SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



A reception was held on January 12, 1921, by the President and officers 

 of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia to the members and 

 friends of the Society, including the members of the Academy and its affiliated 

 societies. The reception was held at the new home of the Medical Society 

 at 1718 M Street, following the dedication of the building. 



The Washington Section of the American Institute of Mining and Metal- 

 lurgical Engineers held a supper and meeting at the Interior Department 

 on Friday, January 14. Dr. H. Foster Bain, the newly appointed director 

 of the Bureau of Mines, lectured on Mines and mining in the Far East. 



The National Museum has received specimens of various deep-water 

 fishes from Hawaii, which had been killed by the recent lava flow from 

 Mauna Loa. Most of the forms have been found by Dr. D. S. Jordan 

 to be new, and a report on them will be published by the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion. 



An exhibit of medicinal substances arranged according to their thera- 

 peutic effects is being prepared for the Division of Medicine of the National 

 Museum. 



Dr. J. M. Aldrich of the National Museum was elected president of the 

 Entomological Society of America at the Chicago Meeting. 



Col. J. M. Birch of the British Army, in charge of the agricultural de- 

 velopment of the Mosul district of Mesopotamia, has sailed from New York 

 after spending several months studying American agriculture. While in 

 Washington he used the facilities of the Bureau of Plant Industry. 



Dr. H. C. Bryant and Dr. L. H. Miller, of the University of California, 

 have been spending some time in Washington, and delivered addresses 

 before the Biological Society on January 22, and the Audubon Society on 

 January 26. Doctors Bryant and Miller were nature guides in the Yosemite 

 National Park during the summer of 1920 and organized field trips for the 

 instruction of visitors. 



Dr. H. L. Shantz has been appointed plant physiologist in charge of 

 Plant Phj^siological and Fermentation Investigations in the Bureau of 

 Plant Industry. Dr. vShantz returned in September from a year's trip 

 through Africa for the Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction, from 

 which office he is now transferring. 



Senator Charles S. Thomas, of Colorado, resigned on January 5 as a 

 Regent of the Smithsonian Institution, and the Vice-President appointed 

 Senator A. O. Stanley, of Kentucky, to succeed him. 



Mr. W. F. Wallis, of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie 

 Institution of Washington, left Washington on January 9 for Huancayo, 

 Peru, where he will succeed Dr. Harry M. W. Edmonds as magnetician- 

 in-charge of the Huancayo Magnetic Observatory upon the conclusion of 

 the latter's two-year assignment. Dr. Edmonds will return about April 

 via San Francisco for duty at Washington. 



