Notes and Comment. 



215 



worth while, though involving matters of personal detail, to 

 call attention to the preparation of the men who have been called 

 to direct the work in plant physiology at the institutions named. 



Dr. B. E. Livingston was graduated with the degree of 

 B. S. from the University of Michigan in 1898. From 1896 to 

 1898 he was assistant in Plant Physiology in the University of 

 Michigan and held the same position in the University of Chicago 

 from 1899 to 1905, during which period he was for a time field 

 assistant on the Mich. Geological Survey and collaborator in 

 the U. S. Bureau of Forestry. From 1904 to 1906 he was soil 

 expert in the U. S. Bureau of Soils, and during the latter portion 

 of the period was in charge of the division of Soil Fertility. He 

 received the degree of Ph. D. from the University of Chicago in 

 1902, and was research fellow at the New York Botanical Garden 

 in 1903. From 1906 to 1909 he has been a member of the staff 

 of the Desert Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washing- 

 ton, and in 1908 carried on research work at the Pflanzenphysio- 

 logisches Institut at Munich. His published papers form a list 

 too long for notice at the present time. Dr. Livingston assumes 

 his duties as Professor of Plant Physiology at Johns Hopkins 

 Oct. 1, 1909. 



Quite as full, perhaps, have been the years of preparation 

 of Dr. W. J. V. Osterhaut for the work which awaits him at 

 Harvard. Graduating from Brown University as A. B. in 1893, 

 he remained one year in that institution as instructor in botany, 

 taking the degree of A. M. in 1894. In the meantime he had 

 spent three summers at Woods Hole with Prof. Setchell, the 

 first summer as student and the second and third as instructor. 

 He next worked with Strasburger in the Botanisches Institut 

 at Bonn, where he engaged in research and came in contact with 

 such men as Schimper, Schenck, Noll, and Prlueger. His first 

 botanical work was on the fertilization of Florideae, and this was 

 continued at Bonn as an investigation of the cytology of fertili- 

 zation in Batrachospermum. This led to an investigation of 

 Equisetum and other plants with reference to the existence 

 of a centrosome. His papers on the role of osmosis in marine 

 plants and on the importance of balanced solutions, as well as 

 on plasmolysis and the penetration of salts into the cell indicate 

 the scope and something of the results of his later studies. He 



