388 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 114. 



commerce and defense of the coast seem to 

 demand them ; there is the question of the 

 places for an economical and adequate sur- 

 vey of the vast shore line of Alaska ; the 

 assignment of olficers to make the neces- 

 sary surveys for disputed State boundaries 

 and to sit on commissions for the establish- 

 ment and improvement of harbors ; and 

 there is the provision of the astronomic, the 

 gravimetric, magnetic, hypsometric and 

 geodetic connections which will bring into 

 an accordant whole the different surveys 

 which the growth of our country and our 

 rank as a civilized people are inevitably 

 forcing us to provide. 



Our bankers and merchants scan jealously 

 the qualifications of every man suggested 

 for a place of responsibility connected with 

 the conduct of the public financial policy. 

 Does not a similar interest call upon scien- 

 tific men to insist upon a worthy chief for a 

 bureau whose results form so large a meas- 

 ure of the amount of merit they can claim 

 for the value of scientific application in 

 public affairs and of the reputation due our 

 country for her additions to the sum total 

 of human knowledge ? 



But that the desirable man may be had in 

 this case it is necessary that the innovations 

 in the spirit of the management in this Bu- 

 reau that date from 1885 should be changed. 

 The scientific bureaus of the government, to 

 be properly officered, cannot be treated as 

 part of the prey from which the victors in 

 political wars can reward their most en- 

 ergetic supporters. Their chiefs will never 

 fail in patriotic devotion to the best interests 

 of their country because they neglect to 

 emulate the ostentatious devotion of the 

 man working for an office. 



From the political scientist, bound by the 

 rules of the game to suffer the vicissitudes 

 of party strife, what can be expected but a 

 perfunctory attention to the afiairs of an 

 office whose details his term of oflicial life 

 gives but little promise that he will be 



given suificient time to master? If our 

 country wishes for the reward and fame 

 that accrued from the labors of Hassler, 

 Bache, Maury, Henry and Baird it must 

 perpetuate the policy that fostered their 

 genius ; the direction of the great scientific 

 bureaus must be placed in the hands of capa- 

 ble men, and to these chiefs the same meas- 

 ure of protection must be accorded that now 

 safeguards their subordinates. J. 



THE AMERICAN MORPHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The seventh annual meeting of the Amer- 

 ican Morphological Society was held at the 

 Harvard Medical School, Boston, December 

 29, and at the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology, Cambridge, December 30, 1896. 

 The following persons were elected to mem- 

 bership: Dr. G. Lefevre, Johns Hopkins Uni- 

 versity ; Dr. A. Schaper, Harvard Medical 

 School ; Dr. E. E. Bickford, Vassar College ; 

 Dr. W. E. Castle, Knox College ; Dr. A. W. 

 Weysse, Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 

 nology ; Dr. A. G. Mayer, Harvard Uni- 

 versity ; Dr. J. H. Gerould, Dartmouth 

 College ; Dr. H. S. Jennings, Jena ; Dr. H. 

 V. Neal, Munich ; Miss Margaret Lewis, 

 Eadclifife College; Dr. Ida Hyde, Cam- 

 bridge ; Mrs. G. C. Davenport, Cambridge ; 

 Dr. H. McE. Knower, Williams College; 

 Dr. C. M. Child, Chicago University ; and 

 Dr. E. L. Rice, Allegheny College. 



The following communications were pre- 

 sented and discussed : 

 The Individuality of the Cell. Arnold Graf. 



The paper formulated a cellular theory 

 opposed to the classical theory of Schleiden 

 and Schwann, and to the Tolioplasma theory 

 of Ndgeli and Wiitman, in the following 

 terms : 



1. The cell is a physiological but not 

 a morphological unit. 



2. It consists morphologicallj^ of numer- 

 ous lesser units, which pertain to different 

 categories, being specifically irritable by 

 varying stimuli. 



