which soon was to cause his death. At the last white man's house, on the border of the Indian country, he came upon the story of the tragic end of Lewis (1810), who had been murdered there but a few days before and buried beside the common path. He left money from his small store to build a fence about the grave where the legislature of Tennessee erected the monument in 1848. He returned North most enthusiastic and successful in his work; he worked harder than ever. By 1812 he had published five volumes; in 1813 he finished the seventh; he worked indefatigably on the eighth and last volume because he eagerly saw ahead a revision and perfecting of the whole, but died with it incomplete, in August, 1813.

RELATIVE to Thomas Jefferson (p. 405) and the all-round man, of which we have even in this day of specialization many remarkable examples, it is well for every specialist to take to heart certain recent letters and editorials in the New York Times. For instance, Dr. W. W. Keen, of Philadelphia, under date of July 31, writes apropos Stewart's axiom, "No human letters without natural science and no science without human letters." In this connection he gives a brief history of our American Philosophical Society of which we as Americans are proud:

"The policy of the American Philosophical Society, held at Philadelphia, to promote useful knowledge,' is most instructive. Founded by Franklin on the model of the Royal Society, which until a relatively few years ago, embraced both the humanities and science, the American society has adhered to the broad original scope, and still embraces both letters and science. Among our members we include philologists, historians, archæologists, statesmen, lawyers, etc., as well as astronomers, physicists, chemists, physicians, etc. From the ranks of the society have been chosen eight presidents of the United States, and Thomas Jefferson was our president during all his eight years as President of the United States, and for ten additional years-a unique record as a society."

THE tooth of a mammoth has been presented to the American Museum by Dr. A. K. Kouznetsov, Director of the Museum of the Russian Geographical Society at Tehita, Siberia. Dr. Kouznetsov, who extended this expression of cordiality through Mr. Franklin Clarkin on the occasion of the retirement of American agents from that district, says

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in his message that he is the oldest political exile in Siberia, having served a fifty-year sentence, and that he hopes if he survives the threatened annihilation of all intelligentsia by the Bolsheviki he will see in Russia a democracy patterned after that in America.

Many bones of the mammoth and other extinct animals are found imbedded in the impervious clay in the gold mines of the province (Transbaikalia) of which Tehita is capital. Farther to the north in the province of Yakutsk the famous discoveries were made of mammoths preserved intact by the cold in crevices. One of these mammoths, taken out in 1801, is the well-known skeleton set up in the zoological museum in Petrograd. Dr. Kouznetsov is of the opinion that it had stood less than two thousand years in the ice. Its skin and long hair were in fairly good condition and its flesh was eaten by the dogs of the party. Dr. Kouznetsov reports that the natives of Yakutsk Province are selling every year two thousand pounds of mammoth tusks to be used for ivory imitation.

THE report for 1918 of the "Explorations and Field-Work of the Smithsonian Institution" 1 reveals extensive work, in spite of the war, in the fields of anthropology, archæology, geology, botany, zoology, and astrophysics. The institution is rapidly collecting records of the languages, customs, and traditions of the American Indian tribes. The astrophysical observations at Mount Wilson on the accurate measurements of solar radiation have been continued. A station was also established at Calama, Chile, as the most cloudless spot on the earth for simultaneous observations. By this work it is hoped to lay a foundation for the application of such accurate measurements to the forecasting of terrestrial temperature changes. Botanical exploration was carried on in Ecuador and in the southwestern United States; and other expeditions for general collecting were sent to the French Congo, and to Borneo and Celebes.

Two initial volumes have appeared of what will be a most notable series of "Monographs on Experimental Biology,"

1 Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 70, No. 2.

edited by Jacques Loeb, head of the department of experimental biology in the Rockefeller Institute, T. H. Morgan, professor of experimental zoölogy in Columbia University, and W. J. V. Osterhout, professor of botany in Harvard University. The two volumes which have so far appeared are Forced Movements, Tropisms, and Animal Conduct, by Dr. Loeb, and The Elementary Nervous System, by G. H. Parker, professor of zoology in Harvard.

