ment of the Army, to aid in preventing the spread of those diseases, such as malaria, which are carried by insects. Professors H. M. Hall and T. H. Goodspeed, of the department of botany, have been investigating certain native plants of California which can be used as a source of rubber in case of national necessity. Practically all of the members of the department of chemistry are engaged in confidential researches as to chemical problems the national authorities have asked them to take up. Professor Stuart Daggett, of the department of economics, has reported on the supply of iron and steel on the Pacific coast and Professor Henry R. Hatfield, of the department of economics, dean of the college of commerce, has reported on the relation of the state banks to the Federal Reserve System. Professor F. E. Pernot, of the department of electrical engineering, is in Washington aiding with various war-time electrical problems. Professor Charles Gilman Hyde, of the chair of sanitary engineering, designed fifteen miles of sewer system for Camp Fremont. Professor C. C. Wiskocil and his colleagues in the civil engineering department have made tests of airplane fastenings and woods to be used in the construction of airplanes. Professor C. L. Cory, dean of the college of mechanics, has investigated problems in the fixation of nitrogen from the air by direct electric arc furnace process. Professor B. M. Woods, of the deparment of mechanics, as president of the Academic Board of the School of Military Aeronautics, is directing the instruction given to the flying cadets. Professor George D. Louderback, of the department of geology, has reported on sources for a supply of manganese ores. Professor George M. Stratton, as a captain in the Signal Corps, is enlisting officer in San Francisco for the Aviation Service, and he and Professor Warner Brown, of the department of psychology, have developed tests to determine the fitness of young men to become military aviators. Professor William E. Ritter, director of the Scripps Institution for Biological Research, has investigated the supply of food fishes in the Pacific Ocean not as yet used by the fishermen and the canneries.

Professor C. A. Kofoid and Professor W. W. Cort, of the department of zoology, have investigated the hookworm, and organisms responsible for trench dysentery. Professor Lincoln Hutchinson, of the department of commerce, is in Washington as tin expert of the War Trade Board. Professor Joel H. Hildebrand has gone to Washington to become a captain in the Ordnance Department and to aid in coordinating the war-time researches of chemists throughout the country. George E. Dickie, of the department of military science and tactics, is the Pacific coast representative of the War Department and Navy Department Commissions on Training Camp activities. Professor H. B. Langille, of the department of mechanics, is an inspector of naval construction for the government, at the Union Iron Works.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS

M. PAINLEVÉ has been elected president of the Paris Academy of Sciences, succeeding M. d'Arsonval. M. Léon Guignard, professor of botany at the School of Pharmacy of Paris, has been elected vice-president.

THE Nichols Medal for meritorious research in organic chemistry has been conferred on Professor Treat B. Johnson, of the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University. The medal is awarded annually by the New York Section of the American Chemical Society on the merit of the original communications published in the journal of the society.

AT the last meeting of the New York Section of the Society of Chemical Industry, the Perkin Medal was presented to Auguste J. Rossi, by Dr. William H. Nichols, past-president of the society, and Dr. F. A. J. Fitzgerald gave an account of Dr. Rossi and his work.

DR. C. GORDON HEWITT, F.R.S.C., dominion entomologist and consulting zoologist, of the Department of Agriculture, Ottawa, has been awarded the gold medal of the Royal Society of Canada for the Protection of Birds, and has been elected an honorary fellow of the society, in recognition of his services to the cause of bird protection in England and in Canada,

and particularly in connection with the treaty between Canada and the United States for the protection of migratory birds.

PROFESSOR GEORGE GRANT MACCURDY, of Yale University, has been made a member of the Committee on Anthropology of the National Research Council.

PROFESSOR ROSWELL H. JOHNSON, of the University of Pittsburgh, and Professor Frederick Ehrenfeld, of the University of Pennsylvania, have been appointed by Governor Brumbaugh as commissioners of the Topographic and Geologic Survey Commission of Pennsylvania. Senator G. W. McNees holds over as the third member.

MR. PAUL M. REA has resigned the secretaryship of the American Association of Museums after eleven and a half years of service. Mr. Rea has been appointed vice-director of War Savings for South Carolina. The council has filled the vacancy for the remainder of the year by the appointment of Harold L. Madison, curator of the Park Museum, Providence, R. I.

