SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



Professor Henry Adams, one of the charter members of the Academy, 

 died at his residence, 1603 H Street, on March 27, 1918, at the age of 

 eighty years. Mr. Adams was born in Boston, February 16, 1838, 

 the third son of the late Charles Francis Adams, American minister to 

 England during the Civil War. He was a professor of history at 

 Harvard University from 1870 to 1877, and was the author of a number 

 of historical works. He was a member of the Philosophical and An- 

 thropological Societies of Washington, and one of the founders of the 

 Cosiros Club. He had been a resident of Washington since 1877. 



Professor Marston T. Bogert, formerly Chairman of the Chem- 

 istry Committee of the National Research Council, has been com- 

 missioned a lieutenant colonel in the Chemical Service Section, National 

 Army. He succeeds Lieutenant Colonel Wm. H. Walker, who has 

 been commissioned as colonel and has been placed in charge of the new 

 gas-shell plant of the Ordnance Department, near Baltimore. Dr. John 

 Johnston, Executive Secretary of the National Research Council, is 

 acting chairmanof the Chemistry Committee. .« 



Mr. Edmund Heller, of the American Museum of Natural History, 

 has recently returned from an exploring expedition in western China, 

 near the borders of Burma and Tibet, under the auspices of the Museum. 



Dr. E. Lester Jones, Superintendent of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic 

 Survey, has been commi sioned a lieutenant colonel in the Signal Corps. 



Dr. William H. Nichols, of the General Chemical Company, and 

 Prof. C. K. Leith, chairman of the nuneral imports committee,were 

 before the House Committee on Mines and Mining on March 27, 1918, 

 to urge action on the bill giving the President power to guarantee 

 prices for war minerals and to provide for governmental control of such 

 minerals. The members of the Committee on Mineral Imports and 

 Exports, representing the Shipping, War Trade, and War Industries 

 Boards, are C. K. Leith, Pope Yeatman, and J. E. Spurr. 



Representative B. G. Humphreys introduced in the House of 

 Representatives on March 22, 1918, a bill (H. R. 10954) changing the 

 name of the U. S. Naval Observatory to the LT. S. National Observatory, 

 and placing the Observatory under the control of the Secretary and 

 Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. The bill was referred to the 

 Committee on Naval Affairs. 



An experimental laboratory has been established in which repre- 

 sentatives of the Food Administration and of the Department of 

 Agriculture will cooperate in standardizing war-time recipes and putting 

 them out in the form in which they will be most useful. The work is 



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