cares to explore unless particular business calls him.

We are now awaiting the report of the recent Government Commission, which visited Oxford and Cambridge during the last year. As a result of the war, or perhaps we should say of a necessary process hastened by the war, the ancient universities need government support. With support must go responsibility of a new kind, and possibly some sort of unification of the system. Is it possible that definite standards of equipment and teaching will eventually be required, enforced through some process of inspection? These are weighty matters for us here in America, for in many places we stand at the parting of the ways. The old freedom is difficult to maintain in the presence of a population requiring to be educated en masse. It matters too much if things are badly or wrongly done. At all hazards, we must maintain our intellectual integrity, but we necessarily sacrifice something of our independence. Does that mean that the best minds will gradually be robbed of their originality, grown prematurely inelastic and old? England, the home of the independent worker, has produced more original thinkers than America, whether we consider the sciences or the arts.

There is another and opposite side to the picture. The strong individuality of the leading English scientific men has had a profound influence on their colleagues, and this has been accentuated by the smallness of the country and consequent ease of communication. Professor Alfred Newton, whose teaching in certain of its aspects seemed so amazingly inadequate, was a very center of light and learning for an ardent group of ornithologists, through whom his influence radiates to this day. His "Dictionary of Birds" has no real competitor, and is one of the indispensable books to students of the subject. Throughout the Biography, here and there, we find a note of half regret that the Professor was so set in his ways, so peculiar, so amazingly conservative. Yet perhaps had he not developed freely in his own manner, his power would not have been so great. His old friend Dr. Guillemard thus sums up his impressions:

Such strength of individuality I can not recall in any other person I have known. It can safely be said that, having carefully envisaged his question and decided it, no human power could make him alter his mind. Yet one almost hesitates to say it, lest a wrong impression should be conveyed, for he was one of the most lovable of men, and inspired an unusual degree of personal affection in the many young men who frequented his rooms. The influence he exercised upon them was remarkable, not only upon the ornithologists, but upon men like Adam Sedgwick, Bateson, Frank Darwin, Lydekker, and a host of others in different fields. It would, I think, be correct to describe him as the founder of the modern Cambridge scientific school, developing the good seed sown by Henslow, who was to a former generation, I imagine, very much what Newton was to mine.

The statement about the modern scientific school applies of course only to the biological, or more specifically zoological, field. Even in the field of zoology Newton's knowledge was quite limited, but it was extraordinarily exact. His interest in birds was so wide that it led him into various fields, as for instance that of philology. Thus he combined what might be considered narrowness with a remarkable breadth of view, which undoubtedly added greatly to his beneficial influence on his students.

Sir Arthur Shipley, who was a student under Newton, gives a lively account of his lectures:

Newton's lectures were desperately dry and very formal. The Professor sat before a reading desk and read every word of the discourse from a written manuscript, written in his minute hand with a broad quill, so that all the letters looked the same, like the Burmese script. At long intervals there was drawn the outline of a tumbler. Whenever the Professor came to these outlines he religiously took a sip of water. Whether it was the time of day [ 1 p. m.] or whether it was that we students were all absorbed in comparative embryology and in morphology, the attendance was always small, I went during my second and third year, and at times was the sole auditor. Not that that made the least difference to the Professor. He steadily and relentlessly read on the majority of you now present know,” “most of my audience are well aware,”’ and similar phrases left me in considerable doubt

'' and

as to what parts of me were the majority which the most. About the year 1884, Newton prepared courses of lectures on Geographical Distribution and Evidences of Evolution. He was to lecture on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at noon. He discovered, however, that the lectures, as written, would not stretch over a whole term, so he told the class that next Monday he would unfortunately not be able to lecture owing to urgent business, and this would continue throughout the term.

