Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

The American Naturalist and Psyche, dealing mainly with the structure of the head and mouth parts of the house fly and mosquitoes, and the trachea of insects.

An omnivorous reader, he kept abreast of the advances of his science and at the same time retained a keen interest in mathematical, physical and linguistic studies, publishing papers dealing with the mathematical properties of lenses, and on hyperbolic functions. His self-acquired mastery of a reading knowledge of the modern languages led him to a desire for some more universal means of communication, so that he was attracted to the Esperanto movement and became one of its early American promoters.

Bred as a theologian he was nevertheless in sympathy with the then new doctrine of evolution, and throughout his life was a firm upholder of the essential harmony of science and religion. His papers on this subject were

numerous.

His retirement from the active duties of a professor did not lessen his abounding zeal for work, for he then began and carried through to completion a three-volume report on the Flora of Patagonia-a labor that might tax the energies of a much younger

man.

Dr. Macloskie was true and loyal to his adopted country while cherishing with pride his Scotch-Irish ancestry. He was a man of strictest probity, affectionate, enthusiastic and impulsive; he was just and sympathetic in his dealings with his students; a most devoted and unselfish collaborator in the work of his own and other departments; loyally devoted to his friends through good and evil report; a good citizen and a Christian gentleman.

In 1896 Princeton University granted him the honorary A.M. As one of her adopted sons he served her faithfully in his life and his death comes as a loss to his former pupils and colleagues. W. M. RANKIN

SCIENTIFIC EVENTS

THE CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

In view of the many developments taking place in the institution, by which it is being

rapidly transformed from a college or primarily local relationships into a scientific school of national importance, the trustees of Throop College of Technology, at Pasadena, voted at their annual meeting on February tenth to change its name to the California Institute of Technology.

The developments of the recent past and those assured in the near future that have seemed to justify this action are briefly as follows:

There have been received by the institution two gifts of $200,000 each to form permanent endowments for the support of research in physics and chemistry, respectively; and in addition $800,000 has been given for general purposes, on condition that this endowment be increased by additional subscriptions to two million dollars.

Other gifts aggregating $380,000 have been received for the construction of new buildings. With the aid of these funds a building for chemical instruction and research, named after the donors the Gates Chemical Laboratory, has already been completed and is occupied by the chemistry department, which includes five professors and assistant professors, two instructors, and six teaching fellows. A laboratory for aeronautical research has also been built, and investigations on airplane propellers are in progress. During the latter part of the war a laboratory for submarine detection was erected and the researches in that field are still in progress, with reference to both commercial uses and future military developments. This work will next year be transferred to the new physics building; and the war laboratory will be equipped for advanced instruction and research in applied chemistry and chemical engineering. A building for instruction and research in physics is now being planned, and is to be erected during the year. In recognition of the donation which made it possible, it will be known as the Norman Bridge Physical Laboratory. In addition, a building to serve as an auditorium and music hall, both for the Institute and for the Pasadena Music and Art Association is to be built at once upon the campus.

An impressive architectural plan for the whole campus has been prepared by the distinguished New York architect, Mr. Bertram G. Goodhue, and all the new construction is being carried out in accordance with this plan.

There have recently become associated with the faculty of the institute a number of well known investigators. Dr. Arthur A. Noyes has resigned his position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to become director of chemical research at the California Institute. Dr. Robert A. Millikan, of the University of Chicago, has arranged to spend one term of each year at the institute, and will have general supervision of the research and instruction in physics. Professor Albert A. Michelson, of the University of Chicago, will also spend much of his time there for the purpose of carrying on researches on the fundamental problem of earth tides, for which the necessary equipment is now being installed. Dr. Harry Bateman, formerly of Cambridge University and Johns Hopkins University, had previously joined the faculty as professor of aeronautical research and mathematical physics.

