482 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 41. 



number of plants. Jungner properly dis- 

 tinguishes between ontogenetic rain leaves 

 and phj^logenetic. It is clear, however, 

 that it is not necessary in every case to at- 

 tribute the special form to any deeper ef- 

 fective cause than the direct influence of 

 the environment. This whole line of ex- 

 periments, recorded hy Jungner, is a not- 

 able contribution to the modern literature 

 of adaptation phenomena — a literature 

 which on the whole is as richly and as 

 sanelj' developed in the field of plant mor- 

 phology as anywhere. 



CONWAT MacMiLLAN. 



Univeesity of Wisconsin 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 



The next International Congi-ess of Zo- 

 ologists will be held in England in 1898 

 under the presidency of Sir William H. 

 Flower. The International Congress of 

 Physiologists will also hold its next meeting 

 in England, having accepted the invitation 

 to Cambridge given by Prof. Michael Foster. 



FotJR American men of science were 

 elected corresponding members at the re- 

 cent meeting of the British Association: 

 Professor John S. Billings, University of 

 Pennsj'lvania; Professor D. H. Campbell, 

 University of California; Professor H. F. 

 Osborn, Columbia College, and General F. 

 A. AValker, Boston. 



At the suggestion of Dr. H. Carrington 

 Bolton the Smithsonian Institution is now 

 corresponding with American universities 

 for the purpose of making a collection of all 

 printed Dissertations published by candi- 

 dates for higher degress. 



M. Pierre Fauvel reported to the Paris 

 Academy on September 9th that the severe 

 cold of last winter was very destructive to 

 the marine fauna of France, the mortality 

 extending even to a depth at which the 

 temperature could not have had any direct 

 effect. Nearly the entire contents of the 



dragnets, both of the marine laboratory 

 and of the fishennen, consisted of animals 

 dead and decomposed. Thus eighty per 

 cent, of the scallops {Pecten maximus) were 

 decomposed and the others were in such 

 condition that they could not be sold. In 

 the spring rare species and some new to the 

 fauna of the coast were present in gi'eat 

 abundance. 



Captain Lenox-Conyngham is in charge 

 of a mission sent out by the British gov- 

 ernment for the i)urpose of determining the 

 difference of longitude between Greenwich 

 and Madras. After having finished opera- 

 tions at Odessa the mission will proceed to 

 Batum and then on to Baku, Eesht and 

 Teheran. Facilities have been promised 

 to this mission bj' the Russian and Persian 

 governments. 



Since the report on indexing chemical 

 (see p. 478) was presented before the A. A. 

 A. S., Mr. W. D. Bigelow's ' Index to Meth- 

 ods for the Detection and Estimation of 

 Fusel Oil in Distilled Liquors ' has been 

 accepted for publication by the Journal of 

 the American Chemical Society. 



Prometheus, the German scientific journal, 

 in Nos. 300-302, publishes an article, 'Z>er 

 thierigehe Korper ah Kraftsmaschinen,' trans- 

 lated from Science by Dr. Reuleaux, the 

 Director of the Polytechnicum at Charlot- 

 tenburg and author of 'Briefe ans PhUadel- 

 phie '; the latter famous for their frankness 

 in revealing the defects of German manu- 

 factures and especially for their prompt 

 effect in stimulating improvement. Profes- 

 sor Eeuleaux prefaces Dr. Thurston's paper 

 by an appreciative introduction, and sup- 

 plements it bj' an interesting statement of 

 his own ideas on the subject. 



The next meeting of the German Asso- 

 ciation of Naturalists and Physicians will 

 be held at Frankfort. 



A telegram to the London Times states 

 that Professor Anderson Stuart, of the Uui- 



