SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



The Pick and Hammer Club met at the Conference Room of the Geological 

 Survey on December 18, 1920, at 8 p.m. The following papers were pre- 

 sented: A. H. Brooks: The Society of Economic Geologists; its origin and 

 its proposed scope of work. David White: Recent meetings and scope of 

 some kindred societies. W. C. Mendenhall : Land classification work under 

 the recent leasing hill. 



The Washington Branch of the Society of American Bacteriologists met 

 on December 20 at the District Building. Papers were presented by Chari^es 

 Thom, Ruth B. Edmondson, C. L. McArthur, W. D. Bigei^ow, and P. H. 

 Cathcart. 



The Agricultural History Society met on December 16 at the Public 

 Library. G. K. Holmes spoke on The history of tobacco and O. C. Stine on 

 Agriculture of the Plymouth Colony. 



Engineering Council held its last meeting in Washington on December 

 16, having recommended to its parent body, the United Engineering Society, 

 that it be discharged from service and that its current and unfinished busi- 

 ness be referred to the new American Engineering Council, the governing 

 body of the recently organized Federated American Engineering Societies. 



Dr. W. W. CoBLENTz of the Bureau of Standards has been awarded the 

 Janssen medal of the Academic des Sciences, Institute de France, for his 

 work on the infra-red radiation from terrestrial sources and from stars. 



Mr. Alfred N. Finn, who resigned from the Bureau of Standards in 1919, 

 was reappointed to the chemical staff of the Bureau in October. 



Mr. F. F. Fitzgerald resigned from the staff of the National Canners 

 Association Laboratory in November to accept a position with the American 

 Can Company at 120 Broadway, New York City. 



Mr. M. G. GuLLEY has been appointed assistant geologist in the U. S. 

 Geological Survey, and has been temporarily assigned to assist Mr. F. L. 

 Ransome in field work in the Oatman District, Arizona. 



Mr. Walter A. Hull, formerly in charge of the work on fire-resistive 

 properties of materials at the Bureau of Standards, has been placed in charge 

 of the work on optical glass in the Division of Ceramics of the Bureau. 



Mr. W. E. MvER of Nashville, Tennessee, was in Washington in Decem- 

 ber preparing a report for the Bureau of American Ethnology on his archeo- 

 logical field work of last summer in the Cumberland Valley. 