In the development of the institute special emphasis is being placed upon research, not only because every institution of higher education should contribute to the advancement of science, but also and particularly because a prominent feature of the work of instruction is to be the training of engineers of the research or creative type. While the institute will continue to offer four-year undergraduate courses which fit its students directly for the positions of operating and constructing engineers, two new courses of instruction, to be known as the courses in physics and engineering and in chemistry and engineering, will soon be announced by the faculty, in which special stress will be laid on an unusually thorough grounding in the three fundamental sciences of physics, chemistry and mathematics; and in the last two years of which much time will be assigned to research in physics and chemistry; the time required for these purposes being secured by omitting

some of the more technical engineering subjects included in the other engineering

courses.

The faculty has also been strengthened on the side of humanistic studies by renewal of the arrangement with Alfred Noyes, the English poet, which was in effect before the war, under which he will during the next year give courses of lectures on English literature; and by the appointment of Paul Perigord as professor of economics.

THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE BOARD OF
TRUSTEES OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM
OF NATURAL HISTORY

ANNOUNCEMENT of the nature and scope of the activities of the American Museum of Natural History during the past year and of a prospectus for the coming fifty years was made on February 2 by President Henry Fairfield Osborn, at the annual meeting of the board of trustees, held at the home of Arthur Curtiss James, 39 East 69th Street, who acted at host.

Due to its urgency, the matter of maintenance and building funds was given prominence. It was reported that the Museum is now facing the most critical time of its history.

While progress is being made in many directions, President Osborn said, it is not symmetrical, and in order to secure a harmonious educational treatment and to truthfully arrange our present collections, the museum needs double the space which it now occupies. It is fifteen years since the building has been enlarged, and during this time the collections have nearly doubled. President Osborn ascribes this marking time of progress not to lack of cooperation on the part of the board of estimate and apportionment of the city, which has recently manifested its confidence in the institution by increasing the annual maintenance fund fifty per cent.; nor to lack of interest on the part of the trustees, who have been signally generous, contributing the sum of over $100,000 in 1919 alone to meet deficiencies in the budget; nor to lack of friendliness on the part of the Board of Education, which has also

given its cooperation. He gave three very sufficient reasons in the following: the unprecedented growth of the collections; the actual shortage of funds in the city treasury; and the interruption by the war of building extension through personal subscription of the trustees which was planned in 1913.

He went on to point out that the whole educational system of New York city and state has suffered from the same causes; that conditions have arisen where we are compelled to take a very large and constructive view of the future. The need of the hour as felt in every one's mind is Americanization, which can be accomplished only through the thorough training of our youth according to American ideals. The free schools, colleges, libraries, museums, scientifically arranged parks and aquaria, free lectures and free concerts designed for instruction and inspiration form the structure on which Americanization rests. In this structure, the American Museum has won a vital place. In its school educational work, the museum holds a strong position. In the last five years it has reached 5,650,595 children directly and indirectly through its lecture system and traveling museums; it has expended $89,126.08 of its own funds directly on public education, in addition to the $1,538,057 expended on plorations, collections and researches, the results of which ultimately find their way into the school mind. The scope and efficiency of its public educational work is such as to have I called forth the enthusiastic admiration of the British Educational Mission on its recent visit, and to be taken as a model for educational development in Great Britain.

ex

With all this obvious advance, the museum has in certain ways come to a full stop in its educational activities. This is particularly true of exhibition work. In hall after hall the arrangement is less truthful and more misleading than it was twenty years ago, for the collections are jumbled together out of their natural order, giving, in cases entirely erroneous impressions. It is therefore, not a civic luxury, but a paramount educational necessity which demands the enlargement of

the museum buildings and the provision of the necessary equipment. The most important thing for the museum to-day is immediate building space and equipment. And the next most important thing is the immediate increase of its general endowment by not less than $2,000,000 in addition to the munificent bequest of Mrs. Russell Sage.

