V ~ L7, . No. 7 SIXTH CENSUS OF RESEARCH STUDENTS
1675
physiological chemistry and for chemical engineering. It should be noted that this year the separate classification, chemical engineering, has been used for the first time. This was done because of the feeling on the part of certain departments of chemical engineering that their work should not be included under the heading of industrial chemistry. In view of the fact that the data for many universities is a composite of several returns, the name of the head of the department of chemistry, which has appeared in previous compilations, has been omitted from Table I (see insert). I t should be mentioned that in ~ a b i 11, e while a column is given to the faculty, the numbers given there are not included in the totals, as those numbers refer only to the graduate students, and are comparable with the totals for previous years. An effort has again been made to eliminate the counting of one person more than once. However, it is not always possible to detect such errors of listing, and the compilation is offered with the hope that, in the future, the heads of the various departments will see that this interpretation is strictly followed.
Nature's Legume Crops Select Poorer Soils. When a farmer plants a clover crop on a piece of poor land for the purpose of enriching it, and later on puts the field into some other crop, he is only duplicating a process th?t happens without human assistance wherever there are raw or impoverished soils. This is indicated by the results of observations by Dr. Elmer Campbell of Transylvania Collse, published in the scientific journal, Ecoloey. -. Dr. Campbell studied a series of raw gravel exposures in Indiana and alsoanumber of exhausted and abandoned fields in various psrtr of the South. He found that in all cases the larger proportion of legumes in the total vegetation was found on the poorer soils, and that as legumes increased the nitrogen content they were vadually replaced by other wild plants. For instance, on the Indiana gravel he found the plant population to be 100 per cent sweet clover on a three-year-old exposure, but a ten-year-old strip of sweet clover made up only 20 per cent of aU the plants present. I n the South the predominant wild legume of poor lands was 1espedeza.-Science Service New Corn-Waste Chemical 690 Times Sweeter than Supar. A new sweeteninp. . compound which is somewhat sweeter than saccharin and 690 times sweeter than sugar has been prepared by Dr. Henry Gilman and J. B. Dickey of the department of organic chemistry a t Iowa State College a t Ames from waste products of corn. The name of this compound is "the syn-isomer of 5-benzyl-2-furfuraldoxime." Despite its sparing solubility in water it may become a pattern for new and valuable sweetening compounds. As yet, no study has been made of its physiological action. I t is interesting to note that, unlike other artificial compounds of high sweetening power, this compound can be readily prepared from sugar by standard organic reactions. Other raw materials, like paper and cellulosic compounds, in general, can be used as a starting point in its synthesis. Previously. Dr. Gilman and A. P. Hewlett prepared a compound from corn cobs which was 200 times sweeter than sugar.-Science Senice
