YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN CONNECTICUT

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

March 28, 1923.

Memorandum to Members of the Faculties and Officers of
Yale University

It is extremely important that all information regarding
significant events in the life of the University should be given to the
press through the Secretary's Office, which has been designated to serve
this function. Recently a good deal of material, some of it seriously
inaccurate, has been finding its way into the newspapers through other
channels and I am sending out this general statement to all University
officials to request their active co-operation in keeping the Secretary's
Office accurately and promptly informed of all matters which should re-
ceive public attention, and also in exercising every care to prevent the
use of other media of publicity.

Few things are more important than that the University
should receive dignified and adequate publicity service and, as much
of this must be brought about through the use of the newspaper press,
it is quite essential that some single office be empowered to control
and develop effective co-operative relations with representatives of
the press. Miscellaneous individual statements to newspaper reporters
inevitably result in grave misapprehension and oftentimes in serious
damage. This is particularly true of communications made to the
Yale News.

James R. Angell

K. M. WIEGAND, PROFESSOR
L. KNUDSON, PROFESSOR
J. R. SCHRAMM, PROFESSOR
DONALD REDDICK, PROFESSOR
A. J. EAMES, PROFESSOR
L. W. SHARP, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
O. F. CURTIS, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

NEW YORK STATE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE
AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY

ITHACA, N. Y.
ALBERT R. MANN, DEAN

DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY

July 9, 1923

Professor G. R. Wieland
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut

Dear Professor Wieland:

I am indeed glad to send you a separate copy of my paper on Agathis australis. I am sorry that I did not send you one at the time of publication. It pleases me to have your interest in this matter. This paper was, of course, written while I was a graduate student. During the ten years since that time I have, however, become more firmly convinced than ever of the correctness of the views expressed therein. I agree with you most heartily that the chief reason why we have failed to be strongly interested in the Araucarian-Abietinean squabble is the mass of more or less confused literature which has been spread about it by two or three writers. I hold no opinion as to the greater age of the Abietineae. I do, however, feel most strongly that the Araucarineae are closely related to the Abietineae and are the most highly specialized living forms of that group. I shall be very glad at any time to discuss with you any matters concerning them.

One of our graduate students here, Mr. Hempstead Castle, who has just received his Master's Degree, is to be in New Haven teaching in the High School this coming year and hopes to carry on graduate work in his free time at Yale University. He will undoubtedly come to talk with you and possibly to work with you, if you should care to have him. He has been working on flower anatomy and is quite likely to express interest in the anatomy of the "cones" of some of the Bennettitalean forms. I shall be very glad indeed if he and you can select a research problem along this line. Mr. Castle is a mature man and a research student of much ability.

I notice by the last Botanical Gazette that we now have carried the Angiosperms back to the Carboniferous! This is where many of us for so long have been seeing that the arrow pointed. What do you think of this?

E/M

BOTANY SCHOOL,
CAMBRIDGE

hopes to publish something before very long. I return the restoration which I hope is the one you wanted, and I am sorry that I did not realise before that you wished me to send it back. It was exceedingly kind of you to send me so many of your Cycadean drawings which, I need hardly say, I found very useful when I was writing about them. I am at present busy with a description of some Greenland Cretaceous plants which I collected in 1921, but I find the task of identifying them by no means easy.

I am, with my kind regards,

Yours very sincerely,

Memorandum for Professor George R. Wieland

The following is quoted from Dr. Jeffrey's letter of February 5:

"I owe you an apology in regard to material sent us for preparation by my assistant. The stems of Araucaria proved unsuitable for sectioning. The method of preservation was such that the abundant stone-cells could not be properly softened. I secured more material from the Botanic Garden here, which was more suitably preserved, but before it could be got ready, we were in the midst of our moving. That has taken much longer than was expected, and we are only now beginning to see things in order. I hope by the end of next week, or a little later, that your matters will be finished. I regret the delay very much, but I think you will understand. If you want anything more done this year, it would be an advantage to get it here as soon as possible. The work piles up as we get towards the end of the year."

February 7, 1924

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

BUSSEY INSTITUTION FOR RESEARCH IN
APPLIED BIOLOGY

FOREST HILLS, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

June 2, 1924

ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY
W. M. Wheeler, Dean
C. T. Brues

DENDROLOGY
J. G. Jack

ANIMAL GENETICS
W. E. Castle

ECONOMIC BOTANY
Oakes Ames

PLANT GENETICS
E. M. East

SILVICULTURE
R. T. Fisher

PLANT ANATOMY
I. W. Bailey, Sec.

Professor G.R.Wieland,
Yale University,
New Haven, Conn.

