Enemy Country Research Articles

Mendelism: a Personal Explanation

I SHOULD be glad if room could be found for this small matter of personal explanation. I fear I may have misled one or two of your readers on a minor point. Those of them who are interested in the interpretation of hereditary phenomena may remember that in the number of this Journal for September 12, 1907, Mr. Punnett took a reviewer to task for saying that “No one has repeated Mendel's experiments with the deliberate intention of testing the Mendelian interpretation” (of the phenomena of inheritance). In my reply I was not content with defending my original position by justifying that statement; but I must needs carry the war into the enemy's country by taking Mr. Punnett to task for not including de Vries's papers in his list of memoirs dealing with repetitions of Mendel's actual experiments, in order to show how familiar I was with the literature of the subject.

PAWNEE WAR TALES

One night a warrior sat in his lodge with many friends about him listening to his experiences while on the war-path. As the night wore on and he continued to tell of his exploits, a great longing seized him and he asked his friends if they would accompany him the next morning, for he had decided to start on the war-path again. On that same night three other warriors sat in their lodges and told their friends of their own experiences in war, and a great longing to fight filled the breast of each of these warriors; then they asked their friends to go with them on the morrow, for they too had decided to start on the war-path again. Before the break of day the four warriors and their men were on the way to the country of the enemy. During the day the scouts from each party met and at night the four parties came together. The scouts resented the presence of one another, for every scout preferred to have the country to himself, but the four leaders joined forces and traveled together to the enemy's country. One day the leaders sat down in a valley and sent out men to kill buffalo. The men went out, killed a buffalo, and started to skin it. When they had it about half skinned, the buffalo rolled over, jumped up, and ran away with its skin flapping up and down. The men were dumb with astonishment for a time; then they went on and killed another buffalo, skinned it, cut up the meat and took it to camp where the leaders were. While they were roasting the meat, the men who had been out to kill buffalo told the leaders

Dr. Friedrich Tietjen

AT a time when astronomical knowledge is being extended at so rapid a rate, and in so many directions, as has been the case during the last few years, it is natural and right that the highest honour should be paid to those astronomers to whose genius and industry are due discoveries possible on account of original suggestion or ingenious execution. But at the same time, and on the other hand, there is no small danger that we may fail to give proper recognition to those other astronomers whose lives, unmarked by brilliant achievements, have been devoted to labours which are none the less valuable because they have been accomplished while quietly pursuing recognised lines, and are therefore devoid of conspicuous originality. In particular, the work of computation and arithmetical reduction of observations, without which the observations themselves either cannot be made or must remain almost entirely useless, is apt to fall into disrepute, as being wholly mechanical and unenterprising. This is certainly to be regretted; for just as a victorious general marching forward in the enemy's country must depend for his very safety on the fidelity and capacity of those officers who hold the conquered territory, so our scientific knowledge is liable to become disconnected and fragmentary unless we have capable men ready to perform the task of computing from the observations, and co-ordinating the results achieved in more exciting spheres of scientific work. If the pursuit of such unostentatious work lead to the effacement of the worker, our gratitude should be even all the greater for the self-denial exhibited and practised. Of such a man we have recently had to lament the loss, owing to the sad death of Dr. Tietjen, of Berlin.