March 22, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



335 



Dr. Geo. M. Sternberg read a paper en- 

 titled Explanation of Acquired Immuiiitij from 

 Infectious Diseases, an account of which will 

 be printed in the next is.sue of Science. 

 M. B. Waite, 



Recording Secretary. 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 

 THE .lOURXAL OF MORPHOLOGY. 



The latest number of the Journal of Mor- 

 phology is of exceptional importance. Mr. 

 Frank Lillie's artich' upon the Embryology of 

 the Unionidice contains a most careful inves- 

 tigation of the relations of the earliest cells 

 in the embryonic cleavage to the adult 

 organs of the body. This is followed by 

 Oliver S. Sti'ong's memoir iipon the Cranial 

 Nerves of the Amphibia, which opens up a new 

 and thoroughly plulosopliical interpretation 

 of the cranial nerve.s, based not upon their 

 numerical relations, but upon their physio- 

 logical components. This is the result of an 

 investigation of a very difficiilt character 

 which has been under way for the past five 

 years. The third paper, bj- Pierre A. Fish, 

 upon the AduU Xervous System of the Sala- 

 mander, is followed by a brief but interesting 

 paper from Professor W. K. Brooks upon 

 the Sen-^oi-y Clubs of Certain Calenterates. 



The most important feature of this num- 

 ber, however, is contained in three short 

 preliminarj- papers at the end of the Journal, 

 occupying only a few pages, but apparently 

 establishing a new law in the field of fertili- 

 zation phenomena. The discovery has been 

 made independently by Dr. Wheeler and by 

 Dr. A. D. Mead, of the University of Chi- 

 cago, and l)y Professor E. B. Wilson and 

 Mr. A. T. Matthews, of Columbia College. 

 In coui-se of correspondence the authoi's of 

 these papers learned tliat they had inde- 

 pendently reached the same unexpected con- 

 clusion, and it was arranged by the editor 

 that their three communications should ap- 

 pear together. While they mark an im- 

 portant step forward in our knowledge of 



fertilization, at first sight the results ob- 

 tained by Dr. Wheeler and Professor Wilson 

 are directly contradictorj'. Dr. Wheeler 

 proves conclusivelj- that in the fertilization 

 of Myzostoma (a parasitic form of Annelid) 

 there are no traces of the archoplasm or 

 d3'Tiamic substance in the spermatozoon, and 

 that this element is entirely resident in the 

 ovum. Professor Wilson, on the other 

 hand, independently working on the eggs 

 of the echinoderm loxopneustes. proves that 

 there is no trace of the archoplasm in the 

 ovum, but that it is entirely resident in the 

 spermatozoon. It is too soon to make a 

 general induction from these observations, 

 but at present they appear to wholly set 

 aside the brilliant announcement of Fol in 

 1891, which has been supported by Guig- 

 nard and Conklin, that both the ovum and 

 spermatozoon contain archoplasm, and that 

 one feature of segmentation is a ' quadrille 

 of the four centers ' derived from these male 

 and female archoplasmic masses. These 

 observations do prove, however, that the 

 archoplasm may be derived exclusivelj'' 

 either from one sex or the other, and they 

 show that Fol's law was based upon de- 

 fective preparations. They tend also to 

 show that the archoplasm is not a bearer of 

 the hereditary qualities, but necessarily a 

 purely neutral dynamic agent. 



the psychological RE^^EW, MARCH. 



The current number is largely taken up 

 with the Princeton meeting of the American 

 Psychological ^l.?«oc/a/(OH, already reported in 

 Science (January 11). Authors' abstracts 

 are given of sixteen papers presented, and 

 the address of the President, Prof. William 

 James, is given in full. Mrs. Franklin's 

 paper on Normal Defect of Vision in the Fovea 

 was also read before the Association. The 

 only remaining paper consists of Contribu- 

 tions from the Psychological Laboratory of 

 Columbia College. Dr. Griifing describes 

 experiments on the relations between der- 



