316 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 477. 



erally the kind with seeds that float long distances 

 in the wind, such as poplar and birch, or those 

 liaving fruits especially liked by birds, such as 

 the bird cherry, which is very widely distributed. 

 These show first on account of getting started 

 first. The pine and the other trees may come in 

 later owing to their being seeded later, or owing 

 to the later advent of conditions favorable to 

 their germination and growth. It may happen in 

 the case of burnt-over pine lands that pine seed is 

 distributed over it the first year after it is burned, 

 but owing to there being no protection from the 

 sun, the young seedlings of white and Norway 

 pine, which are very delicate, are destroyed. 

 After a young growth of poplars has appeared, 

 the pine seed may find just the right conditions 

 for growth for a few years, and finally get ahead 

 of the poplars and crowd them out, while in 

 the meantime it is being much improved by the 

 presence of the poplars which grow rapidly and 

 force the pines to make a tall growth. On the 

 other hand, however, the poplars, birches and 

 other trees and shrubs, and even weeds, may 

 sometimes make so strong a growth as to kill out 

 the young pine seedlings if they are not sufficiently 

 well established at the time the mature growth 

 is cut. 



AN ENGLISH EDITION OF SCHIMPER'S PLANT 

 GEOGRAPHY. 



For several years it has been known that an 

 English edition of Schimper's ' Plant Geog- 

 raphy ' vfas in preparation, the work having 

 been undertaken by Professor William R. 

 Fisher, with the advice and consent of the 

 author. ' The untimely death of the author 

 in 1901, shortly after the translation was be- 

 gun, robbed the English edition of modifica- 

 tions and improvements which he had in- 

 tended to make,' so the text of the book is 

 exactly that of the German edition of 1898. 

 The book in its English dress is characterized 

 by the beautiful typography, paper and bind- 

 ing of the Clarendon Press of Oxford, and is 

 a thick octavo of 869 pages (as against 894 

 in the German edition), and four maps. The 

 only changes noticed are the omissions of the 

 key-page to the plate of rock vegetation (Fig. 

 487), and the new plate for Map IV. at the 

 end of the volume. The latter is much coarser 

 in the Oxford map, and while it is much 

 more distinct, it is considerably less accurate 



on the whole, than the German map. The 

 translation has been revised and edited by 

 Dr. Percy Groom and Professor Balfour, and 

 Dr. Groom has added a sympathetic sketch of 

 Schimper's life work. 



Charles E. Bessey. 

 The University of Nebraska. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 



At the annual meeting of the Royal Astro- 

 nomical Society on, February 12, Ambassador 

 Choate received the society's gold medal on 

 behalf of Professor George E. Hale, of the 

 Yerkes Observatory. 



McGiLL University has conferred the de- 

 gree of D.Sc. on Professor D. P. Penhallow, 

 professor of botany at the university, and on 

 John A. Low Waddell, a consulting engineer 

 of Kansas City. 



Lord Eayleigh has been created, by the Ger- 

 man Emperor, a foreign Knight of the Prus- 

 sian Order Poiir le Merite for sciences and 

 arts. 



Mr. F. E. Beddard, F.E.S., of the London 

 Zoological Gardens, has been elected a corre- 

 sponding member of the Imperial Bohemian 

 Academy of Sciences. 



The following have accepted positions on 

 the permanent staff of the Station for Ex- 

 perimental Evolution of the Carnegie Insti- 

 tution, at Cold Spring Harbor : Professor 

 C. B. Davenport, who will serve as director;. 

 Mr. Franlv E. Lutz, who will make quantita- 

 tive studies in animal variation; Mr. George 

 H. Shull, whose work will be largely in plant 

 breeding and the study of mutations in na- 

 ture; and Miss Anna M. Lutz, who will serve 

 as recorder and cytologist. The plans of the 

 new building are now in the hands of the 

 architects, Messrs. Kirby, Petit and Green, 

 of New York City, and construction will com- 

 mence as soon as the frost is out of the ground, 

 so that the building may be in use next sum- 

 mer. 



Dr. Charles J. Chamberlain, of the De- 

 partment of Botany of the University of 

 Chicago, has received from the Botanical So- 

 ciety of America a grant to defray the ex- 

 penses of a trip to Jalapa, Mexico, for the- 



