SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



The Office of Public Roads and Rural Engineering, Department of 

 Agriculture, began in May the publication of a monthly 48-page illus- 

 trated periodical entitled Public Roads. 



The Biological Society of Washington has just published, as its Bulle- 

 tin No. 1, A sketch of the natural history of the District of Columbia, 

 together with an indexed edition of the U. S. Geological Survey's 1917 

 map of Washington and vicinity} The author and editor is Mr. W. L. 

 McAtee, Corresponding Secretary of the Society. The book contains 

 historical sketches, with bibliographies, of the development of various 

 branches of natural science in the District, including the botany, 

 insects, other invertebrates, fishes, batrachians and reptiles, birds, 

 mammals, and records of early man; also three chapters on the dis- 

 tribution of life in the District of Columbia region. A thorough index 

 to the 1917 map of Washington and vicinity, together with a quar- 

 tered and index-ruled copy of the map, is included. 



Dr. Charles W. Burrows, associate physicist at the Bureau of 

 Standards and in charge of the Magnetic Section of the Bureau, has 

 presented his resignation to be in effect July 1, 1918, and will take up 

 commercial research and consultation work in New York. He will 

 have laboratories equipped for research on magnetic materials at Gras- 

 mere, Borough of Richmond, New York City. 



Professor E. C. Franklin, of Stanford University, California, was in 

 Washington in May in connection with the war work of the Bureau of 

 Mines. 



Mr. Walter M. Gilbert has resigned as assistant secretarj' of the 

 National Research Council, and is now attached to the office of the 

 Secretary of War. 



Colonel Henry S. Graves, Chief of the Forest Service, has been 

 elected an honorarj^ member of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Soci- 

 ety of Edinburgh, in recognition of his eminent services to forestry. 



1 Biological Society of Washington, Biological Survey, Department of Agri- 

 culture; piic3 $2.00, or $2.15 post-paid. 



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