922 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 311. 



concludes that the rise of temperature during 

 digestion (maximal about the fourth hour) ia 

 due to an increase of heat production. Since 

 the greatest increase of heat production occurs 

 during the first hour after feeding, the changes 

 in heat production and temperature are not 

 proportional. The most marked effects are 

 produced from a proteid and fat diet, next with 

 proteid alone, and least with fat. E. M. Yerkes 

 continues his work on phototaxis with a study 

 of the reactions of Daphnia and Cypris. A 

 marked increase in rate of movement oi Daphnia 

 with increased intensity of light he ascribes to 

 greater precision and quickness of orientation, 

 and in part also to more rapid swimming. In 

 Cypris this phenomenon is not so marked, a 

 difference ascribable probably to the greater 

 importance to Daphnia of orientation as a factor 

 in rapid movement. Contact with the sides of 

 a pipette appears to render a negative animal 

 positive, but so far as observed the reactions do 

 not change with changes in temperature. For 

 the forms studied light is a sufficiently strong 

 directive agent to lead them into fatal acid so- 

 lutions. 



The Journal of the Boston Society of Medical 

 Sciences for October 23d is devoted to the im 

 portant and interesting ' First Annual Report 

 of the Cancer Investigation Committee to the 

 Surgical Department of the Harvard Medical 

 School.' This summarizes the investigations 

 made during the past year through the bequest 

 of Caroline Brewer Croft. In the ' Introduc- 

 tion,' by J. Collins Warren, the steady increase 

 of cancer is noted, and the ' Statistics of Can- 

 cer,' by W. F. Whitney, show that their increase 

 is about the same in New England and Great 

 Britain. Edward H. Nichols gives an account 

 of the work 'On the Etiology of Cancer,' in 

 which he states that attempts to produce cancer 

 in animals by inoculation with tissue from hu- 

 man cancer have so far uniformly failed and 

 that no attempt to isolate an organism from 

 human cancer has succeeded. R. B. Greenough 

 has a ' Report on the Presence of Plimmer's 

 Bodies in Carcinomatous Tissue,' showing that 

 three bodies were present in each of thirteen 

 cases. E. E. Tyzzer describes ' Tumors and 

 Sporozoa in Fishes,' and Edwin A. Locke de- 

 scribes ' The Reconstruction in Wax of a 



Nodule of Cancer.' Oscar Richardson also has 

 a ' Report of Culture Experiments made with 

 Carcinomatous Tissue, 1899 and 1900,' which 

 shows that he too was unable to obtain any 

 trace of a specific infecting organism. The 

 report is illustrated with a number of fine 

 plates. 



The American Naturalist for November is de- 

 voted to the invertebrates. W. M. Wheeler 

 describes in detail ' A Singular Arachnid (Koe- 

 nenia mirabilis Grassi) occurring in Texas ' and 

 also ' A New Myrmecophile from the Mushroom 

 Gardens of the Texan Leaf-cutting Ant,' to 

 which the name of Attaphila fungicola is given. 

 C. B. Davenport has a paper ' On the Variation 

 of the Shell of Pecten irradians Lamarck from 

 Long Island,' considering that those described 

 are either self-adjustments to accidents or sports 

 which represent typical conditions in allied 

 species. A somewhat similar paper is that by 

 Minnie Marie Enteman on ' Variations in the 

 Crest of Daphnia hyalina,' in which the author 

 shows that variation is confined to summer 

 forms and that to some extent there is a local 

 tendency to particular variations. Finally W. 

 S. Nickerson discusses 'Double Loxosomae,' 

 considering that the cases noted were due to 

 fusion and not fission. 



The Popular Science Monthly, for November, 

 reprints for its opening article, under the head 

 of ' Oxygen and the Nature of Acids,' the paper 

 'On Dephlogisticated Air,' by Joseph Priestley 

 and the ' Memoir on the Existence of Air in the 

 Acid of Nitre ; General Considerations on the 

 Nature of Acids, ' by Antoine Laurent Lavoisier. 

 Simon Newcomb continues his ' Chapters on the 

 Stars,' censidering their masses and densities, 

 gaseous constitution, and evolution. H. W. 

 Conn discusses 'Microbes in Cheese- Making,' 

 telling briefly what has been done and what 

 remains to be done in the problem of cheese 

 ripening. Under the title of ' Submarine Navi- 

 gation,' W. P. Bradley gives an interesting ac- 

 count of the various craft that have been de- 

 vised for that purpose with somewhat detailed 

 descriptions of the Argonaut and Holland. 

 George C. Whipple describes ' Municipal Water- 

 Works Laboratories ' showing the work that 

 has been done by them and intimating that in 