In exploration and field work but little more activity was possible than in 1918. Roy C. Andrews continued his work in northern China and Mongolia, and has been eminently successful in securing valuable series of goral, serow and mountain sheep. Paul D. Ruthling and Karl P. Schmidt have collected reptiles and amphibians in Mexico and Porto Rico. Henry E. Crampton has continued his work in the Society Islands; George K Cherrie and Harry Watkins have secured col lections of small mammals and birds in Venezuela and Peru; and Herbert J. Spinden has made archeological collections in Peru, Colombia, Dutch Guiana and Central America. In the United States, valuable and unique archeological and ethnological material was secured in Arizona and New Mexico by Leslie Speir and Earl H. Morris, and a collection of Miocene fossils including a slab containing a number of skeletons of the twohorned Rhinoceros Diceratherium were obtained by Albert Thomas in Nebraska.

During the year over 600 accessions to the collections were recorded. Some of the more important gifts were: the painting of the eclipse of the sun in 1918 by H. R. Sutler, presented by Edward D. Adams; a Chinese painting on silk of the last dynastic period, 1761, presented by Ogden Mills; a lacquered dog-house from a Chinese imperial palace, from Miss Theodora Wilbour; skin of an albino deer, from Archibald Harrison; a series of bronze objects from Sumatra from Arthur S. Walcott; and a collection of ethnological specimens from Zuni, from Mrs. Elsie Clews Parsons.

Nearly 900,000 people visited the museum in 1919, exceeding by 175,000 the attendance of 1918. The net gain in membership was 615, the total membership now being 5,183.

Childa Frick was elected a trustee.

Those present at the annual meeting were: Thomas DeWitt Cuyler, Cleveland H. Dodge, Walter Douglas, Madison Grant, William Averell Harriman; Archer M. Huntington, Adrian Iselin, Arthur Curtis James, J. P. Morgan, Henry Fairfield Osborn, Percy R. Pyne, Theodore Roosevelt, John B. Trevor and Francis D. Gallatin.

NEW YORK MEETING OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF MINING AND METALLURGICAL ENGINEERS

THE American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers under the presidency of Mr. Hoover, met in New York City this week. Three sessions of the annual meeting were devoted to the subject of coal. In the first of these facts were brought out on some of the questions around which controversies raged during the recent strike, including: Why is production intermittent? How and when do the irregularities occur? How many days a year do the men actually work? What are the actual wages received by men during each season and in what way can the wage basis be changed? How and where can coal be stored at the mine, at industrial plants or elsewhere?

The fundamentals of the problem were presented in a series of papers by authorities. Van H. Manning, director of the U. S. Bureau of Mines, outlined conditions in a paper on "The problems of the coal industry." George Otis Smith, director, U. S. Geological Survey, presented a statistical analysis of the rate of output over a period of years, showing the relative effect of shortage of transportation and of labor and lack of market and other factors in the production of coal. H. H. Stoek, of the University of Illinois, discussed the storage of bituminous coal at the point of production, at centers of distribution and by the consumer. S. L. Yerkes discussed transportation as a factor in irregularity of coal-mine operation.

The business side was presented by Eugene McAuliffe, president of the Union Colliery Company, in a paper on stabilizing the market. Edwin Ludlow, of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Co., discussed conservation as applied

to mining methods, by-products and consumption.

Unpaid taxes on mines amounting to $200,000,000 were involved in a discussion at an open forum held on the subject of mine taxation. The views both of the government and the mine owners were presented, the discussion being led by Ralph Arnold, valuation expert of the Petroleum Division of the Internal Revenue Department; J. R. Finlay, who evaluated the mines of the state of Michigan; J. Parke Channing, of New York, and R. C. Allen, vicepresident of the Lake Superior Ore Association.

In the evening of February 17 more than one thousand delegates and their friends attended a banquet at the Waldorf-Astoria at which Lawrence Addicks was toastmaster. President Herbert Hoover, retiring President Horace V. Winchell and Professor James F. Kemp, of Columbia University, were the speakers.

Besides Mr. Hoover as president, the following officers were elected: Frederick Laist, Anaconda, Mont., and Seeley W. Mudd, Los Angeles, vice-presidents. W. R. Walker, New York; A. S. Dwight, New York; R. M. Catlin, Franklin Furnace, N. J.; G. H. Clevenger, Washington, D. C., and W. A. Carlyle, Ottawa, Canada, directors.

