218 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1076 



sociate professor of entomology and chief of 

 the department, writes that entomologists visit- 

 ing the Philippines will be cordially welcomed 

 to the laboratories and every facility for their 

 comfort will be placed at their disposal. 



Explorations being made in the Westhaver 

 mounds six miles south of CircleviUe by Cu- 

 rator William C. Mills, of the Ohio Archeo- 

 logical and Historical Museum, the Ohio State 

 University, have brought to light interesting 

 relics of aboriginal burial mounds. This 

 mound is 16 feet high and 100 feet in diam- 

 eter, about 2,000 cubic feet of earth, and every 

 inch must be carefully examined. A total of 

 fifteen burials was found in the mound, four 

 of them in graves below the surface or base of 

 the mound, and the remainder in the mound 

 proper. In many cases the skeletons were 

 found to be lacking one or more bones, and in 

 one case the skull alone was found. This was 

 explained by Dr. Mills as indicating the cus- 

 tom of reburial, practised by the mound build- 

 ers. At one point in the explorations a huge 

 grave was opened, extending five feet below 

 the base line. In the grave were found three 

 skeletons, placed side by side — two adults and 

 a child. The adults, probably a man and a 

 woman, were almost six feet in height, while 

 the third skeleton was that of a child perhaps 

 seven years old. Dr. Mills and his party will 

 spend most of the summer working in this 

 mound. 



ophthalmology, with seat and vote in the faculty. 

 H. H. McGregor, Ph.D., to be instructor in 

 biochemistry; C. D. Christie, A.B., M.D., 

 demonstrator of medicine and medical resident 

 of Western Eeserve University and Lakeside 

 Hospital, to be director of the Clinical Re- 

 search Laboratory at Lakeside Hospital, and 

 Eussell J. Collins, A.B., M.D., to be demon- 

 strator of pharmacology. 



In the University of Nebraska School of 

 Medicine, Dr. Max Morse becomes assistant 

 professor of biological chemistry. 



C. E. Howell, of the University of Missouri, 

 and E. B. Kranz, of Iowa State College, have 

 been appointed to the division of animal hus- 

 bandry at the State College of Washington. 



Dr. Johannes Thiele, professor of chemis- 

 try at Strassburg, has declined a call to suc- 

 ceed Professor Wallach at Gottingen, and Dr. 

 Friedrich Paschen, professor of physics at 

 Tiibingen, has likewise declined to succeed 

 Professor Eiecke in the same institution. 



UNIVEBSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS 

 Professor C. H. Eigenmann has been reap- 

 pointed research professor in zoology, Indiana 

 University, for the year 1915-16. He will de- 

 vote his time to the study of South American 

 freshwater fishes. 



At the University of Michigan, Dr. Alex- 

 ander G. Euthven has been promoted to the 

 position of professor of zoology. He wiU re- 

 tain the directorship of the Museum of Zoology. 

 The following promotions and appointments 

 have been made by the trustees and medical 

 faculty of Western Eeserve University: 

 Wniiam Evans Brunner, A.M., M.D., clinical 

 professor of ophthalmology, to be professor of 



DISCUSSION AND COBBESPONDENCE 



CANCER AND HEREDITY 



In Dr. Slye's recent communication^ con- 

 cerning the inheritance of cancer, reference is 

 made by way of illustration to a type of color 

 inheritance which, since it is quite contrary to 

 the more generally accepted principles of Men- 

 delian inheritance, requires critical comment. 



On page 160 she states " Let me at this 

 point recall some of the basic facts of hered- 

 ity." She then proceeds, using the customary 

 Mendelian terms "dominant" and "reces- 

 sive" to describe a cross between gray and 

 albino mice, and indicates results which are 

 incompatible with those of other investigators. 

 She furthermore furnishes no data in support 

 of this more or less revolutionary hypothesis. 



As Castle, Allen, Bateson, Durham, Cuenot, 

 Plate, Davenport, and many others have car- 

 ried on investigations on this particular prob- 

 lem in genetics and have reached results con- 

 trary to those obtained by Slye, it seems rea- 



1 Slye, Maud, ' ' The Incidence and Inheritability 

 of Spontaneous Cancer iu Mice," Jour, of Med. 

 Eesearch, 1915, XXXIL, 159. 



