SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. is 



Through the direct support guaranteed by connection with the na- 

 tional organization, there is liope of vitality and permanence in the new 

 society, which we bid God speed in its work. The inaugural address of 

 President Comstoek, read before the Academy in 190i; and published in 

 the June number for that year, of the Bulletin, contains suggestions for 

 a very similar union of local Academies of Sciences with the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, or the Carnegie Institution, 

 or some other national rallying point. 



We welcome any movement which tends to vivify and consolidate the 

 energies of those whose labor of love in the cause of Science lias been 

 necessarily disconnected and often disheartening in the past. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



From experiments conctuctea at the Montana Agriculture Experiment 

 Station it was found that the evaporation and transpiration from the 

 grain was about 16 per cent greater than the evaporation from the 

 bare soil. For the period named, the former averages 1 1-7 inch and the 

 latter 9-10 inch per week over the surface. For the same period the evap- 

 oration from a water surface was 13 to 16 inches per week. . . . The 

 crop in every case not only evaporated all of the irrigation water, but 

 robbed the soil of part of the moisture whicih it contained at seed time. 



The changing of the sex in plants (Trop. Agr., 22 (1903), No. 11, pp. 

 789, 790). — The possibility of chauging the sex of the date palm and of 

 the papaw is discussed. About 80 per cent of seedlings of date palms are 

 male. The method of the Arabs in some of the oases in the southern part 

 of Algeria in ohanging these male plants into bearing trees is to tear 

 off all the leaves from the foot stalks, at 2 or 3 years of age, so that the 

 medial nerve is split in two from the center to the leaf sheaf. It is 

 believed that this tearing process brings about a concentration of the 

 aap movement in the same way as is the case in annular incisions, 

 resulting in an accumulation of sap, ''which is more necessary for the 

 vital functions of the female plant than for those of the male." The 

 writer states that it has been his experience that cutting off the terminal 

 buds of papaw trees (Carica papaya) as soon as the cnaracter of the 

 flower is apparent results in altering that character, inducing the tree 

 to yield good fruit in place of the poor specimens borne by the so-called 

 male trees. 



Evaporation from a water surface, E. F. Ladd (North Dakota Sta. 

 Ept. 1902, pp. 20, 21). — Observations were made as follows: "A galvan- 

 ized iron tank 3 ft. square by 14 in. in depth painted black contained a 

 second smaller tank 12 by 12 by 12 in. in dimensions, liKewise blackened. 

 Theise were sunk in a grass plat level with the surface of the ground. 

 The small tank contained distilled water and this tank within the 

 larger was surrounded with water. Daily measurements were made of 

 the amount of evaporation, and the results by months are given. . . . 

 The total amount of water evaporated from a water surface for the five 

 months, May to September, inclusive, was 28.12 in., or an average of 

 5.624 in, per month, or a daily average of 0.183 in. The total rainfall 

 for the same period of time was . . . but little more ttian one-half 

 as much as the water evaporation for the same period, or an average of 

 2.864 in. per month, or an average daily rainfall of 0.0£'36 in., as com- 

 pared with an evaporation of 0.183 in. per day." 



The New Zealand Parliament has passed a bill empowering the 

 Governor to introduce after January, 1906, the metric system, which is 

 then to become the system of weights and measures for the country. 



