274 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXI. No. 529. 



the term ' beryllium ' has been used exclusive- 

 Ij- in the index of the Journal of the Society 

 of Chemical Industry and, so far as I have 

 noticed, in the subject matter as well. On the 

 other hand, the Chemical News uses the two 

 words interchangeably in its articles, abstracts 

 and index, part of its articles being indexed 

 under one head and part under the other, and, 

 unfortunately, without any attempt at cross 

 reference. In America only one original ar- 

 ticle has appeared on the subject in many 

 years which has used 'glucinum.' The Amer- 

 ican Chemical Journal has used 'beryllium.' 

 The American Journal of Arts and Sciences 

 for some years has used ' beryllium ' and it is 

 here that some of the best articles have ap- 

 peared. The Journal of Physical Chemistry 

 uses 'beryllium.' The Journal of the Amer- 

 ican Chemical Society has allowed its con- 

 tributors to choose, and one article and two 

 abstracts have appeared on ' glucinum ' since 

 its publication. 



To play on Dr. Howe's own words, I think 

 that with American, English, German, Swed- 

 ish, Danish, Dutch, Russian, Italian, etc., 

 journals and chemists using ' beryllium,' we 

 can afford to let the French cling to ' glu- 

 cinium ' (not ' glucinum ') a little while 

 longer. 



It is true that the committee appointed by 

 the American Association on the Spelling and 

 Pronunciation of Chemical Terms did recom- 

 mend ' glucinum,' and so far as I can find its 

 members are about the only American chem- 

 ists loyal to the term. I think it highly un- 

 fortunate that their recommendations as to 

 spelling and pronunciation have not been more 

 generally adopted in our chemical literature 

 and language, but it is true they have not and 

 in regard to 'glucinum' it is my humble 

 opinion that they were wrong. 



Charles Latiiuop Parsons. 



N?:w Hampshire College, 

 .Tanuary 23, 190.'). 



THE ENGLISH SPAUROW AS EMBRYO LOGICAL 

 JfATERIAL. 



DoLBTLESS many readers of Science who 

 conduct courses in vertebrate embryology, in 

 which the chick is one of the forms studied, 

 have spent laborious hours in mounting serial 



sections of embryos of from five to eight days' 

 development. The chick embryo of this age 

 has reached so considerable a size that, even 

 though the sections be cut comparatively thick, 

 a complete series will fill a large number of 

 slides. Of course type sections may be 

 selected, and slide-room thus saved, but it 

 takes nearly as long to prepare such a selected 

 series as it does to mount the entire series. 



A convenient substitute for the later chick 

 embryos may be found in the ubiquitous and 

 generally disliked English sparrow. There are 

 probably few localities where the nests of this 

 little pest may not be found; frequently they 

 are so numerous that a large number of eggs 

 may be obtained without difficulty. 



So far as size is concerned, the sparrow, 

 even at the time of hatching, is small enough 

 to section without especial difficulty, and at 

 the stage corresponding to the eight-day chick 

 it is so small that a complete series may be 

 mounted on a comparatively small number of 

 slides. 



Many teachers have probably made use of 

 this source of supply of material to illustrate 

 some of the phases in avian development that 

 are usually read about in the text-books with- 

 out being studied in the laboratory, but there 

 may be some who have not thought of this 

 method of procuring material and at the same 

 time of helping to reduce the English sparrow 

 population. 



The idea is not original with the writer, but 

 he is sure that it is not patented. 



Albert M. Eeese.- 



Syracuse University. 



deluc versus de saussure. 

 To the Editor of Science: In his letter of 

 December 29 (Science, 525, p. Ill), Dr. East- 

 man, returning to the question as to whom 

 priority in the use of the term ' geology ' prop- 

 erly belongs, says: 



I am unable to see why Von Zittel was not 

 scrupulously exact in his handling of facts Avhen 

 crediting Deluc with prior use of the term geology 

 as compared with De Saussure. 



Ilis letter bears internal evidence that, like 

 me, Dr. Eastman has been unable to obtain 

 the 1778 edition of Deluc's letters, which alone 