Dr. Guillemard, in the passage quoted above, has referred to the difficulty of changing Newton's well-considered opinions. It must be added, however, that he was able to keep an open mind on certain subjects of great importance to him. Thus he readily appreciated Darwin's theory at the time of its publication, and only four days after the publication of the Darwin and Wallace papers by the Linnean Society wrote a long letter on the subject to Canon H. B. Tristram. This led to the circumstance that Tristram was the first zoologist of note to publish his adherence to the doctrine, though unfortunately he was reconverted to the old faith shortly after. He also came to see that the old classification of birds was faulty, and recognized the necessity for fundamental revision.

Professor Newton was an ardent field naturalist, and in his earlier days visited the West Indies (St. Croix and St. Thomas), Iceland, Spitzbergen and other countries, always making interesting observations. He did his best to discover the haunts of the great Auk in Iceland, but although he talked with men who had seen it, it was apparently extinct before his visit. He left copious materials for a history of the great Auk, which he intended to publish had his life been prolonged a few more years.

Newton died in 1907, his last wish being "may the study of zoology continue to flourish in the University." Since then, much good and important work has been done, but there is great need for more room, more assistance, more apparatus, and adequate salaries for the staff. The whole British Empire is concerned in this matter, for in such centers must be

It is obviously true that the staff which best conforms to our chromatic scale of twelve equal steps to the octave, and best appeals to the mind accustomed to grapho, is one of 12 (13) equally spaced lines for an octave; or since it is difficult to distinguish among so many lines alternate lines may be omitted so leaving a 6-line or whole-tone scale. These facts are so obvious that both forms have been invented repeatedly, as is shown by patents long since expired. The earliest use found was by Joshua Steele in "Melody in speech," London, 1775. To distinguish between the numerous lines he superposed the ordinary five lines and used some dotted lines. For many years I have found this notation very convenient for writing non-harmonic scales or music and have referred to it occasionally in print, but it seems never to have appealed to musicians.

Modifications of this many-lined staff have been proposed; one uses only four or three lines, but any note, as C, will come in the same position in all octaves; sometimes the note-heads are of different shapes. The most frequent modification is to retain only the five lines that correspond to the black keys of the piano a scheme closely analogous in principle to the old tablatures. This was

advocated by Busoni who published a few pages of music written on what may be called the "black key staff.”

Corresponding to the whole-tone staff the very logical whole-tone keyboard has likewise been proposed by several patentees and is most notably found in the Janko keyboard; this had considerable vogue in Germany and a few were built in this country some twenty years ago; but the instruments with this keyboard are so rare that the musician could scarcely afford the time to practise on it if he had

access to one.

A Question of Tuning.—One of the musical trade papers reported some months ago that a phonograph dealer in Chicago had two similar pianos tuned alike, except that in one of them one string belonging to each set of these unisons was tuned to give a slow beat with the other two. Then the public was asked which tuning it preferred; a large majority chose the one with the beat. This preference quite disconcerted the editor who reported it; "What is the use," he says, "of trying to keep a piano in tune when a mistuned one is really liked better?"

This does not seem to me to involve the question of being out of tune in the ordinary meaning of the term; if a chord is struck two thirds of the strings will sound together in the usual way, though the accuracy of tuning will be somewhat blurred or masked by the beats due to the other strings.

But a similar even more marked effect has long been obtained in other ways and has often been proposed by inventors. It is akin to the tremolo which is familiar as a means of expression on many instruments and which in vocal music may be a sign of emotion or even weakness. On the violin a tremolo may come from the rolling of the player's finger along the string, and on mechanical violins from intermittent pressure on the tail piece. Even more closely analogous to the effect in the piano experiment and long known are the results of the "Celeste" stop on the reed organ that brings into use two sets of reeds which beat slightly with one another; and in the pipe organ of

the "Vox Celeste" or "Unda Maris" stop that brings on two sets of pipes which beat producing a very few waves per second.

So the Chicago experiments seem to me to indicate, not that hearers object to having the notes of the piano in tune, but that they welcome a new way of introducing variety, vitality, into piano tone. After the key is struck there comes the loud thud characteristic of the piano sound and then the gradual dying away of the sound; the musician can do nothing with the tone but let it die away till he is ready to drop the damper. The player of most other instruments has considerable control over the loudness of a continued sound and occasionally to some extent over its pitch and quality; this is obviously true of most orchestral instruments, and of the organ with its swell and the harmonium with its "expression" due to pumping.

