SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 335 



Mr. Albert Burch, of the Bureau of Mines, and Mr. E. F. Burchard, 

 of the Geological Survey, have recently returned from Cuba, where 

 they went to ascertain the possibility of Cuba supplying a portion of 

 the United States' requirements of manganese ore and chromite. They 

 found that it is probable that Cuba will be able to furnish a portion 

 of the manganese ore and chromite formerly imported from other foreign 

 sources. 



Mr. F. S. DuRSTON, of the Bureau of Standards, has been commis- 

 sioned a Ueutenant in the U. S. Naval Reserve Forces. 



Professor L. C. Graton is on leave of absence from Harvard Uni- 

 versity and is in charge of the work of the Copper Producers' Committee 

 in New York. 



Professor F. R. Moulton, of the University of Chicago, is in Wash- 

 ington on leave of absence and has been commissioned a major in the 

 Ordnance Reserve Corps. 



Professor Ivanoichiro Suidzu, of the Department of Organic Chem- 

 istry, Tokyo Higher Technological College, visited Washington in April. 



Professor David G. Thompson, of Goucher College, Baltimore, is on 

 leave of absence and spent the past summer on field work with the party 

 of 0. E. Meinzer, of the U. S. Geological Survey, locating and marking 

 watering places in the deserts of the Southwest near the Mexican 

 border. 



Professor Richard C. Tolman, of the University of Uhnois, is on 

 leave of absence to do war research in Washington. He is temporarily 

 stationed at the laboratories of the Cathohc University. 



News was received on April 18, 1918, that Captain Ernest Weibel 

 had died of wounds at a hospital in France. Captain Weibel became a 

 member of the staff of the Bureau of Standards in 1910. He was 

 commissioned a captain in the Engineers Corps after the declaration of 

 war by the United States, and was soon afterward sent to France, 

 where he was engaged in the sound-ranging service. He was a member 

 of the Philosophical Society of Washington, and author of several 

 papers in collaboration with F. Wenner and F. B. Silsbee on time- 

 constants and inductance of low-resistance standards, the use of the 

 Thomson bridge, and the testing of potentiometers. He also pub- 

 hshed, in collaboration with A. L. Thuras, a paper in this Journal 

 of March 19, 1918, on An electrical instrument for recording sea-water 

 salinity. 



Dr. H. O. Wood, formerly of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, has 

 been commissioned a captain in the Engineer Officers' Reserve Corps 

 and is engaged in special research work at the Bureau of Standards. 