My dear Wieland:

I am returning the slides, which you were so kind
as to lend me, by insured parcels post. I have included in the
package about 2 dozen slides of various recent cycads. Since
writing you last I have secured leaves of Stangeria from Chamber-
lain and the N.Y. Botanic Garden. The petiolar centripetal wood
is just like that of Microcycas and Zamia. The scalariform reti-
culate tracheids are succeeded by scalariform bordered pits which
tend at times to break up into smaller pits of opposite and altemate
seriation. I feel very sure that similar transitions occur in real
stout stems of old Zamias, Microcycas and Stangerias. In other words,
I suspect that the old wood has scalariform bordered pitting like
that of the Bennettitales. The broad transitional zones may be
palingenetic or cenogenetic; I suspect the latter.

I am not making use of photographs of the material
which you sent, since you have already published good illustrations
of the pitting in the secondary wood of C.Dartoni.

There is a crying need for some extensive comparative
studies of the anatomy of the Bennettitales and Cycadales, particular-
ly of material from different parts of the same plant.

Yours truly,
J. B. Bailey

CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON
ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH

ALPINE LABORATORY, MANITOUL COLORADO

DESERT LABORATORY, TUCSON, ARIZONA

225 Second Avenue

Santa Barbara, California

July 24, 1924

Dear Wieland:

I am amazed to find that your letter has been in
my hands almost two months. This is in no wise a measure of
my interest in it, but I had put it aside to answer after I had
gone further into the evidence for and against the various origins
proposed for Angiosperms. The books at hand finally proved in-
adequate for this and I have put the task aside for next winter.
It is several years since I last summed the evidence in detail and
I shall return to the task with little or no bias for any parti-
cular hypothesis. It may even prove helpful to consider the
various opinions in some detail in the hope of arriving at a
more comprehensive judgment. The gap is doubtless too great ever
to permit anything approaching certainty, but perhaps we can get
a clearer view of the probabilities.

I shall continue to indulge the hope that the
gradual development of experimental methods in evolution and phy-
logeny will carry us some distance on our way. One of the great
reasons why I am so anxious to develop much greater possibilities
in the way of experimental gardens is that the experimental attack
seems indispenable to any approach to objective results. In res-
ponse to your suggestion, I have got in touch with Professor Eames
and have learned his very interesting results in comparative his-
tology. This is a very fertile line of attack and in combination

with the experimental one should furnish us with an increasing
number of sound blocks for the foundation.

My hypothesis as to the Permian being the causative
"time-center" may be all wrong, but I think that it was even
earlier entertained by a certain eminent student of the "cycads"!
If this be correct, I am somewhat at a loss to know how he can
now turn to the Carboniferous for the causative period. If evo-
lution occurred chiefly on the uplands, as we both think, it
could not well have taken place until there were some uplands,
and these could hardly have been of sufficient extent and force
until the Permian.

I shall be greatly interested to see your article in
"Science", especially if you succeeded in carrying monocotyls back
into the Carboniferous. This region I am intensely interested in,
as I am still hoping to find the marks by which it will be possible
to assign the various mis-named fragments of grass-like leaves to
their proper genera. This may prove impossible, as you know,
but the attempt at least is highly desirable.

I hope that your own work will go steadily forward
and that you can give these questions further consideration in
connection with the fourth volume.

With all best wishes from Mrs. Clements and myself,

I am

Sincerely yours,

Geolog.- paläontolog. Institut
der
Universität Marburg.

Marburg, den 5. X. 1923 4.

Professor Dr. R. Wedekind.

Sehr geehrter Herr.

Mein Kollege Herr Professor Claßsen hat mich darauf aufmerksam gemacht, dass Sie die aus den fossilen Pflanzen dünne Scheiben herausgeschnitten und dann für die Herstellung weiterer Schnitte die Bruchstücke mit einem Steinkitt wieder zusammengekittet haben. Ich habe mich nach Freiburg gewandt, um diesen Kitt zu bekommen. Leider vergeblich. würden Sie So freundlich sein, mir mitzuteilen, wie Sie diesen Kitt herstellen.

Indem ich Ihnen bereits im Voraus für Ihre Auskunft dank e bin ich Ihr ergener

MUSEUM GUIDES

GENERAL GUIDE TO THE HALL OF PALAEOONTOLOGY,
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF CANADA, OTTAWA, 1924.

A FOSSIL FLOWER: by B.S.Dahlgren, Field Museum
of Natural History, Department of Botany,
Leaflet Number 5, Chicago, 1924.

Guide books to natural history museums might be roughly classified into two groups, - those written for the use of the man in the street, and those planned for the instruction and guidance of the student and the scientific specialist. The elaborate and excellent guide books issued by the British Museum represent the latter type at the high-water mark of excellence.

A typical example of the primer type of museum guide has recently appeared under the caption of "General Guide to the Hall of Palaeontology, National Museum of Canada". The size and scope of this little three-page folded leaflet adapt it to free distribution. The author has evidently had in mind while writing this leaflet guide the 98 per cent of museum visitors who could not even give an intelligent definition of the word Palaeontology. A generalized section of the earth's crust with the nomenclature which a century and a half of earth study has developed for its subdivisions is shown on one side

- 2 -

of the folded leaflet. The other side presents some of the
simpler concepts of stratigraphic palaeontology and refers
briefly to the significance of the more important exhibits in
the hall.

