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those made for land and sea are now needed for the air.22 Wireless telegraphy and telephony have advanced by leaps and bounds, and simple inductive telephony has reached a high degree of development in the very front lines of the opposing armies.23 Electrical schools have opened up for the training of war-made cripples.24 The radiodynamics of torpedo and boat control offers a field for study almost new. The use of the X-rays requires constructors, operators and doctors who have acquired the requisite fundamental principles in good courses in physics. Electrochemical processes in general are becoming American for the first time, and every citizen is continually being reminded in one way or another of the fact that the war is one of science, and that the reconstruction must likewise be one based on a knowledge of natural laws.

There is still another phase of our new development which makes a definite demand on the physics teacher. It is the part that women are to take in the life of the nation in the years to come. Whatever may be one's idea of equal suffrage, he must recognize the fact that a large portion of the burden of the world war is being borne by women. They are entering the industries; they are becoming electricians, machinists, chemists, in fact everything that man has wished to be solely. And with this awakening will undoubtedly come wide interest in the sciences fundamental to industrial activity. New economies have required more detailed explanations of the scientific methods of obtaining them. Household physics, though a comparatively recent term, has now for the first time come to have a real meaning. Surely the present war, however unpleasant it may be other

22 Scientific American, April 20, 1918, p. 355. 23 Scientific American, April 6, 1918, p. 305. 24 Elec. World, November 17, 1917, p. 955.

wise, will serve above all other things to hasten the happy era of better ideals, when the joys and burdens of the world will be more equally shared by its men and its women. Hence, the instruction of the girl as well as of the boy makes new demands on the teacher, and affords him widening opportunities for developing his subject as an integral part of the school curriculum, and thereby better himself by bettering every one else.

To enumerate additional problems brought to the physicist as a result of the war would be useless, but with the necessary increase in vocational education25 will come the necessity for a more practical type of physics as presented to the elementary class. This suggestion is not meant in any way to disparage the more advanced type of research work, for it will be in greater demand than ever before, but, as always, the teacher must be the interpreter who shall spread abroad truths and thus justify the effort made in their discovery.

You well know that to include in such an attempt as the present one a comprehensive statement of such advances in physics as those which we are hoping may aid in winning the war, is futile. We do know, however, that advances are being made. We know something of the results. Those of us who are fortunate enough to have some knowledge of the details must remain silent because of military necessity. As recently expressed,

Whatever startling developments have taken place during the year of 1917 are hidden behind the veil of the censor, and it remains for us to wait for the end of the war before a complete review can be undertaken.26

That the effect on physical research resulting from the present governmental co25 Scientific American Supp., No. 2201, March 9, 1918, p. 149.

26 Scientific American, Januáry 5, 1918, p. 7.

operation will be inestimable, can not be questioned. The great British National Physical Laboratory, which is the equivalent of our own Bureau of Standards, has been taken over from the Royal Society for government work alone.27 In our own country among numerous organizations may be mentioned the expanding Engineering Council, which now proposes an affiliation with all of the national engineering bodies and technical societies in the United States, thus bringing to physics and allied branches applications of unprecedented scope.28 Our Council of National Defense, together with the Bureau of Education and

the States Relations Service of the Department of Agriculture have considered the mistakes of the Allies and have emphasized the fact that the people now receiving any scientific training will have special advantages after the war. As Dr. Claxton, Commissioner of Education, has said,

When the war is over, whether within a few months or after many years, there will be demands upon this country for men and women of scientific knowledge, technical skill and general culture as have never before come to any country.29

We must supply men and women familiar with fundamental science not only for our own development but to replace the hordes from European countries now going down on the fields of battle.

Again, President Wilson has asked that the National Research Council be perpetuated "to stimulate research in the mathematical, physical and biological sciences. ''30 An Inventions Section as an agency within the General Staff of the War Department has been organized, and it is not without great import to the whole field of physics teaching that the Science and Research division is headed by Professor Millikan.

