350 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 663 



publication of the Carnegie Institution, and 

 in a closing paragraph says: 



One of the truest tests of the intellectual status 

 of a country is foimd in its ability to quickly 

 realize the importance of a work of the first class. 

 Since this book came out I have asked a number 

 of naturalists whether they had read it, and so 

 far have failed to iind one who has given it more 

 than superficial attention. 



It had appeared to me for some time that 

 botanists in the United States were in some- 

 thing the same case as the zoologists in re- 

 gard, on their part, to the one successful series 

 of demonstrations that have yet been made of 

 the production of mutants of plant species by 

 means of definite chemical stimuli. It was, 

 therefore, a pleasure in reading Science for 

 June 7 to find that Dr. James B. Pollock 

 (presidential address before the Michigan 

 Academy of Science) had clearly recognized 

 the significance of recent experimental work 

 with plants, which, perhaps, still more fully 

 than Tower's work on beetles, has established 

 the mode of origin of certain species. To 

 quote from Pollock : " De Vries oJBFers no ex- 

 planation as to how these new characters are 

 produced, but MacDougal has succeeded in 

 producing new modifications by artificial 

 means . . . injecting various substances into 

 the capsules of plants experimented upon, 

 before the eggs were fertilized," leading to 

 the " important conclusion that in an early 

 stage of development of the plant egg it may 

 be so profoundly modified that the adult plant 

 resulting from it is decidedly different from 

 what it would have been had the egg not been 

 so modified, and the modifications thus pro- 

 duced are transmitted to the next generation 

 through the seeds." 



With this very definite presentation of the 

 subject I am disposed to assume that the work 

 referred to is, after all, well known to botan- 

 ists, but that thus far only here and there one 

 has taken occasion to refer to it in generally 

 accessible publications. Be this as it may, I 

 wish to heartily second the efforts of Professor 

 Cockerell in calling attention to the epoch- 

 making character of Tower's experimental 

 study of the potato beetles and their allies. 



and to place with them the equally important 

 work of MacDougal, recording at the same 

 time my conviction that there is no line of 

 biological investigation, with which I am ac- 

 quainted, that better deserves support or the 

 abandonment of which would be a greater loss 

 to science. I can hardly think, however, that 

 the Carnegie Institution, one of the chief 

 functions of which is to discover just such 

 " leads " and provide for their following 

 through to a successful issue, will abandon 

 either of these investigations, already the 

 most fruitful in actual results that have been 

 undertaken since the " Origin of Species " 

 appeared. 



V. M. Spalding 

 Tucson, Akiz. 



SPECIAL ARTICLES 

 PATAGONIA AND ANTARCTICA^ 



It seems that the study of the fossil 

 fauna of South America should attract the 

 attention of the congress, at this time when 

 increasing efforts are being made to enter 

 into touch with the problems of the antarctic 

 world. 



Since the discoveries of Carlos and Plor- 

 entino Ameghino, numerous works on the 

 fossil fauna of Patagonia have been published. 

 We have been enabled to add some contribu- 

 tions to this literature from the rich collec- 

 tions sent by A. Tournoiier to the Jardin des 

 Plantes. 



Up to the present time, the researches in 

 the northern hemisphere, whether in the 

 United States or in Europe and Asia, have 

 shovm an agreement in the development of 

 life. The progress of evolution has been so 

 uniform that we find beings of the same 

 epoch in almost the same stage of evolution 

 on different parts of our hemisphere. Thus, 

 from the stage of the development of fossil 

 animals and knowing their genus or species, 

 we can often estimate for geologists the age 

 of the deposit (terrain) in which they are 

 found. 



Patagonia has just shown us that this is 



^ Paper read before the seventh International 

 Zoological Congress, translated by L. M. F. 