RESOLUTIONS ON THE DEATH OF SIR
WILLIAM OSLER

ON motion of the executive committee of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology in Cincinnati December 30, 1919, the following minute was drafted:

In the death of Dr. Osler, the medical profession has suffered an immeasurable loss. Belonging to no cult, or age, or clime, but descended in direct line from Hippocrates, he was master of the art of medicine in its purest form. As a teacher, he was again master, painting with broad strokes pictures of disease never to be forgotten by the student. An investigator and an inspirer of investigation, a worthy counsellor of brother physicians, a delver in the history of medicine, and an ornament to its letters; and withal so human and of such rare personal charm as to be beloved of all who came in contact with him. Such was the man we mourn. We grieve not only at loss of leader and friend,

but also that death overtook him in the very shadow of the great conflict which brought him so great personal loss and sorrow and robbed him of the mellow years which were so fully his due.

(Singned)

C. H. BUNTING,
HENRY A. CHRISTIAN,
A. S. LOEVENHART,
Committee

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS DR. LUDVIG HEKTOEN, of the John McCormick Institute for Infectious Diseases, Chicago, has been elected honorary member of the Pathological Society of Philadelphia.

DR. E. V. MCCOLLUM, professor of chemical hygiene, school of hygiene and public health, Johns Hopkins University, has been made corresponding member of the Academie Royale de Médecine de Belgique.

DR. HERBERT E. GREGORY, Silliman professor of geology, Yale University, sailed on February 17, to resume his duties as acting director of the Bishop Museum at Honolulu, Hawaii. Professor Gregory will return to New Haven in September.

DR. WILLIAM T. SEDGWICK, senior professor of the Institute of Technology and head of the department of biology and public health, will be the first exchange professor with the British universities of Cambridge and Leeds. Dr.

Sedgwick will leave for England early in April, and expects to spend the summer in Europe, returning to Boston in September.

DR. ROBERT W. HEGNER, associate professor of protozoology in charge of the department of medical zoology in the School of Hygiene and Public Health, has been appointed a delegate from The Johns Hopkins University to the Congress of the Royal Institute of Public Health which meets in Brussels from May 20 to May 24, 1920. Dr. Hegner will read a paper at the Congress on "The relation of medical zoology to public health problems." He expects to spend the months of June, July and August in study at the Liverpool and London Schools of Tropical Medicine and in visiting

other institutions in Europe and Africa where medical zoology is being taught or investigated.

ERNEST F. BURCHARD, geologist in charge of the iron and steel section, U. S. Geological Survey, has been granted a ten months' absence and will make geologic investigations in the Philippines.

DR. M. W. LYON, JR., formerly professor of pathology and bacteriology, George Washington University, and at one time connected with the Division of Mammals, U. S. National Museum, and captain in the Medical Corps during the war, has left Washington to take charge of pathological work at South Bend, Indiana.

WE learn from the Journal of the American Medical Association that, following the usual custom, Professor Laveran, formerly vice-president, has assumed the duties of president of the Paris Academy of Medicine for the year 1920. Dr. L. G. Richelot, hospital surgeon and professor of medicine in the University of Paris, was chosen vice-president for the year 1920, and Dr. Arcard, also of the University of Paris, was elected secretary for the year. Dr. F. Lejars, professor of clinical surgery, has been elected president of the Surgical Society for the year 1920.

Ir is announced in Nature that Professor R. T. Leiper, reader in helminthology in the University of London, has been awarded the Straits Settlement gold medal by the senate of the University of Glasgow. The medal was founded some years ago by Scottish medical practitioners in the Malay States, and is given periodically to a graduate in medicine of the Scottish universities for a thesis on a subject of tropical medicine.

DR. CARLOS E. PORTER, editor of the Revista Chilena de Historia Natural, of Santiago, Chile, is about to publish a work, upon which he has been engaged for fifteen years, on the museums and naturalists of Latin America. The work will comprise three volumes abundantly illustrated. Dr. Porter is enabled to publish this work through the financial support of Dr. Chistobal M. Hicken, professor of botany and geology in the faculty of natural

« AnteriorContinuar »