August 1, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



159 



thing to give some old-school aristocrat a job 

 of foisting some mighty poor science and 

 poorer agriculture upon farmers, then they 

 will deserve to go down with those they fail to 

 minister unto. 



If our American land-grant colleges and ex- 

 periment stations shall faithfully and fear- 

 lessly disregard old, artificial precedents, and 

 organize themselves around agricultural units, 

 it will be they who preserve the intellectuality 

 of our great body of farmer citizenship. Will 

 they do it? is the question to-day in the mind 

 of the " uncritical farmer." This same farmer 

 has time and again since the battle of Lex- 

 ington shown his willingness to bear the 

 burden of any real and sincere educational 

 need. 



And now, if any pure scientist delights not 

 in agriculture, and in the problems of the 

 farm, he should draw his salary from some 

 more congenial source. It is the function of 

 pure science to increase the sum of human 

 knowledge. Let her worshipers be about their 

 high calling. 



It is the function of the experiment stations 

 to apply themselves to the solution of the 

 problems of agriculture. Such work this 

 hour demands not only the finest skill and 

 cleverness, but the most searching integrity. 

 Such is real worship of the " great Goddess 

 Truth." 



The very insincere practise of trying to de- 

 ceive their constituency, which Dr. Pearl 

 seems to cite, as the only recourse for doing 

 scientific work in experiment stations, is that 

 which could result in the prostitution of all 

 science, and which might result in the degen- 

 eration of American agriculture. 



A. N. Hume 



South Dakota Experiment Station 



the tariff on books 



To THE Editor of Science: As most of us 

 probably think of the new tariff law as one that 

 reduces duties, it may be well to call the atten- 

 tion of readers of Science to one or two items 

 of increase that are of interest. 



Books in foreign languages are no longer 

 to be on the free list, and books over twenty 



years old must also have teen hound over 

 twenty years to be entitled to free entry. 



As most German books are bound after pub- 

 lication, and there is no telling when, this 

 might be a serious impediment to easy order- 

 ing of books from second-hand catalogues. 



As a revenue measure will it yield enough 

 to pay for the delay and obstruction to the 

 free circulation of knowledge involved? This 

 is not a bit of the " New Freedom," I trust. 

 Alfred G. Lane 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Catalogue of the Mammals of Western Europe 

 (Europe exclusive of Russia) in the collec- 

 tion of the British Museum. By Gehrit S. 

 Miller. London. Printed by order of the 

 Trustees of the British Museum. Sold by 

 Longmans, Green & Co., 39 Paternoster 

 Eow, S. C.; B. Quaritseh, 11 Grafton 

 Street, New Bond Street, W.; Dulau & Co., 

 Ltd., 37 Soho Square, W., and at the British 

 Museum (Natural History), Cromwell 

 Eoad, S. W. 1912. All rights reserved. 

 8vo. Pp. 15 -f 1019; 213 text figures. 

 Mr. Miller's " Catalogue of the Mammals of 

 Western Europe " supplies a long-needed au- 

 thoritative manual of the mammal fauna of 

 Europe. It includes, however, only the land 

 mammals, it excluding the seals and ceta- 

 ceans. The Gibraltar macaque and the In- 

 dian buffalo are omitted as being artificially 

 introduced species. Geographically it is re- 

 stricted to continental Europe outside the 

 Russian frontier and the immediately adjoin- 

 ing islands, but includes also Spitzbergen, Ice- 

 land and the Azores. 



The preface, by Dr. Sidney F. Harmer, 

 keeper of zoology at the British Museum, 

 states that a work of this nature " was many 

 years ago suggested by the late Lord Lilford, 

 who kindly contributed an annual sum to- 

 wards the collecting necessary for its realiza- 

 tion," but " the possibility of issuing the pres- 

 ent catalogue has mainly grown from the 

 work which its author, Mr. Gerrit S. Miller, 

 of the L^nited States National Museum at 

 Washington, has for some years been doing 

 independently on the subject." Through the 



