September S, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



507 



two plates. The number concludes with a 

 " Comment on the ' Report of the Special 

 Committee on the Lake Superior Region ' " 

 by Dr. Alfred C. Lane, stating why he " was 

 willing to accept ' Laurentian ' as a term ap- 

 IDarently stratigraphic and coordinate with 

 stratigraphic terms." 



The July number of the American Geologist 

 contains a biographical sketch with portrait of 

 the late ' Clarence Luther Herrick/ by Pro- 

 fessor W. G. Tight. Dr. Ida H. Ogilvie con- 

 tributes an article on ' The High Altitude 

 Conoplain; a Topographic Forra Illustrated 

 in the Ortiz Mountains ' of New Mexico. The 

 conoplain is named and described as the plain 

 sloping away frora the Ortiz laccolith on all 

 sides which has been partly built and partly 

 cut. Professor W. 0. Crosby publishes the 

 first installment of an article on the ' Genetic 

 and Structural Relations of the Igneous Rocks 

 of the Lower Neponset Valley, Massachusetts,' 

 which is stated to be an advance presentation, 

 in outline, of a portion of ' the author's de- 

 tailed and systematic study of the Geology of 

 the Boston Basin.' 



We have received notice that in October 

 next will be issued the first number of The 

 Journal of Biological Chemistry^ designed for 

 the publication of original investigations of a 

 chemical nature in the biological sciences, 

 whether concerned with the phenomena of 

 animal or of vegetable life. Without rigidly 

 defining the scope of the Journal, it may be 

 stated that its pages will be open (1) to work- 

 ers in zoology and botany and the branches of 

 knowledge in which these sciences are applied, 

 for such of their researches as are of a chem- 

 ical or physico-chemical nature; (2) to work- 

 ers on the chemical side of the experimental 

 medicinal sciences, as physiology, pathology, 

 pharmacology, hygiene, physiological chem- 

 istry and bacteriology; (3) to those who are 

 engaged in any branch of clinical medicine, 

 when their researches are of a chemical na- 

 ture; (4) to the specialist in organic chem- 

 istry, who will find here a fitting place for the 

 publication of researches which have biological 

 or medical interest. Contributors will be al- 

 lowed prior publication of announcements or 



abstracts in other journals. Every legitimate 

 effort will be made to bring the Journal to 

 the notice of foreign readers and workers. At 

 least six numbers will be issued yearly and 

 will constitute a volume, each volume to con- 

 tain between five and six hundred pages. The 

 responsible editors 'will be John J. Abel, Balti- 

 more, and C. A. Herter, New York. With 

 them will cooperate as associate editors R. H. 

 Chittenden, New Haven, Conn.; Otto Polin, 

 Waverly Mass.; William J. Gies, New York; 

 Reid Hunt, Washington, D. C. ; Walter Jones, 

 Baltimore, Md. ; Waldemar Koch, Columbia, 

 Mo. ; J. H. Kastle, Lexington, Ky. ; Graham 

 Lusk, New York; Jacques Loeb, Berkeley, 

 Cal.; P. A. Levene, New York; A. B. Macal- 

 lum, Toronto, Canada; J. J. R. McLeod, 

 Cleveland, O. ; L. B. Mendel, New Haven, 

 Conn. ; F. G. Novy, Ann Arbor, Mich. ; W. R. 

 Orndorff, Ithaca, N. Y. ; Thomas B. Osborne, 

 New Haven Conn.; Franz Pfaff, Boston, 

 Mass.; A. E. Taylor, Berkeley, Cal.; V. C. 

 Vaughan, Ann Arbor, Mich. ; Alfred J. Wake- 

 man, New York ; Henry L. Wheeler, New 

 Haven, Conn. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



THE MUTATION THEORY. 



The paper by Professor White, beginning 

 on page 105 of this volume, although, it seems 

 to me, somewhat obscure in difetion at times, as 

 for instance near the bottom of the first 

 column on page 109, where the expression 

 ' rare genera ' probably means isolated genera, 

 is nevertheless most interesting and opens up 

 many lines of thought and contemplation. 

 There seems to be but little doubt that the 

 main argument is wholly correct. The facts 

 have of course long been known, and, in the 

 Darwinian hypothesis relating to the origin of 

 species by gradual evolution, an attempt is 

 made to explain them by lost records or long 

 time intervals of upheaval and denudation, 

 the changes in species being gradually brought 

 about in the raeantime in some other region or 

 environment. This assumption will not satisfy 

 the long array of observed facts, however, espe- 

 cially in the case of land animals, and we are 

 forced to adopt some such theory as that of 



