The monument before the

tension courses Columbia had in poor students were endowed. The 1916, 7,327 students, Harvard 5,226, Sorbonne was founded in 1303 by Michigan, 6,276 and California Robert de Sorbon for theological stu6,467. But the different institutions dents, and was rebuilt by Richelieu for higher learning in Boston or in in 1627. It survived as a school New York, if their students were of theology until the revolution, and combined, would in size rival or sur- in a sense became the university, pass Paris and Berlin. which for centuries was controlled by the Jesuits, while the forward movement of science and letters proceeded outside, largely under the auspices of the academies.

French education was centralized

Salerno, a medical school in the ninth century, may claim to have been the earliest of universities, but it was finally closed in 1817. The universities of Paris and Bologna arose in the course of the twelfth and made professional and practical century, but Paris claims a slightly by Napoleon, and it was only under earlier organization. Bologna was primarily a law school controlled by the students, Paris a school of theology and philosophy controlled by the masters.

the third Republic that Paris once again became a great university and the universities of the provincial cities were recreated.

The Sorbonne has been rebuilt and Abelard, teaching first in the enlarged threefold, and made the adcathedral school of Nôtre Dame, at- ministrative center of the university, tracted crowds of students. He whose various buildings are grouped founded other schools and other about it. Some pictures are here teachers established schools from reproduced from the book which are which gradually arose the University of interest in relation to the archiof Paris. In the thirteenth century tectural developments of American and later, colleges or dormitories for universities.

THE CHEMICAL WARFARE

SERVICE

THE meeting of the American Chemical Society in Cleveland and the National Exposition of Chemical Engineers in New York have brought to general attention the great part played by chemistry in national welfare and in the conduct of the war. Modern warfare is essentially engineering, and there is scarcely any department with which chemistry is not vitally concerned. The part that has been played by our chemists in warfare is well described by Dr. Charles L. Parsons, the secretary of the American Chemical Service, in an address that he gave at Cleveland.

bers to President Wilson in any emergency that might arise and received an appreciative reply.

Active work was begun by the Bureau of Mines and other agencies which culminated in the organization of the Chemical Warfare Service in June, 1918. As Dr. Parsons says it was a real epoch in the history of chemistry in warfare when, as a result of conferences held at the Bureau of Mines with officers from the Medical Corps, War College, General Staff, Navy and civilian chemists, the Chemical Service Section was established as a unit of the National Army.

All newly drafted chemists are assigned to the Chemical Warfare Before the entry of the United Service to be detailed or transferred States into the war, a census was or furloughed where needed. It is taken of American chemists, and full charged with the "responsibility of information was obtained concern- providing chemists for all branches ing the qualification of some 15,000. of the government and assisting in In the early part of February, 1917, the procuring of chemists for industhe president of the American tries essential to the success of the Chemical Society, Dr. Julius Stieg war and government." It has an litz, offered the services of the mem- authorized personnel of 45,000, of

which any portion may be chemists American Museum of Natural His

if needed. At present there are approximately 1,400 graduate chemists in the Chemical Warfare Service. Dr. Parsons concluded his address with the words:

tory, the author of important contributions to paleichthyology; of Bertram Hopkins, professor of mechanism and applied mechanics in Cambridge University, Colonel in the British Army, and of O. Henrici, F.R.S., emeritus professor of mechanics and mathematics in the Central Technical College of the City and Guilds of London Institute.

War, the destroyer, has been on the other hand the incentive to marvelous chemical development with a speed of accomplishment incomprehensible in normal times. Discoveries made in the search for instruments of destruction are alMAJOR GENERAL MERRITTE W. IREready in use for the development of chemical industry. Many others, LAND, of the Medical Corps, has been unpublished as yet, and to remain appointed Surgeon General of the unpublished until the war is over, Army, to succeed Major William C. will prove of the utmost benefit to Gorgas, who was retired on October mankind. The same agencies that add to the horror of war to-day, the same reactions which are used in the development of explosives and poisonous gases on the one hand, and in counteracting their effect on the other, will find immediate and useful application in the years to come. The war has been prolonged by chemistry. The German chemist, apparently working for years with war in view, has supplied the German armies with the means for their ruthless warfare, but the chemists of America and our Allies have met them fully in chemical development, and when the chemical story of the war is written where all can read,

it will be the verdict of history that the chemists of America were not found wanting. The chemical program of the United States Army and Navy has been at all times ahead of our trained man power and the mechanical devices necessary to apply what the chemists of America have produced.

5. General Gorgas will remain in Europe as the medical representative of the United States Army at the Interallied War Council.-Dr. Arthur L. Day, director of the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington since its establishment in 1906, home secretary of the National Academy of Sciences, has resigned to accept a research position with the Corning Glass Works, Corning, N. Y.

THE statutory meeting of the general committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science was held in London in July, and at this meeting much disappointment was expressed that for the second year in succession it has been found impossible to arrange for an ordinary meeting. A resolution was passed unanimously asking the council to arrange for a meeting in WE record with regret the death London next year, if it should prove of Aaron Nicholas Skinner, former- impossible to arrange to meet at ly professor of mathematics at the Bournemouth. The question as to U. S. Naval Academy and assistant the type of meeting which it was astronomer of the Naval Observa- desirable to hold was left to the tory; of Charles R. Eastman, of the council to decide.

SCIENTIFIC ITEMS

A

THE SCIENTIFIC

MONTHLY

DECEMBER, 1918

CAMOUFLAGE

By ABBOTT H. THAYER

MONADNOCK, N. H.

BORIGINES in general have used camouflage in their war costume.

In their superhuman perfection, the concealing coats of animals that hunt or are hunted are now the models for the armies' camouflage corps: models so perfectly adapted to concealment in every conceivable scene, they are the despair of humanity. To study the principles underlying them, and to adapt them to the needs of the army, is now man's job.

The most totally effacing costume can not be counted on to prevent its wearer's being detected when he moves enough; but even in this case it makes him a poorer target when it comes to dodging, whether it be man or beast. The white sky-faking tail feathers of warblers serve to help save these birds when pursued through the woods by hawks, where the swiftness of the chase sets all the background optically into the same motion.

Whatever question there is as to the need of animals to be concealed, as to the evolution of the patterns on them, and the purpose of these patterns, one fact in regard to the costumes of animals is demonstrable, i. e., that these conceal their wearer most of all from the viewpoint of the very eyes that we believe this wearer most needs to avoid: in some the greatest need is to be enabled to catch, in others it is to escape being caught. In the one case, the skunk's or badger's white top, faking the sky, effaces their looming heads from the sight of the field mice and ground insects they are hunting; in the other case, the same black and white scheme saves on the same principle the zebra from the crouching feline.

It is a comment on the use that men make of their eyes, that with all the various uses, utilitarian, scientific and esthetic, a principle, always in evidence, the principle that patterns al

VOL. VII.-31.