27 Scientific American, October 20, 1917, p. 283.
28 Scientific American, April 20, 1918, p. 355.
29 Scientific American, September 1, 1917, p. 153.
30 SCIENCE, May 24, 1918, p. 511.

Still another probable development, that can not but bring joy to the heart of every physicist, is the more or less universal adoption of the metric system with the readjustment succeeding the war. England has already admitted that Germany has gained in industrial efficiency by the use of this system.31

So many hundreds of young Englishmen have gone to somewhere in France that Englishmen have seen a great light in the simple workings of the decimal and metric systems. They are urging the abolition of the needless, brain-wasting multiplication of units at home.32

To date twenty-eight of the greatest public bodies in the United Kingdom have advocated the adoption of decimal systems of coinage, weights and measures. It can be no different in this country. We are now manufacturing some of our munitions of war to metric measurements, and surely this is a movement in which physics teachers should be the leaders. Knowing its value, they have advocated it in a halfhearted sort of a way for many years, but now, unbidden, comes a demand and an opportunity. No single development could go further to establish in the mind of the public the idea that physics is a science of practical value-that its ways are the ways of efficiency. And hand in hand with this movement comes the proposal from Dr. Klotz for universal scientific symbols.33

We have already gone further than was necessary to draw the conclusion of the whole argument. What has been said of physics is applicable in many ways to other branches of science. But the tacit assumption throughout has been that physics is one of the most if not the most basic of sciences. This may be a doctrine not universally accepted, but we who advocate it 31 Scientific American Supp., No. 2175, September 8, 1917, p. 149.

32 Elec. World, July 7, 1917, p. 3.

33 Scientific American, December 8, 1917, p. 435.

on the basis of something more than a superficial knowledge of its content, can do so with all sincerity. It is legitimate that we should struggle to make it as popular a science as may be without discarding its essentially rigorous methods, for, as Dr. Nutting has said, the typical product of slack methods is a slacker.34 But difficulties will only serve to heighten its estimated value, once it becomes generally known that physics is good for something. In meeting the demand for such evidence, the physics teacher will find the greatest opportunity for his own development and that of his beloved science.

E. H. JOHNSON

THE IRWIN EXPEDITION OF INDIANA UNIVERSITY TO PERU AND BOLIVIA IN 1909 I summarized the knowledge of the distribution of South American fresh-water fishes in general. I dealt with the origin of the Pacific slope fish fauna in part in the following words:1

There are four distinct faunas on the Pacific slope of America between Cape Horn and the Tropic of Cancer. One of these is of common origin with that on the Atlantic slope, one is autochthonus and the other two are derivative from the Atlantic slope faunas opposed to them.

1. The fauna of southern Chili is essentially like that of Patagonia, and inasmuch as it is largely made up of marine forms entering fresh water, and fresh-water forms entering the ocean, it seems very probable that the species migrated from river to river along the coast from Patagonia to Chili or from Chili to Patagonia.

2. At the other extreme in the Rio Mezquital of the Transition Region and the Yaqui just to the north of it there is a fauna essentially like that of the Rio Grande east of them. As Meek has pointed out, the Yaqui and Mezquital have captured tributaries of the Rio Grande togther with the fishes in them, and the migration of Atlantic slope northern forms to the Pacific slope has been a passive one.

34 Scientific Monthly, May, 1918, p. 406.

1 Reports of the Princeton University Expeditions to Patagonia, III., 1909, p. 352.

Thus, types which in America north of Mexico have not succeeded in reaching the Pacific slope, have, within the Tropics, crossed the divide. . . . 3. The third fauna is the Mexican of the Rio de Santiago. This is undoubtedly the relict of an old fauna reenforced by a few immigrants from the north. It is here not a question of the origin of the fauna from an eastern one, but of an autochthonus development that has, on its part, contributed elements to the surrounding rivers. It passively contributed to the Atlantic slope fauna by having one of its small rivers captured by the Rio Panuco.

4. Of more particular interest is the origin of the fauna of western Peru and Ecuador and that of western Central America. Not enough is known of the fauna of the western part of Central America to attempt an explanation of its origin. Concerning the Andean fauna I said in part, page 305:

The Andean region includes the high Andes on both slopes from Venezuela and Colombia to Chili.