MR. SCHACHNE ISAACS, instructor in psychology, University of Cincinnati, has been commissioned first lieutenant, Sanitary Corps, National Army. Lieutenant Isaacs is associated with Captain Knight Dunlap on the psychological research in high altitude aviation. He has been assigned to the Mineola, L. I., aviation camp where a laboratory is in process of construction.

GEORGE K. K. LINK, professor of plant physiology in the University of Nebraska, has been granted a leave of absence to undertake war emergency work in the Bureau of Plant Industry. He is engaged as pathologist in the market distribution and food survey work of the Department of Agriculture and is instructing the inspectors of the newly created inspection service in the detection of diseases of vegetable crops. This inspection service has been opened by the Bureau of Markets and covers the principal markets of the country. The Navy and Army, in purchasing vegetables for the fleet, for overseas supply ships and transports and the Quartermaster's depots, are making use of

this service. Dr. Link is also investigating the occurrence of diseases of perishable vegetables in the terminal markets of the United States.

DR. HERBERT E. IVES, physicist of the United Gas Improvement Company, Philadelphia, Pa., lectured before the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia on January 10 on "The physics of the Welsbach mantle," and Professor W. P. Mason, of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, lectured on January 16 on Camp sanitation."

PROFESSOR CHARLES E. PELLEW is giving a course of four lectures, on Saturday evenings at 8 P.M., at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, upon "The dyestuffs of the ancients."

DR. LAWRENCE J. HENDERSON, professor of biological chemistry in Harvard University, will give a series of lectures on food conservation at Smith College. The lectures will be open to the public.

A SERIES of five lectures in the Herter Foundation were delivered from January 7 to 11, at the Carnegie Laboratory of the University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College, by Major Edward K. Dunham, M. R. C., U. S. Army, emeritus professor of pathology, on "Principles underlying the treatment of infected wounds."

A MEETING of the Faraday Society was held on January 14 in the rooms of the Royal Society of Arts, when a general discussion on the setting of cements and plasters was opened by Dr. C. H. Desch.

THE Ramsay Memorial Fund, which was instituted a year ago with the object of raising a sum of £100,000 as a suitable memorial to the late Professor Sir William Ramsay, has now reached a sum of just above £30,000. The latest and most important donation to the fund has been been a sum of £5,000, contributed by Mrs. Wharrie.

DR. A. H. PURDUE, state geologist of Tennessee, died as a result of an operation, on December 12, aged fifty-six years.

JOSEPH PRICE REMINGTON, since 1893 dean of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and a member of the revision committee of the United States Pharmacopoeia since 1880 and

its chairman since 1901, died in Philadelphia on January 1, aged seventy years.

THE death is announced of Professor G. P. Girdwood, professor of chemistry in McGill University. He was born in London in 1832 and took up medical practise in Montreal in 1864. From 1872 to 1902, he was professor of chemistry in the faculty of medicine.

W. J. E. FOAKES, late chief government inspector of Explosives for Cape Colony, has died in London.

TUBERCULOSIS and war were discussed at a national conference of experts in connection with the annual meeting of the board of directors of the National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives at the Hotel Savoy, New York, on January 13. Addresses were made by Jane Addams, of Hull House, Chicago; Dr. Herman M. Biggs, state commissioner of health; Colonel G. E. Bushnell, of the Surgeon-General's Department; Colonel D. U. Dercle, representing the Medical Department of the French Government; Dr. John H. Finley, commissioner of education of the State of New York, and Dr. Charles J. Hatfield, executive secretary of the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis.

A MINISTRY of Public Health and Social Welfare has been constituted for Austria with Dr. Baernreither as the first minister. It is to supervise the care of war invalids, to combat war diseases, and to centralize pre-existing, uncoordinated departments of public health and sociology. It is to have the care also of the dependents of fallen soldiers, infant welfare, housing and insurance.

IN consequence of strong protests, the British War Cabinet will reconsider its proposal to take over the British Museum for the use of the Air Board. According to cablegrams to the press the Times prints an editorial and also many letters against the proposal. Other newspapers also raise a vigorour outery against the appropriation of the museum, declaring it "preposterous," " a serious scandal," and an "unjustifiable act of vandalism." The Manchester Guardian says that the suggestion to take over the building

He

is an incredible outrage, which should never be suffered while there remains a hotel, a private mansion, or, if need be, a royal palace that can be commandeered. Sir John E. Sandys, public orator in Cambridge University, has written a vigorous letter of protest. pointed out that it would be impossible to remove more than a fraction of the valuable contents of the museum and that what was left probably would be damaged by ill-usage. Sir John also referred to the fire risk of the new occupancy, and, moreover, that the building, whose treasures are the envy of Germany, had not as yet been attacked from the air. He feared, however, that when the air board was installed there it would be regarded as the legitimate object of an enemy attack.