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IN connection with the illustration of mastodon bones collected by Thomas Jefferat Shawangunk, Ulster County, New York (see page 407), it is interesting to recall that both Ulster and Orange counties have been prolific in mastodon remains. After the recession of the transcontinental glacier, large marshes were left in this region where these huge animals frequently became mired. The most perfect skeleton so far unearthed, the "Warren mastodon❞ now in the American Museum, was taken out near Newburg, in 1845. This skeleton together with the "Shawangunk skull" was purchased and described by Professor John Collins Warren, of Harvard, in his famous memoir, The Mastodon Giganteus of North America (1852). Farmers in these counties are frequently turning up bones in a greater or less state of decay, which they not infrequently take for pieces of tree stump. Remains of mastodon hair also have been reported from Ulster County, "of dark, golden brown color, long, dense and shaggy."

RECENTLY preliminary reports on the

scientific work of Rasmussen's Second Thule Expedition have been printed by the Danish Geographical Society. An ancient folded range (probably palæozoic) was discovered extending from Robeson Channel along the whole north coast of Greenland into Peary Land, probably continuous southward with the range in Grinnell Land. It was found

that the great ice-free highlands of the inland ice belt, which the expedition crossed on its return journey, are entirely devoid of higher forms of vegetation. With reference to the evidences of Eskimo occupation, especially at Independence Bay, Mr. Rasmussen is of the opinion that it would never have been possible for Eskimo to migrate from the west along the northern coast to the point where the expedition found tent

rings, and that accordingly these remains indicate migration northward along the eastern coast.

The Fisheries of the North Sea1 has been written to inspire a greater appreciation of "our magnificent heritage of the sea." It gives a sketch of the history of the fishing industry of these northern waters from the time of primitive bone hooks to the modern steam trawler. The book contains much useful information on the industry in Scandinavia, Holland, Germany, France, Russia, and America. We are all fully awake after the late war to the economic and naval importance of the subject.

THE total eclipse of the sun which occurred on May 29 was notable for its duration 5 minutes in Brazil, and 6 minutes 51 seconds on the Atlantic Ocean. The eclipse was visible in Bolivia and Brazil, South America, and in the French and Belgian Congo, and Mozambique, Africa.

MORE than one thousand contributions for the Roosevelt Memorial Bird Fountain to be erected by the National Association of Audubon Societies of the United States, had aggregated $11,684.19 on May 1. It is estimated that $100,000 will be needed to make the memorial a fitting monument to the memory of the great naturalist president.

THE summer course of the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, enters on its thirty-second year. A new department, Protozoology, is added, and Professor Gary N. Calkins, of Columbia University, offers a formal course in this subject for advanced students. The faculty of the investigation branch of the botany department has also been expanded by the addition of Edward M. East, professor of experimental plant morphology in Harvard, Robert M. Harper, professor of botany in Columbia University, E. Newton Harvey, assistant professor of physiology in Princeton University, and Winthrop J. V. Osterhout, professor of botany in Harvard.

THE summer courses at the Cold Spring Harbor Biological Laboratory are adapted to both elementary and advanced students, and facilities are granted as usual to stu

1 The Fisheries of the North Sea, by Neal Green. London, Methuen & Co., 1918.

dents wishing to undertake original investigations. Associated with Dr. Charles B. Davenport, director of the laboratory, is a large staff, including Professors Herbert E. Walter, field zoölogy, Henry S. Pratt, comparative anatomy, John W. Harshberger, plant geography and ecology, and Harris Hawthorne Wilder, physical anthropology.

THE Carnegie Institution of Washington reports for the year 1918 a transference of many of its activities into war channels for both the Institution as an organization and for the individual members of the staff, many of whom were temporarily drawn from their regular duties for special government service. Most of the big war tasks the Institution had in hand were still confidential at the time President Woodward submitted his yearly report and so are not included, with the exception of the organization of an optical glass industry by the Geophysical Laboratory. Most of the high grade optical glass used in this country before the war had been imported from Europe. Not only was this supply cut off, but the entrance of the United States into active military participation entailed an increased demand for all sorts of optical instruments. The Geophysical Laboratory at the request of the government undertook to investigate the processes underlying this industry and then assumed the direction of establishments built for manufacturing the glass. As a result of their work the output of uncut optical glass in the country was increased from one to one hundred tons a month.