It is poor in species at any given point, but some of the genera have a large number of local adaptations or species. This region is distinctly. marked off into three provinces.

1. The Northern includes the highlands of northern Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. This is the richest in species and distinguished by the genera Arges, Cyclopium, Prenadilla and the high development of Chatostomus. Its fauna is largely an ancient derivative from the lowland freshwater fauna of Archiguiana.

2. The Titicacan, including the basin of Titicaca and neighboring streams, and possibly the landlocked basins of Bolivia, concerning which nothing is known, is distinguished by the genus Orestias and the absence of the genera distinguishing the northern province. Its fauna is largely an ancient derivative from the ocean.

3. The Southern is the poorest in species, characterized by the absence of everything but a few species of Pygidium, a genus which extends the entire length of the Andean region.

Further, p. 373, I said:

The points of strategic importance for ichthyic chorology in South America are, therefore, western Colombia and Panama, Guayaquil and Peru to the Amazon, across the Andes. . . .

Most of my time since the publication of the monograph quoted, in fact, since its preparation several years earlier, has been de

voted to working out the details of a plan then made. I have had the cooperation of various institutions and individuals.

As part of this scheme I urged in SCIENCE, N. S., Vol. XXII., No. 549, pp. 553-556, the exploration of Panama before the canal should be completed. This work was well done by the late S. E. Meek and S. F. Hildebrand, under the auspices of the Field Museum and the Smithsonian Institution.

To examine conditions in Colombia I traveled in 1913 from Cartagena up the Magdalena to Girardot, thence to Bogotá in the eastern Cordilleras, thence across the Magdalena valley to Ibagué, across the central Andes to Cartago, up the Cauca valley to Cali, and across the western Andes to Buenaventura on the Pacific, thence up the Pacific slope stream San Juan, across the divide and down the Atlantic slope rivers, Quito and Atrato, to the starting point. My assistant during this trip, Mr. Manuel Gonzales, later visited the Atlantic slopes of the easternmost Andes between Bogotá and Barrigona, and Hermano Apolinar Maria, the efficient director of the Instituto de la Salle of Bogotá, had collections made for me in the Llanos east of Bogotá.

Mr. Hugh McK. Landon and Mr. Carl G. Fisher later enabled Mr. Arthur Henn, now in medical service with the American Expeditionary Forces, and Mr. Charles Wilson, also now in medical service, to explore the Patia and Atrato San Juan Basins of western Colombia, and still later Mr. Henn was enabled by Mr. Landon and Indiana University to explore the western slope of Ecuador, especially the Guayaquil basin.

Various attempts to secure the means to carry the work southward have failed until this spring, when the American Association for the Advancement of Science made me an appropriation of five hundred dollars, the Indiana University made a similar appropriation, and Mr. William G. Irwin, of Columbus, Indiana, sent the university a check to cover the larger part of the estimated expenses of the Peruvian part of the field work. The University of Illinois is providing the expenses of an assistant, Mr. William Ray Allen, who is to devote

his time largely to parasites, and Miss Adele Rosa Eigenmann, a medical student in Indiana University, is to go as a volunteer assistant. Submarines being willing, we are to sail June 21 and the expedition is to be known as the Irwin Expedition.

As far as field work may be planned in advance, it is the intention to cross from the Pacific to the Amazon basin in at least three points in Peru:

First, Pacasmayo over Cajamarca to Balzas on the Marañon. The fishes of Pacasmayo are known in part at least through collections made by Osgood, of the Field Museum. Nothing is known of the fauna of the Cajamarca valley and very little of that of the upper Marañon.

Second, Callao over Oroyo, Cerro de Pasco to Huanuco. An attempt will be made to secure the faunas of the Rimac, of the High: Andean Lake Hunin, and of the head waters of the Huallaga.

