544 SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



Capt. John Duer Irving, professor of economic geology at the 

 Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, died of pneumonia in 

 France in the early part of August, 1918. He was at one time a mem- 

 ber of the U. S. Geological Survey, and was actively associated with 

 the work of the Academy and the Geological Society of Washington at 

 that period. He had been at Yale since 1907. A memorial service 

 for Captain Irving was held on Sunday, August 4, by local members 

 of the geological and mining engineering organizations of which he 

 was a member. 



Prof. Arthur B. Lamb, of the chemical department of Harvard 

 College, and lately on the staff of the Bureau of Mines at the Ameri- 

 can University Experiment Station, has been commissioned a Lieuten- 

 ant-Colonel in the Chemical Warfare Service. 



Mr. Robert Christian McKinney, for many years a member of 

 the topographic branch of the U. S. Geological Survey, died on July 

 27, 1918, at the age of sixty-two. 



Dr. Albert Mann, of the Bureau of Plant Industry, has been de- 

 tailed by the Secretary of Agriculture, at the request of the Secretary 

 of Commerce, for special work on the diatom flora of the W^oods Hole 

 region, at the Bureau of Fisheries laboratory at Woods Hole, Massa- 

 chusetts. 



Dr. Alfred R. Schultz has presented his resignation from the 

 U. S. Geological Survey, effective October 1, 1918, and has gone to 

 Hudson, Wisconsin, as manager of a hydro-electric power and milling 

 company . 



Prof. Aaron Nichols Skinner, formerly professor of mathematics 

 at the U. S. Naval Academy and assistant astronomer of the Naval 

 Observatory, died on August 14, 1918, in his seventy-fourth year. He 

 had been with the Naval Observatory since 1870, devoting his atten- 

 tion principally to meridian-circle observations. He became pro- 

 fessor of mathematics at the Naval Academy in 1898, and retired in 

 1907. He was the last of the corps who were contemporaries at the 

 Observatory with Newcomb, Hall, Eastman, and Harkness. 



Prof. R. C. ToLMAN, formerly of the University of Illinois, who has 

 been on leave of absence for work at the Amei'ican University Experi- 

 ment Station, has been commissioned a major in the Chemical War- 

 fare Service. 



Dr. H. S. Washington, of the Geophysical Laboratory, has been 

 appointed chemical associate to the scientific attaches at the American 

 embassies in Paris and Rome. 



