August 1, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



155 



000; completion of armory, $90,000; a boiler 

 touse, $45,000 ; addition to the natural history 

 building, $65,000; ceramics building, $65,000; 

 addition to library and horticultural buildings, 

 $48,000; stock judging pavilion, $30,000; for 

 an extension of the present university campus 

 and for an enlarged agricultural building, 

 $400,000 was voted. 



M. PiEREE BoUTEOUX has accepted a pro- 

 fessorship of mathematics at Princeton Uni- 

 versity, and will assume his duties in the 

 autumn. M. Boutroux is a son of the dis- 

 tinguished professor of philosophy, M. Emile 

 Boutroux, and is closely related to the Poincare 

 family. 



De. E. E. McCotter, instructor in anatomy 

 in the University of Michigan, has been ap- 

 pointed professor of anatomy at Vanderbilt 

 University. 



Mr. Frederick Dunlap, assistant in the 

 forest service, physicist at the Forest Plant 

 Product Laboratory and lecturer in the Uni- 

 versity of Wisconsin, has been elected pro- 

 fessor of forestry in the University of Mis- 

 souri. 



The following appointments have been 

 made at Northwestern University: Edward 

 Leroy Schaub, Ph.D., of the University of 

 Iowa, to be professor of philosophy William 

 H. Coghill, M.E., to be assistant professor of 

 mining and metallurgy; William Logan 

 Woodburn, Ph.D., to be assistant professor of 

 botany; Elton J. Moulton, Ph.D., to be as- 

 sistant professor of mathematics; Charles 

 Ross Dines, Ph.D., to be instructor in mathe- 

 matics; George Leroy Schnable, M.A., to be 

 instructor in physics; Paul Mason Bachelder, 

 M.A., to be instructor in mathematics ; Harlan 

 True Stetson, M.S., of Dartmouth, to be in- 

 structor in astronomy; Gilbert Haven Cady, 

 M.S., of the University of Chicago, to be 

 instructor in geology and mineralogy. 



DISCUSSION AND COBSESPONDENCE 

 THE WORD "SELVA" IN GEOGRAPHIC LITERATURE 



I WISH to enter a protest against the use of 

 the Portuguese word " selva " as applied to 

 the forests of the Amazon Valley in geo- 



graphic literature. I am under the impres- 

 sion that the word was formerly used by sev- 

 eral writers, but that it has been pretty gen- 

 erally dropped of late as unnecessary. This is 

 written away from my library, however, and it 

 is not possible to verify this statement at 

 present. 



In Mr. James Bryce's late book, " South 

 America; Observations and Impressions, New 

 York, 1913," the word " selva " is used as if 

 it were not only the every-day and generally 

 accepted name of certain and particular Bra- 

 zilian forests, but as if it were so descriptive, 

 so characteristic, and so appropriate that no 

 English word could take its place. 



I quote a few of Mr. Bryce's expressions : 



The great Amazonian low forest-covered country 

 —the so-called Selvas (woodlands) (p. 168). The 

 great central plain of the Amazon and its tribu- 

 taries which the Brazilians call the Selvas (woods) 

 (p. 555). The Selvas or forest-covered Amazonian 

 plain (p. 558). 



I regret to have to say that I know of no 

 reason whatever for such a use of the word 

 selva. In the first place, it is not the word 

 used in Brazil either for the Amazonian forest 

 or for any other forest, Mr. Bryce to the con- 

 trary notwithstanding. It is true that it is a 

 good Portuguese word, but it is not in com- 

 mon use, and during the forty years I have 

 been acquainted with Portuguese language I 

 doubt if I have heard it used by a Portuguese- 

 speaking person more than two or three times, 

 and then only in a poetic sense. 



The Brazilians speak of the forests of the 

 Amazon as mattas, just as they speak of the 

 forests of any other part of the country. In 

 1907 Dr. H. von Ihering, director of the 

 Museu Paulista in S. Paulo, Brazil, published 

 a paper in Portuguese on the distribution of 

 Brazilian forests. The occasion certainly 

 seemed to offer an opportunity for saying 

 something about the " selvas " and their pe- 

 culiarities, but I do not find the word " selva " 

 used once in the 53 pages of that article. The 

 forests are there either designated by the 

 special names used in the country, or they are 

 called mattas, mattos or florestas, which are 

 the words in common use aU over Brazil. 



