July 5, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



15 



in Nature it was reported that Professor 

 Fernbach, of the Pasteur Institute, was, after 

 eighteen months of laborious work, able to 

 produce a fermentation process for the pro- 

 duction of fusel oil from any starchy mater- 

 ial. The process is now so satisfactory that 

 the higher alcohols can be obtained at a cost 

 of not more than £30 per ton. Having pro- 

 duced isoprene cheaply, the next considera- 

 tion was how to polymerize it and convert it 

 into rubber satisfactorily. The discovery of 

 the cheap method for preparing isoprene was 

 first suggested by Dr. Matthews. In 1909 Mr. 

 E. HaKord Strange, of Messrs. Strange and 

 Graham, technical research chemists, directed 

 his organization of chemists, headed by Dr. 

 Matthews, to the problem of the synthetic 

 production of rubber. Dr. F. E. Matthews 

 suggested one method for preparing isoprene 

 in which acetone was one of the raw mater- 

 ials, and later on one in which fusel oil was 

 the starting product. Professor Perkin was 

 then asked to cooperate, and later on Sir Wil- 

 liam Ramsay joined the group as consultant. 

 In July, 1910, Dr. Matthews left some metallic 

 sodium in contact with isoprene, and on re- 

 turning from his holidays in September found 

 that the isoprene had turned into a solid mass 

 of rubber. On further investigation it was 

 found that sodium is a general polymerizing 

 agent for this class of material. The first 

 announcement of this discovery was made by 

 Professor Carl Harries, of Germany, who 

 had made the same discovery independently, 

 about three months later. 



President Taft has just made considerable 

 changes in the National Forests in Mon- 

 tana, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and California 

 through presidential proclamations modifying 

 the boundary lines. By these changes nearly 

 275,000 acres of land are eliminated from the 

 forests, about 65,000 acres are added, and 

 about 55,000 acres are transferred between two 

 forests, while a new forest is created by the 

 division of an old unit into two. The net 

 result is to bring down the total gross area of 

 the national forests to about 187,400,000 acres, 

 of which nearly 27,000,000 acres are in Alaska. 

 To a considerable extent, however, the reduc- 



tions, so far as land actually owned by the 

 government is concerned, are apparent rather 

 than real, owing to heavy alienations in the 

 tracts eliminated. Some 22,000,000 acres of 

 the national forest gross area are not owned 

 by the government. The high-water mark of 

 the national forest gross area was reached in 

 1909, when the forest boundaries included over 

 194,000,000 acres. It was then realized, how- 

 ever, that in making the examinations on 

 which the presidential proclamations creating 

 the forests were based the work had been too 

 rapid to insure in all cases the best boundaries. 

 Sometimes land which should have been in- 

 cluded was left out, while at other times land 

 was taken in which was not best suited to 

 forest purposes. Consequently a complete 

 overhauling and rectification of the forest 

 boundaries was planned, and has been going 

 on ever since. By successive proclamations 

 President Taft has eliminated nearly 11,000,- 

 000 acres, while he has added about 4,000,000 

 acres. In Montana, the new proclamations 

 eliminate a total of 116,370 acres from six 

 forests — the Custer, Absaroka, Blackfeet, Koo- 

 tenai, Lewis and Clark and Flathead — while 

 14,640 acres are transferred from the Black- 

 feet to the Kootenai and 40,640 from the Koo- 

 tenai to the Blackfeet, to facilitate adminis- 

 tration. In Arizona, 106,540 acres are elim- 

 inated from the Coronado National Forest. 

 In Nevada, 49,840 acres are eliminated from 

 the Humboldt and 55,840 acres added, of which 

 12,800 acres are included in the new Ruby 

 National Forest, composed principally of that 

 part of the old Humboldt lying south of the 

 Southern Pacific Railroad. In Utah, 1,340 

 acres are eliminated from the Sevier, while in 

 California 8,680 acres are added to the Shasta 

 and 480 acres to the Klamath. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS 



The income of the Henry O. and Mary A. 

 F. Hotchkiss bequest, which will eventually 

 revert to the Shefiield Scientific School of 

 Yale University, is to be apportioned for the 

 purpose of adding to the salaries of those who 



J 