Third, Mollendo, Arequipa, Puno, Cuzco and Rio Urubamba. Attempts will be made to get as complete a representation as possible of the fauna of the Andean Lakes Titicaca and Poopo, and of the Rio Urubamba of the Ucayale basin.

Fourth, etc., some work will be done in Bolivia and Chili, but this will depend largely upon whether additional sums become available.

The expedition as definitely planned ought to give us as fair a notion of the Pacific slope fauna from the desert of northern Chili to Ecuador as we have of the Pacific slope of Ecuador, Colombia and southern Panama, as well as of the fauna immediately east of the crest of the Andes in Peru.

I am indebted to the president and trustees of Indiana University, who have made it my duty to devote myself to the work as outlined for the time needed to complete it.

CARL H. EIGENMANN

SCIENTIFIC EVENTS

SCHOOL FOR OPTICAL MUNITION WORKERS THE War Industries Board authorizes the announcement that some of the fundamental

items required by the army and navy in war times are technical in nature and would ordinarily not be thought of by the casual observer. Such an item is optical glass, which is used in telescopes and instruments that serve in the direction and control of firing large and small guns and in engineering and surveying operations. The artilleryman without firecontrol instruments can accomplish little; the submarine without its periscope is of small value; the airplane without a camera can make no maps of the enemy's country. Therefore, optical glass is very essential in military instruments of different types.

The optical glass problem in this country has been solved and there is now available manufacturing capacity for optical glass sufficient to supply the Army and Navy; but the skilled labor necessary to work up this glass into lenses and prisms, and to assemble these into finished instruments is not adequate. This situation is so serious that unless steps are taken to provide this labor the soldiers and sailors will be only partially equipped with necessary fire-control instruments.

To meet this situation the Ordnance Department of the Army is establishing in Rochester, N. Y., a training school for operatives on precision optics. The school is to be located at the Mechanics Institute, in Rochester, and the large optical manufacturing firms in Rochester are providing instructors and aiding in the installation of the necessary grinding, polishing, and centering apparatus.

Courses in the different branches of this industry will be given and extended over a period of six weeks. A living wage will be paid to those who take these courses. On completion of the course the student will be in a position to enter one of the optical munition factories and be competent to perform certain of the operations required.

Work of this kind on the grinding, polishing, centering, assembly, and inspection of lenses and prisms for optical systems is not heavy, and is well suited for young women who desire to do their share on war-munitions work. Many young women in this country have been knitting and doing such other work

as they are able to do to aid our soldiers and sailors, but have desired an opportunity for more responsible work. Not every woman can become a nurse, and there are still great numbers of young women whose energies are not fully utilized and who are not doing their bit toward winning the war. A good opportunity to do this is afforded by the optical training school at Rochester. Work in optical munitions is most urgent and is of highly responsible character. Optical munition workers are well paid and are contributing directly to American success in this war.

In England two training schools of this nature were established some time ago and have proved most successful. As a result, the manufacture of optical munitions in England is well in hand, and many of the responsible positions are held by young women, not formerly employed, who are serving their country most effectively in this capacity.

Details regarding the courses of instruction can be obtained from Dr. Barker, president of the Mechanics Institute, Rochester, N. Y. The largest factories are located in Rochester, Buffalo, and New York, N. Y.; Boston and Southbridge, Mass.; Pittsburgh, Pa., and Dayton, Ohio.

SUMMER WORK AT THE LABORATORIES OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES

WORK at the Fairport laboratory is proceeding with the least possible interruption this summer. Through the cooperation of the permanent employees of the station arrangements for working quarters and living accommodations for a limited number of investigators have been made. Professors C. B. Wilson, Emmeline Moore, and H. S. Davis continue investigations of aquatic insects, plants, and protozoan parasites of fishes, respectively, in relation to fish culture in ponds.

Dr. Albert Mann, of the Bureau of Plant Industry, has been detailed by the Secretary of Agriculture, at the request of the Secretary of Commerce, for special work on the diatom flora of the Woods Hole region. Portions of the laboratory of the Woods Hole station are in the possession of the Navy Department, but laboratory facilities are available for a limited

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