August 25, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



239 



1,322 were at the School of Technology. Of 

 the 6,862 regular students of the seven uni- 

 versities, 1,490 v^ere women. There were 459 

 in the department of theology, 1,364 in the 

 law, 1,980 in medicine and 3,069 in letters or 

 in sciences. The foreign element furnished 

 52.5 per cent, of the whole. 



All the graduate work offered at the Ohio 

 State University has been organized into a 

 single graduate school under the administra- 

 tion of a dean and a graduate council of 

 twelve members. Professor William Mc- 

 Pherson, in charge of the department of chem- 

 istry, has been elected dean. 



At the Missouri College of Agriculture ap- 

 pointments have been made as follows: J. A. 

 Ferguson, professor of forestry; A. J. Meyer, 

 assistant to the dean and superintendent of 

 short courses in agriculture; H. L. Kempster, 

 assistant professor of poultry husbandry, and 

 P. L. Gainey, instructor in botany. 



Professor William Hazen Boughton, head 

 of the department of civil engineering in the 

 University of West Virginia, has resigned to 

 accept the position of treasurer and general 

 manager of Vassar College. 



Dr. Nicolas Leon has been named professor 

 of anthropology at the Museo Nacional, Mex- 

 ico. 



Mr. Hugh Gunn, formerly director of edu- 

 cation of the Orange Free State, has accepted 

 an invitation from the government of Western 

 Australia to act as adviser and organizer for 

 the university which that state is founding at 

 Perth. 



Dr. Karl Diewonski, a manufacturing 

 chemist, has been appointed professor of chem- 

 istry in the University of Cracow. 



DISCUSSION AND COBBESFONDENCE 

 air in the depths or the ocean 



To the Editor of Science: The question 

 has often been asked, how does the air, which 

 is assumed to be necessary for the life of deep- 

 sea fishes, get to those depths. Possibly a 

 satisfactory explanation exists, if not, the fol- 

 lowing suggested itself to me as a plausible 

 one, and possibly as a new one. 



It is well known that the amount of gas 

 which a liquid will hold in clear and stable 



solution, increases with the pressure. The 

 liquid in a bottle of champagne or in a siphon 

 bottle, for instance, is clear until the pressure 

 is released. It may be assumed that the water 

 on the top surface of the ocean is being con- 

 tinuously saturated with air due to the spray- 

 ing of the waves. The layer beneath is at a 

 slightly higher pressure, hence will hold more 

 air per unit volume, than the one above it. 

 Under such eircustances it seems that there 

 should be a tendency for the air in the top 

 layer to move down to the less saturated one 

 beneath it, until it too is saturated, and this 

 will require a larger amount of air per unit 

 volume. The same is true of the next lower 

 layer, and so on to the bottom. 



It would seem to follow, therefore, that 

 air actually descends into the ocean depths, 

 and if it is being consumed there for oxida- 

 tion and nitrification purposes, there should 

 be a continuous flow of air downward into the 

 deepest ocean waters. If oxygen dissolves in 

 sea water more freely than nitrogen, the deep- 

 sea fishes should be enjoying richer air and 

 therefore should require less of it, than those 

 living nearer to the surface. 



Carl Hering 



Philadelphia, Pa., 

 July 31, 1911 



the lighting of a jet of hydrogen 

 To the Editor of Science: I have ex- 

 amined perhaps a dozen laboratory manuals 

 for beginners in chemistry with reference to 

 the experiment in which the student is re- 

 quired to light a jet of hydrogen and in every 

 case the directions are essentially the same: 

 wait till the air is all expelled, as indicated 

 by the failure to get an explosion when a 

 test-tube full of the escaping gas is brought 

 over a flame, securely wrap a towel around 

 the generating flask, and bring a light to the 

 exit. Now these directions will certainly re- 

 sult in occasional explosions of the contents 

 of the flask, especially if the laboratory sec- 

 tions are large, with possible serious conse- 

 quences. The careful student, having been 

 cautioned as to the danger of the experiment, 

 will often wait an undue length of time and 

 will still be nervous about bringing a flame to 