The continuation of the regular scientific work of the Institution, however, was not entirely interrupted. Even the menace of German raiders did not keep the nonmagnetic ship "Carnegie" in port throughout the year. The magnetic surveys of the "Carnegie" have carried her over 189,176 nautical miles, more than eight times the circumference of the earth. The service of this survey to navigators cannot be overestimated, for even slight errors in compass bearing may prove disastrous to a ship relying on an erroneous chart. In places in the South Pacific, the errors in magnetic variations of the best charts were discovered to be as much as 16 degrees..

At the beginning of 1918 there was incorporated into the Carnegie Institution the

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Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, founded by Mrs. E. H. Harriman. This office has been serving as a clearing house and repository for eugenical records and as a training school for field workers in connection with the summer course given at the Harbor by the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. A large number of bulletins and several memoirs on subjects of heredity and eugenics had been published and the office had accumulated nearly 52,000 pages of first-hand manuscript data before coming under the control of the Carnegie Institution.

It is interesting to note that 372 volumes of scientific researches have so far been published by the Carnegie Institution, not to mention the many articles and books printed elsewhere by its investigators.

COLOR patterns of fishes with reference to the habits and environment of the species have been the subject of intensive studies conducted during the past year in the Hawaiian Islands by Professor William H. Longley under the auspices of the department of marine biology of the Carnegie Institution. Professor Longley made most of his observations under water by means of an equipment of diving-hood and submarine cameras, remaining at considerable depths for as long as four or five hours at a time. Also he has been carrying on experiments in submarine color photography, and reports that he is convinced of its possibility, although a special color screen is required to stop more of the shorter light waves than does the customary screen.

ONE of the first results of the war, in England and America at least, is exaltation of what is national, and one of the earliest reactions is a turning to peaceful out-ofdoor sports and quiet country living and travel. It is safe to prophesy that Americans will now know America far better than ever before, and will understand and appreciate as never before the fundamental facts of the natural history of America, especially of physiography, geology, archæology, and of course of plant and animal life. There promises to be available a most remarkable abundance of authentic literature on natural history subjects.

Probably the greatest movement on foot in America along this line results from the organization of the "National Parks Asso

ciation." It is outside of the United States Government, independent of the National Park Service; it will work in coöperation with the Government but "untrammeled by precedents and politics"-the Service to develop the parks, the Association to educate the people for the higher enjoyment of the parks. Space will not permit quotation of the long lists of representatives of travel clubs and scientific societies, of universities, and of influential individuals, but to one interested in the results these lists are encouraging in the national importance of the included authors, journalists, educators, geographers, geologists, explorers, conservationists, publicists, artists, etc. About twenty universities are represented in the Association by their presidents.

America's numerous national parks are to be utilized as a "People's University of Natural Science," where a half million or more in attendance may study the natural history of our country and the formative processes that have given the continent its physical characteristics. Our national parks have been viewed largely as scenic wonders: "National Park" should be a trade-mark for conspicuous grandeur and majestic beauty, but it should also represent a standard of out-of-door living and natural his

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tory appreciation. The Association therefore will try to function as interpreter, a medium through which scientific knowledge may be made available to the general public, and it is greatly hoped that the various universities will coöperate by sending classes and instructors to the parks, allowing credits toward a degree as in regular course work.

The National Park Service of the Department of the Interior through its Educational Committee has been carrying on preliminary work of this nature in coöperation with the Commissioner of Education. Publications have been introduced into the schools and one series of pictures sent out for public exhibition. The Director of the Forest Service has emphasized the importance of this work in his annual report, expressing his desire to see its wide extension. "I want to see pictures of American mountains, geysers, glaciers, and cañons in every classroom of geography in the land; I want to see the beautiful pictures of national park scenes placed in the schoolhouses with portraits of national heroes and views of historic places; I want to see textbooks in certain subjects made more truly American by referring to features in our national park system rather than to similar objects in foreign lands."