48 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 602. 



function ? ' It was voted after debate that 

 no discontinuous function exists. 



At the time of his last illness plans had 

 already been made for an anniversary din- 

 ner of the club, at which a loving cup was 

 to have been presented to him as a token 

 of the appreciation, felt by the members, 

 of his quarter century of service as presi- 

 dent. 



No man could have been more closely 

 identified with Harvard University than 

 was James Mills Peirce. Born and edu- 

 cated in Cambridge, he spent there nearly 

 every winter of his life. From the time 

 of his entrance into Harvard College as a 

 freshman in 1849 until the death of his 

 father in 1880 he lived in the college yard 

 as student, tutor and professor. 



He was a man of most sweet and friendly 

 disposition, kind to all with whom he came 

 in contact, slow to anger, aroused only by 

 injustice ; a man of wide acquaintance and 

 of many friends, most hospitable in his 

 own home, fond of society and given to 

 sociability. A lover of music and widely 

 read in English literature, he was a man 

 of the broadest intellectual interests. 



What marked him most was a great 

 faithfulness. He never faltered in his 

 work, he never lost interest, indeed his 

 enthusiasm grew greater from year to year. 

 The welfare and the usefulness of the uni- 

 versity were his dearest concern, and for 

 their advancement was given the whole of 

 a long and active life. He died, as we 

 must suppose he would have chosen to die, 

 working to the end. 



J. K. Whittemore. 



Habvabd University, 



Below McGregor on the Mississippi, between 

 Dubuque and Specht's Ferry, quite a number 

 of specimens of this plant were observed. 

 Some years later, while botanizing in the 

 vicinity of Clinton, la., the species was found 

 in flower. I have never seen any fruit at any 

 point near here, but feel warranted in saying 

 that the plants are perfectly hardy and do 

 bear fruit. In all of these cases the plants 

 were found growing on the sides of limestone 

 hills. It may be of interest also to note in 

 this connection that the pecan also occurs on 

 the Mississippi at Savannah, 111., which is 

 somewhat north of the latitude usually given 

 for it. While it is true that the Indian may 

 have been an agent in the dissemination of 

 the seed of the papaw, it was probably also 

 disseminated in other ways. 



L. H. Pammel. 



THE CRAYFISH INDUSTRY. 



In my recent article on ' The Future of the 

 Crayfish Industry,' in Science, June 29, two 

 errors appear on page 984. The value $420 

 in line fourteen should be $4,200 and the 

 amount of 165,000 in line twenty-two should 

 be 116,400, as correctly stated in the statistics 

 of the Bureau of Fisheries. 



E. A. Andrews. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



NORTHERN LIMIT OF THE PAPAW TREE. 



Some years ago I was surprised to receive 

 from a correspondent, Mr. Kennyon, of Mc- 

 Gregor, la., a specimen of the papaw tree 

 found native in the vicinity of McGregor, 



SPECIAL ARTICLES. 



EMISSION OF ELECTRICITY FROM THE RADIUM 



PRODUCTS.^ 



Hitherto, the rate of decay of the induced 

 activity produced by radium, has not been 

 studied by means of the charge carried away 

 from the active body by the a and y8 rays. 



The following is a brief report of the results 

 of two series of experiments on the charge of 

 electricity carried by these rays. 



In the first series of experiments, a metal 

 wire was made active by iramersion in radium 

 emanation; and immediately after removal 

 from the emanation vessel, was placed inside 

 a small hard rubber tube, with very thin walls. 

 The outside of the tube was surrounded by 



^ An abstract of a paper read before a meeting 

 of scientists, at the University of Colorado, on 

 May 5, 1906. 



