770 
laboratories for chemistry, physics and astron- 
omy. 
A MOVEMENT has been started at Raleigh, N. 
C., for the establishment by the State of a tex- 
tile school. A committee has been appointed 
to correspond with all mill-owners, newspapers 
and Legislators. In the Georgia Legislature a 
billis pending for the appropriation of $10,000 
for the establishment of a textile school. 
On the recommendation of the governing 
board of the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale 
University, it has been decided to establish the 
degree of Master of Science, to be conferred on 
graduates of two years’ standing or upwards, 
who have taken a first degree in science and 
who pursue successfully a higher course of study 
in science under the direction of the governing 
board. 
Dr LAFAYETTE B. MENDEL has been pro- 
moted to an assistant professorship of physio- 
logical chemistry in Yale University. 
Dr. George T. Kemp has been appointed 
professor of physiology in the University of 
Illinois. 
Tur director o Sibley College, Cornell 
University, has been authorized to establish 
a full professorship of railway machine de- 
sign and locomotive construction. At present 
this work is carried on in existing depart- 
ments. 
PROFESSOR OSCAR LOEW, who has been for 
four years professor of agricultural chemistry 
in the University of Tokio, -has returned to 
Munich. He will be succeeded by Dr. Bieler, 
now assistant in the laboratory of agricultural 
chemistry at Halle. 
A croom RoBERTSON fellowship with an en- 
dowment of £8,000 has been created in the 
University of Aberdeen, with which Robertson 
was connected before being called to the Grote 
chair of philosophy of mind and logic in Uni- 
versity College, London. 
A CHATR of geography has been established 
in the University of Wurzburg. 
Tue Technical Institute in Munich has been 
given by the government 175,000 Marks for en- 
larging the electro-technical laboratory, 150,000 
SCIENCE. 
[N. S. Von. VI. No. 151. 
Marks for the erection of a laboratory for the 
agricultural station and 170,000 Marks for en- 
larging other buildings. 
THE newly established medical school for 
women in St. Petersburg opens with 165 
students. 
THE Russian government has appropriated 
400,000 roubles for the construction of a chemi- 
cal laboratory at the Polytechnic Institute at 
Riga. 
DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
DETERMINATE VARIATION AND ORGANIC SE- 
LECTION. 
A FEW remarks may be allowed on the sub- 
ject discussed in the reports of the papers of 
Professors Osborn and Poulton, on ‘ Organic 
Selection’ in the issue of October 15th. I ven- 
ture to make these comments now, although 
the more extended publication of the articles of 
the authors may remove my causas scribendi. 
Yet such preliminary reports have their main 
utility, to my mind, in arousing comments 
which may be of service to the authors. 
I may throw my remarks into heads for the 
sake of clearness. 
1. Professor Osborn’s use of the phrase ‘de- 
terminate variation’ I find ambiguous, and the 
ambiguity is the more serious since it seems to 
me to prejudice the main contention involved 
in the advocacy of ‘ Organic Selection.’ The 
ambiguity is this: He seems to use determinate 
variation aS synonymous with determinate evo- 
lution. (See his discussion, SCIENCE, Oct. 15, pp. 
588-4, especially p. 584, column 1, and para- 
graph 2 of column 2.) He says that determi- 
nate variation is generally accepted, and attri- 
butes that view to Professor Lloyd Morgan and 
myself. But it is only determinate evolution that 
I, for my part, am able to subscribe to; and I 
think the same is true of Professor Morgan. 
“Determinate evolution’ means a consistent 
and uniform direction of progress in evolution, 
however that progress may be secured, and what- 
ever the causes and processes at work. Admitting 
‘determinate evolution,’ the question, therefore, 
as to the causes which ‘determine’ the evolu- 
tion is still open, and various answers have 
been given to it. The Neo-Lamarckians say 
