June 29, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



661 



heritance from previous life habits. A cagno- 

 telic character of previous life-zone habitus 

 often becomes a palseotelic character in a sub- 

 sequent habitus. The " somatic habitus " is 

 generally the expression of the latest life 

 habits. Henry Fairfield Osborn 



SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS IN WAR TIMES 



A NUMBER of our scientific societies have 

 deemed it advisable " on account of the war " 

 to either cancel or postpone their future meet- 

 ings and conventions. The American Electro- 

 chemical Society disapproves of this action and 

 at its recent board meeting adopted resolu- 

 tions encouraging rather than discouraging 

 the holding of meetings. 



Modern warfare is not so much a matter of 

 prowess at arms as it is a stupendous engineer- 

 ing undertaking. To hasten this war to an 

 early and victorious close our many thousand 

 engineers must bring to bear every possible 

 effort. However, individual, independent effort 

 is not desirable at this time: concertive action 

 is absolutely essential for the most efficient 

 service. 



In order to expedite the solution of many of 

 the new problems that have arisen as a direct 

 consequence of our martial state, unrestricted 

 discussion of the problems (with but few ex- 

 ceptions) at scientific meetings is bound to 

 give all of us a clearer understanding of the 

 real points at issues, of the urgent needs of our 

 country at this momentous hour. 



Meetings of scientific and technical societies 

 have ever served as a great stimulus for their 

 members and have been a " clearing house " for 

 miany of the best thoughts and ideas of our 

 professional men. 



Let us follow the good example set us by 

 England. Let us encourage rather than dis- 

 courage the holding of scientific meetings in 

 these war times. When England found herself, 

 confronted with a very serious shortage of 

 sulphuric acid, glass, dyes, electrodes, brass, 

 furnaces, etc., the scientific societies arranged 

 symposiums on these subjects and invited not 

 only all of the members to attend, but, further, 

 urged those factory men who were not members 

 to come to the meetings to give their views and 



experiences and to learn all they could in re- 

 turn. 



Just as a large business corporation depends 

 upon the organized eifort and efficiency of the 

 several units and departments, so does our 

 government, now more than ever, look to the 

 organized concertive effort of its large engi- 

 neering bodies for quick and efficient results. 

 Let us continue our meetings and hold them 

 more frequently than ever before. 



Colin G. Eink 



THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL 

 ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



The fourth number of Volume 3 of the 

 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sci- 

 ences contains the following articles : 



" A Ee-determination of the Value of the 

 Electron and of Related Constants : " R. A. 

 Millikan, Eyerson Physical Laboratory, Uni- 

 versity of Chicago. The values for the charge 

 on the electron, the Avogadro constant, etc., 

 are given with estimates of the accuracy of the 

 result. 



" Body Pigmentation and Egg Production 

 in the Fowl : " J. Arthur Harris, A. F. Blakes- 

 lee and D. E. Warner, Station for Experimen- 

 tal Evolution, Cold Spring Harbor, New York. 

 A strong negative correlation exists between 

 the October ear-lobe pigmentation and the egg 

 production of the year. 



" Variability of Germ Cells of Sea Urchins:" 

 A. J. Goldfarb, College of the City of ISTew 

 York, and Department of Marine Biology, 

 Carnegie Institution of Washington. The 

 varying behavior of the eggs in the experi- 

 ments of Loeb, Lillie, Wasteneys and others, 

 was apparently due in large part to variation 

 in the physiologic condition of the eggs they 

 used. 



" Transplantation of Limbs : " Eoss G. Har- 

 rison, Osborn Zoological Laboratory, Yale 

 University. The experiments confirm previous 

 ones, showing that the limb bud is a self-dif- 

 ferentiating body: they also show that the 

 laterality of the fore limb may be affected by 

 its new surroundings. 



" The Shapes of Group Molecules Forming 

 the Surfaces of Liquids : " Irving Langmuir, 



