New YorK AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION, 107 
A large part of the work and delay in connection with this 
study was due to the absence of such a well-elaborated’ system. 
The suggestion of Fuller & Johnson™ that the most stable 
reactions of bacteria could be printed on a card and the re- 
actions of the culture being studied could be indicated by 
-+ or —, as the facts required, was a step in the right direction. 
As soon as there was a collection of these cards the difficulty 
of their arrangement became evident and this was met in an 

ingenious way by Gage and Phelps.48 They devised a group 
i 
number which both recorded the more important culture re- 
actions and provided a basis for an orderly arrangement of 
the cards. The value of these improvements was so evident 
that on this basis a committee of the Society of American 
Bacteriologists has worked out an official classification card. 
While this card is probably not in its finished form it has 
such marked advantages over any other method: of classifica- 
tion which is now available that it has been utilized in pre- 
senting the results of the present study. * 
The Society card consists of three essential parts: (1) 
group number (see page 108) along the lines originally sug- 
gested by Gage, which records the more important facts re- 
garding an organism and at the same time provides a means 
of arranging the records so that duplicates can be found 
readily; (2) A brief characterization (see page 110) which 
may be filled in by means of + or —, as suggested by Fuller 
and Johnson, and which serves as a means of further com- 
paring germs with the same group number; and (3) A pro- 
vision for tersely recording the detailed features of cultures 
upon the common media as first outlined by Chester’? (see 
page 130). 

“Fuller, G. W., and Johnson, Geo. A. On the differentiation and classifi- 
cation of water bacteria. Jour. Eup. Med., 4: 609-626. 1899. Similar 
article in A. P. H. A., Proc. 25: 580-586. 1899. 
*% Gage, S. De M., and Phelps, E. B. On the classification and identifica- 
tion of bacteria with a description of the card system in use at the Law- 
rence Experiment Station for records of species. A. P. H. A., Proc. 28: 
494-505. 1903. 
*Chester, F. D. A manual of determinative pager New York: 
MacMillan. 1901. 