THE reappearance of Encke's comet was reported on January 4 in a dispatch to the Harvard College Observatory from Copenhagen. The position was given as follows: Right ascension, 22 hours 59 minues 49 seconds; declination, north 3 degrees 17 minutes 35 seconds. The comet was observed by Professor Schorr of the Bergedorf Observatory on the evening of December 30.

THE late G. F. Melville, an Edinburgh advocate, has made a bequest of about £250,000, the income of which is to be used ultimately for the care and cure of cancer under a special trust which he has established.

AFTER the adjournment of the meeting of the Geological Society of America held in St. Louis, December 27 to 29, an excursion was conducted to the southeastern Missouri Lead District, under the direction of Professor W. A. Tarr, of the University of Missouri. The occurrences of the lead ore at Flat River were first studied, the party spending considerable time underground investigating the workings of the Federal Lead Company. Mine La Motte and the North American Mine in the vicinity of Fredericton were also visited. The party included Professors R. M. Bagg (Lawrence College), A. P. Coleman (University of Toronto), C. W. Knight (assistant provincial geologist of Ontario), E. H. Kraus (University of Michigan), T. R. Van Horn (Case School of Science), L. G. Westgate

(Wesleyan University), and W. A. Tarr (University of Missouri).

FEDERAL food administrators from thirtyeight states and from the District of Columbia and Hawaii and representatives from all the other states met in Washington on January 9 for a two-days' conference. Seventy-six delegates were at the meeting. They were addressed at the opening by Herbert Hoover, United States Food Administrator; by the Hon. David F. Houston, Secretary of Agriculture, and by several of Mr. Hoover's assistants. The administrators come to Washington every few months for conferences with members of the Food Administration, in order that a closer touch between the states may be established and to give each of them a clear understanding of the problems and conditions that must be met. The administrators were entertained at luncheon in the Food Administration Building and attended an informal dinner at the New Willard Hotel. Both the luncheon and dinner were in strict accordance with foodconservation rules. The following administrators were in attendance: Professor Alfred Atkinson, Montana; Edwin G. Baetjer, Maryland; Dr. Harry E. Barnard, Indiana; Braxton Beacham, Florida; Dr. Stratton D. Brooks, Oklahoma; J. F. Child, Hawaii; Alfred M. Coats, Rhode Island; Fred C. Croxton, Ohio; J. F. Deems, Iowa; Theodore C. Diers, Wyoming; William Elliott, South Carolina; Ralph C. Ely, New Mexico; P. M. Harding, Mississippi; James Hartness, Vermont; Charles Hebbard, Washington; Howard Heinz, Pennsylvania; Charles N. Herreid, South Dakota; Richard M. Hobbie, Alabama; Walter P. Innis, Kansas; Dr. Leon S. Merrill, Maine; Ralph P. Merritt, California; Charles E. Treman, New York state; Edmund Mitchell, Delaware; H. A. Morgan, Tennessee; Frederick B. Mumford, Missouri; Earl W. Oblebay, West Virginia; Henry A. Page, North Carolina; John M. Parker, Louisiana; E. A. Peden, Texas; George A. Prescott, Michigan; Fred M. Sackett, Kentucky; Robert Scoville, Connecticut; Dr. Andrew M. Soule, Georgia; Huntley N. Spaulding, New Hampshire;

Gurden W. Wattles, Nebraska; Harry A. Wheeler, Illinois; Col. E. B. White, Virginia; Arthur Williams, New York City, and Clarence R. Wilson, District of Columbia.

