dore W. Richards, director of Wol- Section F.-Herbert Osborn. "Zo Regular meetings of the sections of the association will be held from Thursday morning to Saturday afternoon. The addresses of the retiring vice-presidents, to be delivered on those days, are as follows: Section A.-Henry Norris Russell. ological aims and opportunities." Section G.-Burton E. Livingston. 66 Some responsibilities of botanical science.' The meetings were planned before Section D.-Henry Sturgis Drinker. "The need of conservation of our the signing of the armistice and vital and natural resources as em- were largely intended to contribute phasized by the lessons of the to the solution of war problems. war." The changed situation makes it possible to take up the immense service Section E.-George Henry Perkins. "Vermont physiography." of science to the nation in time of war and its dominating place in the problems of reconstruction. The American Association met in Baltimore in 1858 and then allowed fifty years to elapse before again visiting the city. In the meanwhile the Johns Hopkins University had been founded and had created in Baltimore one of the great centers for scientific research of the country. Since the meeting of 1908 the university has moved to its new site at Homewood where the picturesqueness of the situation gives admirable opportunity for architectural development. The Carroll Mansion, built on the grounds in 1803, has been used as the key-note, and the buildings already erected house worthily one of our great universities. AMERICAN EXPERTS AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE liminary conferences with Dr. S. E. Mezes, president of the College of the City of New York; Professor James T. Shotwell, of Columbia University and Professor A. C. Coolidge, of Harvard University. The inquiry has had a personnel of about 150 people. Among them are: Director Mezes; Dr. Isaiah Bowman, director of the American Geographical Society; Allyn A. Young, head of the department of economics at Cornell University; Charles H. Haskins, dean of the graduate school of Harvard University, specialist on Alsace-Lorraine and Belgium; Clive Day, head of the economics department of Yale, specialist on the Balkans; W. E. Lunt, professor of history, Haverford College, specialist on northern Italy; R. H. Lord, professor of history at Harvard, specialist on Russia and Poland; Charles Seymour, professor of history at Yale, specialist on mann, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, specialist on Turkey; G. L. Beer, formerly of Columbia University, specialist on colonial history; Cartographer Mark Jefferson, professor of geography, Michigan State Normal College; Roland B. Dixon, professor of ethnography at Harvard. ACCOMPANYING President Wilson Austria-Hungary; W. L. Westeron the George Washington, which sailed for France on December 4, were a number of scientific men, scholars and specialists, who, under the direction of Colonel E. M. House, have been engaged since November 10, 1917, in the offices of the American Geographical Society at Broadway and 156th Street, New York, gathering data to be used at the Peace Conference. Dr. Sidney E. Mezes, president of the College of the City of New York, is director of the inquiry and has associated with him many of the best qualified men in the nation. In addition there are eleven assistants and four commissioned officers of the Military Intelligence Division assigned to the inquiry for special problems on strategy, economics and ethnography. These officers are: Major D. W. Johnson, ColumIn September, 1917, as a result of bia University; Major Lawrence conferences between Colonel E. M. Martin, University of Wisconsin; House and President Wilson, Colonel Captain W. C. Farabee, the UniverHouse was authorized to organize sity Museum, Philadelphia; Captain forces to gather and prepare, for Stanley Hornbeck, author of "Conuse at the Peace Conference, the temporary Politics in the Far East." most complete information possible, The above named, together with from the best and latest sources, for map-makers and other assistants, consideration by the Peace Commis- sailed with the Peace Commission on sioners. Colonel House held pre- the George Washington. Copyright by Committee on Public Information. EVACUATION HOSPITAL IN FRANCE. USE OF THE METRIC SYSTEM The commission has regarded this subject as of particular importance in the United States. It is, of course, unnecessary for the United MORE extensive use of the metric system in the trade and commerce of the United States is recommended States section to recommend to the in a resolution adopted by the United States section of the International High Commission, of which Secretary McAdoo is chairman. Latin-American sections of the commission anything in connection with the metric system, which is exclusively in use throughout Latin of America. One of the main obstacles University; of Volney M. Spalding, to documentary uniformity as be- formerly professor of botany in the tween the United States and Latin University of Michigan; of Sir America is to be found in the fact Henry Thompson, professor that the United States does not physiology and later of medicine at make the use of the metric system Dublin, and of H. E. J. G. du Bois, obligatory, and consequently its con- professor of physics at Utrecht. sular documents have to allow the use of that system merely as optional. Any uniform system of classifying merchandise, however, will require on the part of the United States thoroughgoing and complete adherence to the metric system. AN Inter-Allied Scientific Conference has met in London under the auspices of the Royal Society, and in Paris under the auspices of the Academy of Sciences, to consider international cooperation in science. The American delegates are: Dr. H. A. Bumstead, Colonel J. J. Carty, Professor W. F. Durand, Dr. Simon Flexner, Dr. George E. Hale, and Professor A. A. Noyes. THE Swedish Academy has award Of more importance than statistical and administrative questions is the use of the metric system in trade. Now that the United States is obviously being drawn into closer and more vital commercial relations by the rest of the world, and par- ed the Noble prize for physics for ticularly with Latin-America, our manufacturers and exporters will be obliged to meet the demands of their prospective customers in a somewhat more accommodating frame of mind than hitherto. Only the English-speaking nations still have to adopt the metric system of weights and measures, and among them the British Empire, or at least Great Britain, seems to be giving serious consideration to the necessity of making a change. Those who read the Commerce Reports of the United States Department of Commerce know how numerous are the opportunities necessarily allowed to pass by because of our inability to supply goods and machinery constructed in accordance with the metric system. The subject has now assumed a most practical character in the minds of those who are planning for post-war trade expansion. SCIENTIFIC ITEMS WE record with regret the death of George F. Atkinson, head of the department of botany at Cornell the year 1917 to Professor C. G. Barkla, professor of natural philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, for his work on X-rays and secondary rays. The prize in physics for 1918 and that in chemistry for 1917 and 1918 have been reserved.—The Royal Society has awarded its Darwin medal to Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn, president of the American Museum of Natural History, in recognition of his research work in vertebrate morphology and paleontology. The Copley medal goes to Professor H. A. Lorentz, late professor of physics in the University of Leyden, For. Mem. R.S., for his researches in mathematical physics; the Davy medal to Professor F. S. Kipping, F.R.S., professor of chemistry, University College, Nottingham, for his studies in the camphor group and among the organic derivatives of nitrogen and silicon; and a Royal medal to Professor F. G. Hopkins, F.R.S., professor of bio-chemistry in the University of Cambridge, for his researches in chemical physiology. |