

 remarkable difference between the east and 

 west sides of the river. While the flat land on 

 the east is comparatively high and falls 

 abruptly with a steep bank to the river, a 

 steeply sloping beach and relatively deep water 

 outside, the land on the west is strikingly low. 

 The steep river bank is not high, and the bare 

 sandy beach slopes quite gently to the water, 

 with a shelving bottom far beyond it, so that 

 as a rule it is not easy to apjDroach this shore 

 in a ship or boat." And again, "It is striking 

 how much higher and steeper the east bank is 

 than the west everywhere along here." 



Dr. Nansen's observations^ of this northern 

 river and his discussion of what he saw forms 

 a distinct contribution to the literature of the 

 subject of such river-bank movements as are 

 to be referred to the rotation of the earth. 



Ellen Hayes 



Wellesley, Mass. 



THE DECOMPOSITION OF TUNGSTEN 



Sir Ernest Rutherford, in the statement 

 copied from Nature in the April 21 issue of 

 Science, was in the very difficult position of 

 being "asked to say a few words" in comment 

 on a brief cablegram to the London Times 

 which was itself based on an exaggerated Asso- 

 ciated Press dispatch to American newspapers 

 concerning the preliminary and oral but as yet 

 unpublished report of Mr. Clarence E. Irion 

 and myself on the apparent decomposition of 

 tungsten at extremely high temperatures. He 

 mentions the need of a complete report before 

 intelligent comment is possible, but proceeds 

 to make three points which are properly con- 

 servative and entirely correct but, as will be 

 seen fixsm the complete paper upon its pub- 

 lication in the Journal of the American Chem- 

 ical Society, which are all irrelevant. In view 

 of the publicity given to Sir Ernest's comments 

 in Nature and in Science, however, a few 

 words in reply are needed. 



The first point is that the appearance of 

 helium has often been observed in electrical 



1 Nansen, Fridtjof: Through Siberia, the Land 

 of the Future, 71, 72, 73, and 157, 158, etc. 



