498 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 93. 



idea that they have mastered geology ; have 

 they not recited so many weeks from a text- 

 book? They have been misled. Education is 

 more than a mere matter of the memory — a stor- 

 ing away of facts, as valuable as they may be ; 

 it is the cultivation of those powers by which 

 the facts may be obtained at first hand. In this 

 lies the training. 



I am well aware of the excuse offered. Says 

 the college president: "We do not pretend, 

 nor do we care to make trained geologists ; we 

 wish to give our students an insight only into 

 the science, that's all." Let me ask: How 

 much chemistry worth the having can be ob- 

 tained by reading or committing to memory the 

 ordinary text-book ? How much physics ? How 

 much biology ? In a collegiate institution 

 courses are offered in these branches for their 

 training effect, without reference necessarily to 

 the career of a student. Chemistry, physics 

 and biology cannot, in these days, be taught 

 without an equipment and teachers well versed 

 in its management. Why should geology re- 

 ceive different treatment? Its demands are 

 not less pressing and its educational value is 

 fully as great. When the services of profes- 

 sionals can be obtained, why longer impose 

 amateur instruction upon our students ? 



The root of the evil seems to lie not only in 

 the want of a proper discrimination on the part 

 of the patrons of educational institutions, but 

 largely in the lack of a proper appreciation on 

 the part of the authorities in charge. That 

 more and louder protests have not been heard 

 is strange. But the pace has been set. Those 

 institutions which persist in offering cheap in- 

 struction, solely because it is cheap, must fall 

 to the rear. That the best instruction will be 

 given by the best trained teacher is axiomatic. 

 Better by far that geology be not attempted 

 than that it should be poorly presented ; better 

 that a curriculum be curtailed than that a study 

 should be a source of weakness. 



Frederic W. Simonds. 



School of Geology, 

 University of Texas, August, 1896. 



ON A SUPPOSED IMMEDIATE EFFECT OF POLLEN. 



To THE Editor of Science: I have been 

 greatly interested in the account of a curious 



freak in an apple tree given by Mr. T. H. Lennox 

 in your issue of September 4, 1896, p. 317. Af- 

 ter describing the freak, Mr. Lennox concludes 

 that ' ' there can be no reasonable doubt that the 

 phenomenon arose from cross fertilization be- 

 tween pollen of tho Talman Sweet and the ovule 

 of the Greening." As some of the features of 

 the case, as described by Mr. Lennox, seem to 

 me opposed to such a conclusion, I venture the 

 following suggestions : — 



The apples on the northeast side of the tree, 

 we are told, ' ' were Rhode Island Green- 

 ings, such as the tree had always borne, while 

 those on the southwest half of the tree were of a 

 mixed character, each apple being partly Green- 

 ing and partly Talman Sweet. ' ' If the phenom- 

 enon is to be attributed to the direct action of 

 the Talman Sweet pollen, it is difficult to under- 

 stand why every apple on one half of the tree 

 should be affected and none on the other half of 

 the tree. As the pollen is normally carried by 

 insects we should possibly expect a greater 

 number of the fruits to be affected on the side 

 toward the Talman Sweet tree than on the op- 

 posite side, but we should reasonably expect 

 a portion of them to remain unaffected. We 

 should also reasonably expect a few fruits on 

 the opposite side of the tree to be similarly af- 

 fected, as some of them would as surely be 

 crossed with the Talman Sweet pollen as those 

 on the side nearest the Talman Sweet tree. In 

 other words, if this freak were due to cross 

 pollination by insects with pollen of Talman 

 Sweet, we should expect the fruits affected to 

 be scattered irregularly over the tree, the 

 majority being on the side adjoining the Tal- 

 man Sweet tree. That the fruits on certain 

 limbs or a certain part of the tree only should 

 be affected and all of these similarly affected, is 

 indeed difficult to explain as a result of cross 

 pollination. One must necessarily presuppose 

 a peculiar condition of this portion of the tree 

 rendering possible the effect of the pollen 

 described, as the other portion of the tree re- 

 mains entirely unaffected. This is evidently 

 Prof. Bailey's conclusion, as in his note follow- 

 ing the article by Mr. Lennox he says : ' ' Like 

 heredity of mutilations it (the immediate effect 

 of pollen) is rare and therefore apparently ex- 

 ceptional." Even when we assume some pecu- 



