Mabch 13, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



437 



six weeks, making the total about $1Y5. The 

 work will be the collection of Alaskan plants, 

 the study of adaptation to environment from 

 seashore to perpetual snow, and from fresh 

 water to dry rock. Lectures wiU be given on 

 plant ecology, with occasional talks on other 

 subjects. 



The University of Washington will open its 

 marine station at Friday Harbor, Washington, 

 for the fifth annual session, on June 22, 1908. 

 The length of the session will be six weeks. 

 The staff will consist of Dr. Charles W. Pren- 

 tiss, of the department of zoology of the Uni- 

 versity of Washington, Dr. Robert B. Wylie, 

 of the department of botany of the University 

 of Iowa, and Professor Charles O. Chambers, 

 of Pacific University, Forest Grove, Oregon. 

 The chief features of the station are its loca- 

 tion in the heart of an evergreen forest in the 

 winter rain belt, the abundance of marine 

 plants and animals, its constant use of the 

 dredge, and its low fees. 



The Physics Club of New York at its regu- 

 lar meeting, held March Y, 1908, unanimously 

 adopted the following resolution: 



Resolved, That a uniform course in physics for 

 all schools is both undesirable and unattainable. 

 We therefore recommend: 



1. That syllabuses should deal with the barest 

 outline of general principles, leaving each teacher 

 free to fill up the course according to his best 

 judgment. 



2. That examinations for college entrance should 

 be confined to the general priaciples specified in 

 the syllabus, and that a teacher's certificate should 

 be accepted for other material — this might well 

 take the form of a rather full statement of the 

 work done. 



Volume VI., No. 1, of the University of 

 California Publications in American Archeol- 

 ogy and Ethnology is by S. A. Barrett on 

 "Ethno-geography of the Pomo and Neighbor- 

 ing Indians." It is intended both as a back- 

 ground and preliminary for future studies of 

 the ethnology of the Pomo Indians of Cali- 

 fornia, and as the first of a series of investiga- 

 tions describing the territorial limits, tribes 

 of villages, and internal dialectic divisions of 

 each of the groups or families of Indians in 

 California. Besides the Pomo, the paper 



treats of the contiguous families between San 

 Francisco Bay and latitude 40, the Pacific 

 Ocean and the Sacramento River. The author 

 finds seven markedly distinct dialects among 

 the Pomo, and at least as many more among 

 the other families in the territory considered. 

 The degree of alEnity and difference between 

 these dialects is shown in vocabularies of 

 about three hundred words, which are superior 

 to any previously existing material of the 

 same kind, not only in representing all forms 

 of speech in the region, but in being collected 

 by one observer according to the same method. 

 The boundaries of the territory of the Pomo 

 and the other families, and of each dialect, 

 are described in detail and shown on a large 

 map. Tribes in the ordinary sense of the 

 word are declared to have been wanting, the 

 only political unit having been the small vil- 

 lage. Of such villages several hundred are 

 listed, each given under its native name and 

 located as exactly as possible. The Pomo 

 territory was not extensive, but included sev- 

 eral regions of quite different environments, 

 such as the coast, the Clear Lake region, the 

 open valleys, and the timbered mountain 

 ranges. The effect of these varying environ- 

 ments on the mode of life and customs of what 

 must at one time have been the same people, 

 as proved by language, is fully discussed. 



In the House of Commons on February 17, 

 as we learn from Nature, Mr. Mallet asked 

 the secretary of state for war whether he was 

 aware of the public service rendered by- a 

 commission of the Royal Society, at the re- 

 quest of the war oiEce and the admiralty, in 

 discovering the cause of Malta fever, from 

 which many hundreds annually of our soldiers 

 and sailors on that island until recently suf- 

 fered; and whether, in view of the importance 

 of this discovery in the annals of preventive 

 medicine, inasmuch as at the present moment 

 the disease had been entirely stamped out, he 

 would consider the desirability of giving the 

 thanks of the government to the Royal Society 

 for this instance of the successful application 

 of British scientific research? In his reply 

 to this question Mr. Haldane said: "I am 

 aware of the great service rendered by the 

 commission in question. The commission's 



