Abstract
THIS volume is slightly larger than its predecessor published in 1891, and is an advance upon it in the number and class of its illustrations. During the interval of publication of the two volumes, much of the work announced in the first one has appeared in full; and the present one shows that although, perhaps, more might be made of the resources of the Wood's Holl Laboratory and its rich surroundings by a better appreciation on the part of the scientific public, there is no falling off in either the energy or enthusiasm of its founders and chief supporters. The ten lectures reported in this volume are chiefly special ones, given by investigators who undertake to review their chosen field of labour, and to set forth the results of their own inquiry—it being an avowed object to bring forward unsettled problems of the day, and discuss them freely. The lectures are published for the first time, with the exception of that which is the most striking of the series and one of the most remarkable contributions to recent biological literature, viz. Prof. C. O. Whitman's thesis on “The Inadequacy of the Cell-theory of Development,” Originally read before the Zoological Congress of the World's Columbian Exposition, and already reprinted in the Journal of Morphology. Prof. Whitman's work in this department dates from his inaugural dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of Leipzig, dealing with the embryology of Clepsine, in which he laid the foundation of his now famous teloblast theory. The researches which this essay has provoked rank foremost in interest among all those recently devoted to the study of the germinal blastemata. No one has more assiduously followed up Prof. Whitman's suggestive lines than Prof. E. B. Wilson, whose lecture on “The Mosaic Theory of Development” ranks first in order in the present volume. His recent work on the cell-lineage of Nereis is second only to that of Whitman in interest and importance. His present treatise is a review of the embryological work of the last decade in its bearing upon the biogenetic law. Prof. Whitman would seek the secret of organisation in ultimate elements of living matter “for which idiasomes seems an appropriate name”; Prof. Wilson, that of differentiation during development in the interaction of the embryo-cells. There next follows a lecture by Dr. E. G. Conklin, on “The Fertilisation of the Ovum,” apropos of the author's researches into the development of the marine gasteropod Crepidula plana.
Article PDF
References
"Biological Lectures delivered at the Marine Biological Laboratory of Wood's Holl." Vol. ii. (Boston: Gmn and Co., 1894.)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
H., G. Biology in the United States—A Prospect1. Nature 51, 81–82 (1894). https://doi.org/10.1038/051081a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/051081a0