This double control, of loudness and pitch, was realized in the old clavichord and was sought for in the "Steinertone" patented and built by the late Morris Steinert fifteen or twenty years ago. I have recently learned from the makers that in the reproductions built some years ago by Chickering & Sons under direction of Mr. Dolmetsch "the clavichord was tuned with one string of each nɔte two or three waves sharper than the others, and on the harpsichord the second unison was slightly sharper than the first." In the elec trical "Choralcelo" exhibited in Boston some years ago there was control both of loudness and quality while a note was sounding.

So the Chicago experimenters and listeners are in good company.

Of course the piano must have some great compensating advantages to lead the world to overlook so great a defect as this lack of variety, but they do not concern us now or here.

The Tuning Fork.-In a recent article in a psychological journal the tuning fork is considered as composed of two bars each attached at one end to a solid block; in a current book for piano tuners a fork is illustrated as sending off a train of waves in one direction, both prongs being bent in the same direc

tion. These surprising disclosures led to an examination of a number of text-books, etc., on sound, from which it appeared that only rarely was there any reference to the true theory of the fork; even the Britannica supports the view of the psychologist. So a note on the subject may not be superfluous.

The theory of the fork is due to Chladni's researches of a century ago. He had found that a horizontal straight uniform bar could vibrate when supported at points about 0.22 of its length from the ends; obviously portions each side of these nodal points must at any instant be moving in opposite directions. Then he bent the bar a little and found that the nodes had moved toward the center, and when the fork-shape with long parallel prongs was reached, the nodes were near the base of the prongs. Assuming the prongs vertical, when they separated the intermediate part near the bends would of course rise a minute distance. In any practical case the center portion is loaded by the stem which will therefore move up and down and deliver regular blows to a sounding board or resonance box on which it may be placed. Such an effect can not be accounted for by the crude theory that prompted this note.

It will help to clear thinking to recall the curious fork shown by the Standard Scientific Co. at the exhibit of apparatus at the Bureau of Standards about a year ago. This had a relatively large hole near the upper end of the stem, the effect of which was to make the pitch much lower than that of a similar fork unperforated.

In this connection it may be added that measures I made some years ago showed that a Koenig's fork of the middle octave on its box, when vibrating at an average amplitude, expended its energy at the rate of about one millionth of a horse power or less than a thousandth of a watt; of course only a small part of this produces sound and only a very minute fraction of this part could reach the ear of any one of the hundred who could hear the fork.

ANN ARBOR, MICH.

CHARLES K. WEAD

SPECIAL ARTICLES

THE RELATION OF SOIL FERTILITY TO VITAMINE CONTENT OF GRAIN 1

THIS study was undertaken at the suggestion of Professor F. J. Alway, who has made a study of the relation of phosphatehungry peat soils to the grain produced on them,2 at Golden Valley, Minn.

Burning of the peat rendered mineral matter more available to the plant and increased the yield. It also increased the amount of phosphoric acid in the grain and, as we shall show, increased the vitamine. Two experiments were made, one with barley grown on untreated and on burned peat, and another on oats grown on peat soil as contrasted with ordinary mineral soil. The barley grown on untreated peat yielded 7.4 bushels per acre and the grain contained 0.5 per cent. P2O in the dry matter, or 17.9 per cent. in the ash, whereas the barley grown on burned peat yielded 42.6 bushels per acre and contained 1.06 per cent. P2O, in the dry matter and 35.5 per cent. in the ash. The oats grown on untreated peat soil contained 0.52 per cent. P2O, in the dry matter and 17.9 per cent. in the ash. The oats grown on ordinary mineral soil in the same locality contained 1.1 per cent. P2O, in the dry matter and 32.4 per cent. in the ash. It was at first attempted to determine the vitamine content of these grains by the quantity necessary to prevent or cure polyneuritis in pigeons. It was very difficult, however, to feed these grains quantitatively to these pigeons, and they all died of polyneuritis before the end of the experiment.

