SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



A Washington Section of the American Institute of Mining Engineers 

 was organized on June 20, 1918. The officers elected were: Mr. Her- 

 bert Hoover, of the Food Administration, chairman; Dr. H. Foster 

 Bain, of the Bureau of Mines, and Dr. David White, of the U. S. 

 Geological Survey, vice-chairman; Mr. Harvey Mudd, secretary. 



The National Research Council, at the request of the Secretary of 

 War and the Secretary of the Navy, has organized a committee on ex- 

 plosives investigations. The membership of the committee is as fol- 

 lows: Dr. Charles E. Munroe, of George Washington University, 

 chairman; Mr. L. L. Summers, of the War Industries Board; Lieut.- 

 Col. W. C. Spruance, Jr., of the Ordnance Department of the Army; 

 and Lieut.-Commander T. S. Wilkinson, of the Ordnance Depart- 

 ment of the Navy. 



The experimental ammonia plant and laboratory of the Bureau of 

 Soils at Arlington, Virginia, has been transferred to the Nitrate Divi- 

 sion of the Ordnance Department of the Army. The work is in charge 

 of Dr. R. 0. E. Davis and Mr. L. H. Greathouse. 



All of the "gas warfare" work of the Army has been consolidated 

 under a new division of the War Department, the "Chemical Warfare 

 Service," under Major General William L. Sibert. The experimental 

 work heretofore carried on b}^ the Surgeon General's Office and the 

 Ordnance Department are included, as well as the American University 

 Experiment Station of the Bureau of Mines, which, with its entire per- 

 sonnel, civilian and military, is transferred to the control of the War 

 Department for operation under the director of gas service, by executive 

 order of the President dated June 25, 1918. The Chemical Warfare 

 Service also has the responsibility of providing chemists for all branches 

 of the government and of assisting in the procurement of chemists for 

 essential industries. General Pershing has been directed to conform 

 his organization in France to that adopted here. 



The former "chemicals and explosives section" of the War Industries 

 Board has been reorganized into two divisions: a "chemicals division" 

 in charge of Mr. Charles N. MacDowell, and an " explosives divi- 

 sion," in charge of Mr. M. F. Chase. The chemicals division is sub- 

 divided into the following sections: acids and heavy chemicals, arti- 

 ficial and vegetable dyes, alkali and chlorine, chemical glass and stone- 

 ware, coal gas products (benzol, toluol, etc.), rare gases, creosote, 

 electrodes and abrasives, ethyl alcohol, ferroalloys (chromium, manga- 

 nese, tungsten), fine chemicals, nitrates, paints and pigments, plati- 



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