SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



The Katmai National Monument has been estabhshed in Alaska by 

 executive order of President Wilson, dated September 24, 1918. It 

 consists of the volcano of Katmai and considerable outlying territory, 

 including the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, which has been visited 

 by several National Geographic Society expeditions under the direc- 

 tion of Prof. R. F. Griggs, of Ohio State University. It is expected 

 by those interested in the establishment of the park that its reserva- 

 tion as a national monument will have been the first step toward mak- 

 ing this remarkable region accessible to the public as a national park, 

 similar to the Yellowstone and the Yosemite. 



Dr. Charles W. Richmond, of the Division of Birds, United States 

 National Museum, has been appointed Associate Curator of Birds in 

 that Institution. 



Mr. Bradshaw H. Swales has been appointed Honorary Curator of 

 Birds' Eggs in the United States National Museum. This position 

 has been vacant since the death of Dr. W. L. Ralph in 1907. 



Lieut. Henri Cretien, of the French Ministere d'Ai'mament, has 

 recently come to the Bureau of Standards to carry on research work 

 in various military problems related to optics. He is the designer of 

 the Cretien gun sight now universally used on air planes. 



Prof. John F. Hayford, dean of the College of Engineering of North- 

 western University, is engaged in research at the Wind Tunnel Lab- 

 oratory of the Bureau of Standards. This work is carried on in con- 

 nection with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, of 

 which Prof. Hayford is a member. 



Mr. Douglas C. Mabbott, biologist of the Biological Survey, U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture, was reported in an October casualty list 

 to have been killed in action in France. He was in the seventy-ninth 

 company of the Sixth Regiment of the Marine Corps, and took part in 

 the fighting near Chateau Thierry in July. Mr. Mabbott was born at 

 Arena, Wisconsin, March 12, 1893, and entered the service of the Bio- 

 logical Survey in December, 1915. He enhsted in February, 1918. He 

 was a member of the Biological Society of Washington, and had con- 

 tributed for publication three papers on American wild ducks and 

 their food habits. 



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