Apeil 19, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



631 



said, but is not likely to have the diabolical 

 ingenuity that sometimes is put into the polit- 

 ical ' fake.' The corroborative detail which 

 could give verisimilitude to, say, the story 

 that man is in danger of being ousted by birds 

 from the primacy of the animal kingdom, 

 could only be supplied by the trained scientist, 

 and the trained scientist is above doing such 

 a thing. 



A dozen of the colleges are attempting to 

 disarm the unscrupulous journalist by sending 

 out veith their own imprimatur accounts of 

 the discoveries made by members of their fac- 

 ulties. If this does not drive out the menda- 

 cious reporter, the fault can perhaps be justly 

 laid at the door of science herself. Man con- 

 tinues to ask questions about his environment, 

 and to want them answered. Yet it is 

 growing increasingly hard to make real sci- 

 ence intelligible. We may instance the per- 

 ennially interesting sea-urchin eggs of Pro- 

 fessor Jacques Loeb. His experiments in de- 

 veloping them covered a long period. Every 

 now and then he established a new point. To 

 the initiated these steps were as distinct as the 

 several equations in an algebraical demonstra- 

 tion; yet to the layman the official accounts 

 of these experiments read so much alike that 

 headline writers hardly attempted to distin- 

 guish them, and many undoubtedly thought 

 that the same news was being sent out over 

 and over again. If really epochal discoveries 

 are of such character that they can no longer 

 be described in plain language, the temptation 

 arises to invent discoveries which, though they 

 never really occurred, are perfectly easy to 

 talk about. 



Nor, in spite of the scientists' insistence 

 that plain reporters ought not to write about 

 things they do not understand, is the confirma- 

 tion of a recognized authority a perfect safe- 

 guard against the charge of inaccuracy. The 

 Evening Post has printed accounts of scien- 

 tific matters taken down verbatim from the 

 lips of the leaders in particular branches of 

 science, and had them disputed vehemently by 

 other scientists. As the scientific tortoises 

 creep on slowly from point to point, they do 

 not always agree who is ahead; but that, we 

 admit, does not make any less reprehensible 



the conduct of the irresponsible cottontail who 

 occasionally jumps a few rods ahead of the 

 whole lot. — The New York Evening Post. 



BOTANICAL NOTES 



STUDIES OF TEXAN VEGETATION 



From time to time it has been a pleasant 

 task of the editor of these notes to call atten- 

 tion to the work of Dr. Bray, of the Uni- 

 versity of Texas, on the vegetation of his 

 state. The vastness of the territory covered, 

 and the exceedingly varied character of soil, 

 temperature, rainfall and other factors make 

 the task of the botanist one of unusual dif- 

 ficulty. When it is remembered that Texas 

 covers an area nearly as large as the north- 

 eastern states from Maine to, and including, 

 Ohio and Virginia, and that north and south 

 its length is about that from Boston to 

 Charleston, and its width east and west about 

 that from Boston to Chicago, one may begin 

 to appreciate the amount of labor involved in 

 what Dr. Bray has already accomplished. He 

 has now added to his previous publications a 

 paper entitled 'Distribution and Adaptation 

 of the Vegetation of Texas,' and published as 

 Bulletin No. 82 of the University of Texas. 

 He tells us that it " was begun under the 

 stimulus of desiring to present to the teachers 

 in the public schools of Texas a point of view 

 from which to study the vegetation of the 

 state." He hastens, however, to say that " the 

 aim is not to supplant other phases of botan- 

 ical study, but to supplement them," which in- 

 dicates that the author is not one of those who 

 think that a general observation of the plants 

 of a region, without their particular study, 

 should constitute the content of a course in 

 elementary botany. 



The pamphlet, which includes 108 pages 

 (and 14 plates), first takes up the 'Factors of 

 Plant Environment and how they affect 

 Plants,' to which about one half of the space 

 is given, and this is followed by a discussion 

 of the ' Plant Societies of the Texas Eegion.' 

 In the first the roles of water, temperature, 

 light, the atmosphere, soils and biological 

 factors are discussed clearly and helpfully. 

 For it must be borne in mind that the purpose 

 of the publication is to help teachers and 



