872 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 1015 



The Secretary of Commerce has, however, 

 taken pains to show that the issue is by no 

 means a non-partisan one. On October 13, 

 1913, Secretary Eedfield appeared before the 

 House Committee on Expenditures in the 

 Department of Commerce and thus expressed 

 himself regarding the law of 1912 : " I shall be 

 glad to cooperate in any way within my law- 

 ful power or within the scope of my personal 

 ability in carrying out to the spirit and to the 

 letter what I regard as very wise legislation 

 for the protection of our fur-seal herd." He 

 even went further and announced to the com- 

 mittee that he had discharged the chief of the 

 Alaska division of the Bureau of Fisheries 

 and the naturalist of the fur-seal herd, be- 

 cause, forsooth, their " mental attitude " to- 

 ward this law was not right. In other words, 

 because these men believed the law was a 

 mistake, they were disciplined. 



The new commission is therefore in a 

 dilemma. It must find the law of 1912 to be 

 right or else to be wrong. In the one case, 

 in a single season's work and with opportunity 

 to get first-hand information on vital matters 

 cut oif, it must either review and turn down 

 the work of an eminent body of men acting 

 on unlimited data, or else it must contradict 

 the expressed belief of the very authority 

 under which the commission acts. 



Meanwhile there hangs over the commission 

 and its work a most heavy forfeit. The law 

 of 1912, in so far as it prohibits the killing of 

 male seals, was adjudged unnecessary eighteen 

 years ago ; the increase of 12^ per cent, in the 

 stock of breeding seals in 1913, the second 

 season under exemption from pelagic sealing, 

 fully bears out this decision. The Secretary 

 of Commerce has in his possession to-day ade- 

 quate data to warrant the immediate repeal of 

 the law. Such repeal now would permit of 

 the resumption of normal land sealing in 1914 

 and the taking of the half million dollars' worth 

 of sealskins which the hauling grounds of the 

 Pribilof Islands stand ready to yield. We lost 

 a like sum in 1913 through the operation of 

 the law. The delay necessary to let the new 

 commission make its report will inevitably re- 

 peat this loss. In short, the report of the com- 



mission will cost at a minimum $500,000, 

 fifteen per cent, of which belongs to Canada, 

 fifteen per cent, to Japan, and seventy per 

 cent, to the treasury of the United States, 

 under the treaty of July 7, 1911. 



George Archibald Clark 



the preservation of anthropoid apes 

 To THE Editor of Science : The suggestion 

 of Professor Robert Yerkes in Science of May 

 1, that permanent stations should be established 

 in tropical countries for the preservation of 

 anthropoid apes in order that observations of 

 value from a psychological standpoint be ob- 

 tained, prompts me to urge the same thing on 

 another and more important ground. As 

 readers of Science doubtless know, the ques- 

 tion of the etiology and the treatment in a 

 number of diseases which have hitherto baffled 

 investigators, probably will depend upon the 

 use of these apes as objects of experimenta- 

 tion, and for this, if for nothing else their 

 extinction should be prevented. 



H. GiFFORD 



Omaha, Neb. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Clean Water and How to Get It. By Allen 



Hazen. Second Edition. New York, John 



Wiley & Sons. 1914. Pp. 181. $1.50. 

 Studies in Water Supply. By A. C. Houston. 



New York, Macmillan Co., Limited. Pp. 



193. $1.60. 



These two volumes may well be considered 

 together, for they occupy the same general 

 field, although their scope and method of 

 treatment are quite different. Both authors 

 are acknowledged experts in the subjects with 

 which they deal. 



Hazen's book is decidedly American in 

 point of view and makes a strong case for the 

 filtration of public water supplies as a means 

 of protecting municipalities against typhoid 

 and other forms of disease and for the im- 

 provement which can be so produced in the 

 appearance, taste and odor of surface waters. 



By some, the book will be regarded as too 

 condensed to give a comprehensive knowledge 

 of the many topics dealt with, but the 



