330 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIX. No. 1266 



remove tlie swollen vegetable from the water 

 and permit it to remain at room temperature 

 for twenty-four to thirty^ix hours it will re- 

 turn to its anhydrous state. This phenomenon, 

 it seems to me, stamps the anhydrous product 

 as an entirely different product, structurally, 

 from the fresh product, but does not necessarily 

 indicate any lowering in food value. In other 

 words a fresh vegetable holds its water much 

 more tenaciously than does a dehydrated vege- 

 table which has had its water removed and has 

 subsequently been irmnersed in water and made 

 to assume a form closely approximating that 

 of the fresh vegetable. Is the failure of the 

 anhydrous vegetable to retain its water to the 

 same degree as the fresh vegetable due to the 

 fact that the drying has brought about some 

 change in the colloids of the vegetable cells 

 which lowers their power to hold water? Or 

 does the removal of salts through the " soak- 

 ing " process lower the imbibition power of the 

 colloids? Or is there some other answer? An 

 explanation from our friends the physical 

 chemists would be in order. 



The above phenomenon was called to my at- 

 tention by Mr. Charles Denby of the War 

 Trade Board and Mr. Daniel Moreau Barringer 

 both of whom are much interested in the gen- 

 eral problem of food desiccation. 



Philip B. Hawk 



Jefpeeson Medical College, 

 philadelphl4 



NONSILVERABLE CONTAINERS FOR SILVERING 

 MIRRORS 



To THE Editor op Science: In connection 

 with recent contributions to your columns 

 under the title " IsTonsilverable Containers for 

 Silvering Mirrors " the writer may be per- 

 mitted to record an observation made several 

 years ago. This was that silvering solution 

 could not be made to deposit on black amorphous 

 selenium, althoxigh it coated the walls of the 

 glass vessel in which the piece of selenium was 

 placed. The converse of this experiment, 

 namely silvering a piece of glass in a vessel 

 lined with selenium, was not tried, but would 

 appear to offer the solution of the problem of a 

 container that will not attract silver. 



Herbert E. Ives 



AD REM OF A HISTORY OF SCIENCES IN THE 

 UNITED STATES 



In the long years of my labors in scientific 

 reference work I found myself greatly ham- 

 pered by the lack of an available source his- 

 tory of the different branches of sciences, 

 especially of the exact sciences, in the United 

 States. There are three important contribu- 

 tions in this field, all written by the late 

 George Brown Goode : " The Origin of the 

 National Scientific and Educational Institu- 

 tions of the United States," 1890; "The Be- 

 ginnings of Natural History in America," 

 1886 ; and " The Beginnings of American Sci- 

 ence," 1887. Kobody who is acquainted with 

 these papers can withhold his admiration for 

 Mr. Goode's painstaking work, but after all 

 they are only stepping stones and cover only 

 a limited i)eriod, and serve merely, as it was 

 contemplated by Mr. Goode, as an outline. 



The more interested I became in the matter 

 the more I found myself impressed by the 

 idea to see that this great lacuna should be 

 filled. The best channel through which to 

 accomplish this seemed to me to lay the 

 matter before the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, have it discussed 

 there in its entirety, and if possible under- 

 taken by the association or under the auspices 

 of the association. The outbreak of the world 

 war made it seem advisable to me to postpone 

 my plan. A year or two ago I broached the 

 subject with Dr. L. O. Howard, the permanent 

 secretary of the association, who fell in with 

 the idea and expressed his willingness to sub- 

 mit my suggestion to the committee on policy, 

 whenever I should be ready to present it in 

 concrete form. Last October when the end of 

 the war seemed to be only a matter of months 

 I thought the time had come for action. 

 Therefore, I addressed on October 25th the 

 following communication to Dr. L. O. 

 Howard : 

 Dear Sir: 



, There ia as yet no history of scienceB in the 

 United States showing the important and far- 

 leaiohiiig participation of our men of science in the 

 general development of science. Now seems to be 

 the proper time to seriously consider such an under- 

 taking, as the great world war has changed and 



