246 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 608. 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 

 The leading article in the August number 

 of the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 

 is Dr. Stedman's address as president of the 

 American Neurological Association. His sub- 

 ject was ' The Public Obligations of the 

 Neurologist,' and he urged the establishment 

 of charitable sanitaria for the care of the 

 poor who suffered from nervous diseases. He 

 spoke of the fading out of the division be- 

 tween psychiatry and neurology, and the ad- 

 vance of the treatment of mental disorders by 

 mental and moral methods. He also empha- 

 sized the importance of public provision for 

 the after care of patients discharged from the 

 state hospitals, and urged the removal of the 

 feeble-minded to separate colonies. Drs. 

 Spiller and Weisenburg contribute the report 

 of eleven cases of carcinoma involving the 

 nervous system, with a number of illustra- 

 tions. Dr. Burr follows with a note on the 

 temporary disappearance of the sensory symp- 

 toms in syringomyelia, and Dr. Martin adds a 

 short study of the sphincter reflexes in tabes 

 dorsalis and paresis. 



The Annals of Iowa for July, 1906, a maga- 

 zine published quarterly by the State Histor- 

 ical Department at Des Moines, contains an 

 appreciative biographical memoir of the late 

 Dr. C. C. Parry, by Dr. Charles A. White. 

 This memoir thus becomes a part of the state 

 archives. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 

 THE PRIMARY SEPTA IN RUGOSE CORALS. 



In Science, June 30, 1905, there appears 

 an abstract of a paper, ' Early Stages of some 

 Paleozoic Corals,' read by Mr. C. E. Gordon 

 before the New York Academy of Sciences. 

 The abstract is mainly a criticism of my 

 paper, ' Relationships of the Rugosa (Tetra- 

 coralla) to the living Zoanthese,' 1902. Having 

 delayed a reply until the publication of the 

 complete contribution,^ I am now in a better 

 position to estimate the value of the evidence 

 upon which the author's assertions are based. 

 A full discussion, with additional evidence in 

 support of my contentions, will appear later, 



^ Amer. Jour. Science, February, 1906. 



but in the meantime the importance of the 

 subject calls for a brief statement. 



The greater part of Gordon's final paper is 

 devoted to a demonstration that the septal 

 arrangement in Lophophyllum proliferum, the 

 form studied by me, can be brought into agree- 

 ment with the usually accepted septal plan of 

 zaphrentoid corals, a fact upon which there 

 could possibly be no divergence of opinion. 

 To accomplish this he reproduces most of my 

 figures, but in an inverted manner, and then 

 shows how they agree with the septal plan of 

 a zaphrentoid coral as represented by a 

 schematic figure taken from Kunth, 1869-70. 

 In the course of this Gordon corrects a con- 

 fusion of mine, corrected elsewhere, in which 

 I transpose the terms cardinal and counter 

 septa ; apparently, however, he does not realize 

 the difference in the septal plan as established 

 from the external ridges and grooves and that 

 from the disposition of the septa within the 

 calice. 



In inverting my figures Gordon is alto- 

 gether at variance with every recent worker 

 on the Zoantharia. The dorso-ventral disposi- 

 tion of Kunth's schematic figure was given 

 before much was known of the morphology 

 and relationships of the Zoantharia. It would 

 have been much easier and displayed a wider 

 appreciation of recent work on the subject if 

 Gordon had inverted his own figure and al- 

 lowed the others to retain the orientation 

 originally given them. 



The main contention of the paper centers 

 in the number of primary septa (protosepta) 

 in the Rugosa, whether four or six. The 

 great importance for phylogenetic purposes of 

 a correct determina,tion of this demands that 

 Gordon's remarks and evidence should be sub- 

 mitted to thorough analysis. In my paper 

 on Lophophyllum proliferum I showed that 

 this species has six primary septa, thereby 

 confirming the account of Pourtales in ' Deep 

 Sea Corals.' Gordon does not question this 

 hexamerism, but attempts to explain it as a 

 case of acceleration; according to his idea 

 four primary septa were originally present, 

 but the time of appearance of a third pair has 

 been hastened so as to give six primary septa. 

 No facts nor valid arguments are adduced in 



