IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
49 
carboniferous plant-remains have also been studied and described. In this con- 
nection it is proper to mention a report presented some years since before the 
Academy, descriptive of a wonderful m,oss-deposit discovered beneath the Kansas 
clays of Fayette county. 
Finally, in ecology, a vast deal of unnoted, even unnoticed -work has emanated 
from the State College. Professor Pammel has published one of the few text- 
books on this fascinating but little recognized branch of our beautiful science. 
The same' indefatigable author, assisted by Miss Rolfs, has published an essay 
on the pollination of the composites, and assisted by Miss Alice Beach, another 
on the fertilization of the curcurbits. During a series of years. Miss Charlotte 
King has prepared an annual report to the State Horticultural Society on the 
phenology of Iowa vegetation. 
Professor Fink has been a prolific publisher and has many ecological papers 
tb his credit, the latest entitled ''The Composition of a Desert Liehen Flora." 
Professor Shimek has related ecology to geology by his flora of the St. Peter’s 
Sandstone, and flora of the Sioux Quartzite; while by his published discussion 
of prairie and forest, and especially by -his argument that the loess is an 
ecological problem, he has changed the pleistocene geology of the continent if 
not of the world. Under the title "The Staminate Flower of Elodea," Professor 
Wylie presents some remarkable ecological adaptations in the floAvers of that 
interesting plant. Messrs. Fawcett and Dudyear of Ames have studied the 
variations in the ray flowers of the composites; Miss Edna Pammel, variations 
in clover; Professor Pammel, the germination and growth of leguminous seeds; 
and Mr. F. W. Faurot, the growth and development of Astragalus caryocarpus. 
Such, members of this Academy, .is the briefest outline sketch of our work 
in botany during the years we name. The details are found in hundreds of 
papers and pamphlets or volumes; but, as stated in the beginning of this review, 
even a published list of all published pages, title by title, would tell of only a 
smallest fraction of the work really done by members of this Academy for 
science and for the state. I may not better state this than by quoting a few 
words from one of the most tireless and efficient of men here represented 
as lately he Avrote me, sending a long list of important publications: “My life 
has been varied; lecturing, teaching, investigating, talking to institutes, farmers’ 
associations, everything; and the years have gone;” As stated at the outset, 
much of the Amried employment of our people has been incident to our position 
as organizers of the educational institutions of our commonwealth and of the 
country. Hardly one of us but has found himself compelled in these undiffer- 
entiated beginnings to teach more than a single subject. At the University 
since my connection with its honored staff the same men have taught botany, 
geology, zoology, Avhat was called biology, and a class or two in English or 
mathematics! Much more has this been true in other colleges. As time passes 
this situation ameliorates more and more, and the next tAventy-five years will 
bring, we believe, to all our toilers, wider opportunities. Under this greater 
freedom, methods will change. Since Darwin’s time, not here but everywhere, 
perhaps of necessity, teaching and book-making have been emphasized; not- 
withstanding the master’s oft-repeated injunction, “Try it, try it,” like that 
other master’s “prove all things,” naturalists have simply indulged their far- 
inherited tendencies to disputation; argument has been dominant and experi- 
ment recessive. 
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