THE American Medical Journal reports that the large collection of birds and mammals obtained as a result of the American Musuem's Asiatic Zoological Expedition to China, conducted by Mr. Roy C. Andrews, has been placed on display just as it was received instead of first putting it through the processes of preparation. This collection comprises hundreds of skins of beautiful tropical birds, including newly discovered pheasants and peacocks. Small bright-hued jungle fowls are interesting as the ancestors of the present barnyard fowl which is playing such an important' part in the food problem at the present time. For thousands of years this original type has existed in the heart of China. Unusual rodent forms are represented in the black flying squirrels, four feet long, together with huge rats, including the rare bamboo rat, scores of mice of strange appearance and odd variations of the mole. The chipmunks include several varieties hitherto undescribed by zoologists. Skins of serows and gorals, strange animals intermediate between the goat and the sheep, are also included in the exhibit.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL
NEWS

AT New York University Hazen G. Tyler has been appointed professor of mechanical engineering; Dr. Edward K. Dunham, emeritus professor of pathology, has been appointed Herter lecturer, and Dr. John Charles McCoy has been appointed clinical professor of surgery. Dean Samuel A. Brown has been promoted from assistant professor of medicine to professor of therapeutics; Dr. Willis C. Noble, from lecturer on bacteriology to assistant professor of hygiene, and Dr. James F. Nagle, from instructor in medicine to clinical professor of medicine.

DR. L. C. GLENN, who was on leave of absence from Vanderbilt University last year in

the employ of the Sinclair Oil and Refining Corporation as geologist, has returned to the university this year, but retains his connection with the Sinclair companies.

MR. L. A. RUMSEY, former instructor in organic chemistry at Iowa State College, has been appointed head of the department of chemistry at Denison University, Granville, Ohio.

DR. R. K. STRONG, of the University of Chicago, has been appointed as professor of industrial chemistry at the Oregon Agricultural College.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE

RHYTHMIC PRECIPITATION

THE abstract of Dr. H. N. Holmes's paper, read before the Kansas City meeting of the American Chemical Society, April 12, 1917, which appears in SCIENCE, November 2, 1917, calls for some discussion. He proposes a "new" theory to account for rhythmic precipitation bands. I have recently given a short account of some of the earlier work in the subject in a paper in the American Journal of Science for January, 1917, from which it is clear that the theory is comparatively old, having been suggested twenty years ago by Ostwald senior, and established six years later by Morse and Pierce.1 Later workers have agreed with these pioneers, and recently I have shown that the rates of diffusion of the reagents have to be taken into account in explaining rhythmic precipitation, and that under certain conditions bands which become successively closer, or equally spaced bands, may be produced. Morse and Pierce also showed, fourteen years ago, that a gel is not essential to the formation of precipitates in separated bands, having obtained them in aqueous solutions. It is of interest and importance that Dr. Holmes has obtained them in loosely packed flowers of sulphur.

It might be asked what Dr. Holmes means by "crystalline banding of mercuric iodide."

1 Morse, H. W., and Pierce, G. W., Zeitschr. phys. chem., Vol. XLV., 1903, p. 589, or Physical Review, Vol. XVII., No. 3, September, 1903, p. 129.

Is it possible that "banding of crystalline mercuric iodide" is meant? Again, it is difficult to understand what is meant by "a thickness of a few cubic centimeters," thickness usually being measured in one dimension, not in three dimensions.

I would take exception to the statement: "The color arrangement of agate is an excellent example of the phenomenon." It may possibly be an example of the phenomenon. I have not studied agates in sufficient detail to discuss the subject at this time, but such cursory examinations of agates as I have made have been sufficient to indicate that the offhand acceptation of agates as examples of rhythmic banding by precipitation within a medium of gelatinous silica is inadvisable. There are very few agates which are not susceptible of other explanation. Liesegang, in his "Geologische Diffusionen," after discussing agates as products of rhythmic precipitation within gelatinous silica, is careful to point out that he does not propose to apply this explanation universally.

It is unnecessary to state that the description of Dr. Holmes's experiments with silicic acid gels will be awaited with interest. From the partial account given in his abstract the experiments would appear to be along similar lines to those of Hatschek, and Hatschek and Simon. J. STANSFIELD

GEOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT, MCGILL UNIVERSITY

GRAVITATIONAL REPULSION AND THE COMET

THE results presented by the writer in a paper recently published by the Academy of Science of St. Louis1 may be of assistance in explaining the behavior of the come and tails of comets. Twenty years ago Newcomb gave the following description in Johnson's Universal Cyclopædia.

When a bright comet is carefully examined with a powerful telescope, a bow will sometimes be seen, partially bent around the nucleus on the side towards the sun. If watched from night to night, this bow will be found to expand from the nucleus, become diffused and finally lose itself in the nebulosity of the coma. . . . These bows seem to be 1 Trans., Vol. XXVIII., No. 5, November 8, 1917.