It is refreshing to see a return on this little guide
book to the use of the name National Museum in place of Victoria
Memorial Museum,-the name of the building in which the National
Museum collections are housed. The need of a National Museum in
Ottawa as well in other capitals was urged in a half-page article in
the Citizen as long ago as 1883. The frequent use of Victoria
Memorial Museum as the official title of the Museum has led to
numerous misconceptions on the part of the public concerning the
status of the National Museum. This unfortunate name has helped
greatly to conceal from the people of Canada the fact that the
museum in Ottawa belongs to and represents the whole of Canada
in the same sense that the British Museum represents Great Britain,
and the U.S.National Museum the United States.

A museum guide booklet recently published by the Field
Museum displays a happy solution of the difficult problem of
conveying to the general public in an entertaining way much
important palaeobotanical information without becoming too
technical to frighten away the lay reader.

- 4 -

known to miners and quarry workmen as fossil hives, wasps' nests, or crows' nests. They are related to the sago palms now living in the tropics. Excellent illustrations of the curious branched stamens of the models of the fossil cycad flowers in the Field Museum of Natural History embellish the pages of this instructive little booklet which admirably presents in brief form the more essential facts about fossil cycads.

WILLIAM E. CASTLE
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

EDWIN G. CONKLIN
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

CHARLES B. DAVENPORT
CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON

BRADLEY M. DAVIS
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

EDITORIAL BOARD

EDWARD M. EAST

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ROLLINS A. EMERSON

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

HERBERT S. JENNINGS
THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

THOMAS H. MORGAN

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

RAYMOND PEARL
THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

GEORGE H. SHULL, MANAGING EDITOR

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

BUSINESS OFFICE

BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN
BROOKLYN, N.Y.

GENETICS

A PERIODICAL RECORD OF INVESTIGATIONS
BEARING ON HEREDITY AND
VARIATION

EDITORIAL OFFICE

60 JEFFERSON ROAD
PRINCETON, N. J.

60 JEFFERSON ROAD
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

February 25, 1925.

Prof. G. H. Wieland,
Yale University,
New Haven, Conn.

Dear Professor Wieland:

I thank you very much for your letter of February 25th in regard to the Galton and Mendel Memorial. I think perhaps you may not have realized that we are not asking for a considerable contribution but only that you join to whatever extent you can in this expression of appreciation for the contribution which Galton and Mendel have made to our modern biological viewpoints. Mendel was so completely neglected throughout his lifetime by those who should have understood and appreciated the significance of his work that it seems particularly important to have the roll of contributors to this Memorial commemorating the 100th anniversary of his birth as full as possible.

As many contributors are paying on the installment plan, in some cases covering periods of from three to five years, it should be understood that immediate payment is not necessary if it should be inconvenient to make even a small contribution at this time.

Hoping that you will in the end wish to join in this Memorial, even though your contribution may of necessity be smaller than you should like, I am

GHS/C

Dr. R. Kräusel

Frankfurt a. M.

Hohenzollern-Platz 24

Postkarte
FIM

FRANKFURT
O.K.

messe

1922. APRIL 25. 1925

Deutsches
Reichsnr.

Deutsches
Reichsnr.

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH DAKOTA
MUSEUM

STATE GEOLOGICAL AND
NATURAL HISTORY SURVEY

VERMILLION, S. D.,

April 24, 1925

Dr. G.R.Wieland,
Yale University,
New Haven, Conn.

Dear Prof. Wieland:

Some eighteen months ago I sent you two fossil cones found in the northwest corner of South Dakota. One was to be returned that would give us one specimen here in the Museum. I presumed it has been overlooked. Sometime when run across it please return one.

As yet none of us have had the opportunity of visiting that locality to determine the horizon from which they were found; however we will bear it in mind and notify you when we find out about it.

I visited the Cycad National Preserve near Edgemont last Sept. Procured a single fine specimen from a hometeader over east in Falls Canyon. I think the extreme dry weather of last season was not conducive to a luxurious growth of cycads, at least on the Preserve.

By-the-way, did you ever run across the Indian flint

YALE UNIVERSITY

OSBORN ZOOLOGICAL LABORATORY

NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT

June 3rd, 1925

Dear Sir:-

The Annual Meeting of the American Society of Zoologists and of the Naturalists will be held in New Haven next December. You are requested to attend a conference of the local members of these societies on Friday next at 5 p.m. (daylight saving time) in Room 301, Osborn Zoological Laboratory, for the organization of a local committee to make arrangements for this meeting.

Professor George Reber Wieland,
Osborn Botanical Laboratory,
Yale University.