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A word may be said concerning the regeneration phenomena which are strikingly characteristic of the lower groups of plants, but which in the higher plants do not seem to be well emphasized, and are certainly less understood. The regeneration of the root tip has been best studied. In none of the higher plants has it been possible from a single isolated active non-sexual cell, or a small group of cells, to regenerate the plant The discovery by Millardet about twenty years ago of the remarkable f ungicidal value of Bordeaux (mixture was the starting point of the scientific and practical development of the use of fungicides, and has resulted in a very wide use of the compounds of copper for the purpose of preventing plant diseases. Several destruc tive diseases of potatoes, such as early blight and late blight, or potato rot, which often cause great loss to the growers of this crop, are now easily prevented by spraying the plants with Bordeaux mixture; and by adding a little Paris green to the mixture protection is afforded by the same treatment against the ravages of the potato beetle. The black rot and brown rot of the grape, which at one time practically destroyed the grape industry of the Central and Eastern States, have been carefully investigated and an effective remedy found in Bordeaux mixture. In fact, this mixture, which is a combination of copper sulphate and lime, has been found an effective protection against the larger number of parasites which attack plants through the leaves, stems, or fruit. We desire to know much more concerning the indi vidual planets. Everybody asks: "Are the planets in habited?" and no favorable answer has yet been given. If one means by the question, inhabited by such beings as we are structurally, then one can say that if one of us were transported to any of the planets we could not live there a minute. Some, like Jupiter, are too hot; others, like the moon, too cold, or without air to breathe or water to drink, or with too great or too little gravity for our bodies. One does not need to assume such likeness, especially since we know some thing of the past history of man and animals on the earth, adapted to it in form, size, structure, habits and intelligence all correlated. To assume intelligence of our type is hardly allowable any more than for struct ures like ours. Vertebrate skeletons are not necessar ily the only form in which intelligence of high type may abide. The implements and skill of astronomers are yet to determine what can be learned about this question. Taking what we know about the develop ment of life on earth, it would seem to be insanely im probable that, among the millions of millions of huge bodies in the universe, all apparently made of the same kinds of matter and subject to the same laws, the earth is the only one among them all to have life and mind developed upon it. But at present we do not know that it may not be true. Let the twentieth cen tury find out. Innumerable storage reservoirs and vast distribution systems for supplies of pure water bear witness to the enormous debt which public health science owes to engineering science, as do proper street construction and, still more, those splendid systems of sewerage with which so many modern cities are equipped, and which not only serve to remove quickly the dangerous liquid waste of human and animal life, but also keep low and wholesome the level of the ground water, re ducing dampness and promoting dryness of the environ ment, and thereby strengthening that physiological resistance by means of which the human mechanism fights against the attacks of infectious disease. Nor do the services of engineering science end here, for the fluid content of the sewers must always be safely dis posed of, and sewage purification is to-day a problem of engineering science no less important or difficult than that of water purification. These same processes of the purification of water and sewage are matters of so much moment in public health science that in al most every country experiment stations are now main tained at public and private expense for the purpose of working out the most practical and most scientific methods of purification.