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The next attempt was to feed the whole grains quantitatively to white rats, but this

method failed also.

The next method was to grind the grains and mix them to the extent of 5 per cent. in a

1 Contribution from the laboratory of physiological chemistry, University of Minnesota Medical School.

2 F. J. Alway, "A phosphate-hungry peat soil," Journal of the American Peat Society, Vol. 8, 1920.

basic ration made of 10 per cent. pure casein, 6 per cent. sea salt and 84 per cent. white flour. The rats were allowed to eat this ad libitum and were supplied with ordinary tap water in addition. At the end of the thirtysecond day butter fat was added to the ration to the extent of 1 gram per rat per day. The experiment lasted 65 days. In the above experiment, two rats, both males and weighing 65 grams each, and of the same litter, were taken and fed this diet. At the end of the 65 days the rat getting the barley with 0.5 per cent. P2O, weighed 108 grams, whereas the one getting barley containing 1.06 per cent. P2O, weighed 117 grams. This difference of 9 grams is small, and yet, owing to the exact manner in which the experiment was performed and the fact that the rats were of the same sex, size and litter, this small difference is significant.

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In the experiment with oats two female rats of the same litter were taken. These rats were practically the same weight. In fact they were of exactly the same weight (55 grams) on the second day of the experiment. At the end of 65 days the rat receiving oats with 0.53 per cent. P2O, weighed 86 grams and the rat receiving oats containing 1.1 per cent. P2O, weighed 97 grams. It may be remarked that the experiments with female rats are not always quite as uniform as those with male rats, but these female rats showed no peculiarities in the growth curves. These experiments are in harmony with those of a number of workers and show that the vitamine content of milled grains is proportional to the content in P2O,. In the case of milled grains, however, the variation in P2O, is due to its partial removal in milling, whereas in experiments recorded in the present paper the variation is due to the amount of available phosphoric acid in the soil. Since butter fat was fed uniformly throughout the last half of the experiment, the difference in growth of the rats is due to difference in vitamine B. J. F. MCCLENDON, A. C. HENRY

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

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MOLD HYPHE IN SUGAR AND SOIL COMPARED WITH ROOT HAIRS

To compare sugar with soil as a place for growing molds may at first sight be revolutionary, but to one who has studied molds in soil, the first glimpse of a moldy sample of sugar under the microscope compels the comparison put forward in the title of this paper. Mold hyphæ as seen in foods such as sugar and in soil strikingly resemble root-hairs as they develop in earth. Hyphæ of fungi and root-hairs are analogous structures. Both belong to the vegetative phase of a plant's life cycle. Both are turgid, thin-walled cells. The elongating hypha pushes itself between sugar crystals or between soil particles in the same fashion as the elongating root-hair progresses in the soil. The elongating hypha, like the root-hair, is a feeding and growing portion of a plant, which is submerged in a substratum. The hyphal tip, as is commonly understood of the apex of a root-hair, follows between the sugar crystals or soil particles along the path offering the fewest obstacles. Such a path or course is at best winding, irregular, now wide and again extremely narrow. The mold hypha under suitable conditions grows between the faces of the sugar crystals or soil particles. As would the root-hair, it forces its way into a narrow passage, its shape conforming to the space discovered. There may be a bulge on one surface of the hypha and a flattened area on the opposite surface, all depending on the space available for expansion. Attracted by the films of water and available solutes adhering to the sugar crystal or to the soil particle, the mold hypha grows over the face of a particle, conforming to the irregu larities in the surface of the object.

It is impossible to separate these bits of mold hyphæ from the respective sugar crystals or soil particles in conjunction with which they are growing. It is commonly known that a separation of soil particles from root hairs, which are much grosser units than segments of mold hyphæ, is impossible without injury to the root-hairs.