428 JOURNAL OF THE WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES VOL. 11, NO. 17 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



The following educational courses are being offered at the Bureau of Stand- 

 ards this winter: C. A. Skinner, Advanced optics; L. H. Adams (Geophys- 

 ical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington), Chemical thermo- 

 dynamics; Chester Snow, Interpretation of data, including the theory of 

 errors and methods for numerical, graphical, and mechanical computation; 

 L. B. Tuckerman, Differential equations. The committee in charge consists 

 of L. B. Tuckerman, Chairman; F. B. Silsbee, Secretary; Miss A. K. 

 Benson, L. J. Briggs, L. V. Judson, and C. E. Waters. 



Prof. Ernst Cohen, of the University of Utrecht, Holland, and Prof. 

 J. W. McBain, of the University of Bristol, England, visited the scientific 

 institutions of Washington in September. 



Mr. William H. Gamble, topographer and map engraver with the U. S. 

 Geological Survey, and the oldest employee in the Federal service at the time 

 of his retirement in August, died on September 16, 1921, at the age of eighty- 

 five. Mr. Gamble was born in Philadelphia November 4, 1835. He was 

 engaged in map publishing in Philadelphia until 1895, when he joined the 

 U. S. Geological Survey in Washington. 



A department of botany has been organized at George Washington Uni- 

 versity, in charge of Prof. R. F. Griggs, formerly of Ohio State University 

 and recently director of the Katmai Expeditions of the National Geographic 

 Society. 



Mr. Ralph C. Holder has resigned as junior chemist in the food research 

 laboratory, Bureau of Chemistry, to take charge of the chemical laboratory 

 of the CoUis Products Company of St. Paul, Minnesota. 



Dr. Walter Proctor Jenney, mining engineer, died at his home at 1417 

 Park Road on September 16, 1921, in his seventy-third year. Dr. Jenney 

 was born at Fairhaven, Massachusetts, January 11, 1849. He was mining 

 engineer for several railroad and mining companies during the period of 

 development of the mineral resources of the West, and was with the U. S. 

 Geological Survey in the years 1889-1892. In 1909 he became interested in 

 the investigation of ship forms for the Navy Department and was in that work 

 through the War period. Since 1919 he had been engaged in research work for 

 the Department of Agriculture. 



Mr. Hugh Miller, recently captain in the U. S. Army and instructor in the 

 engineers' school at Camp Humphreys, and formerly a member of the en- 

 gineering faculties of Clarkson School of Technology at Potsdam, New York, 

 and Rice Institute of Houston, Texas, has been appointed professor of civil 

 engineering at George Washington University. 



Mr. Samuel Stockton VoorheES, engineer and chemist at the Bureau 

 of Standards, died at Portland, Maine, on September 23, 1921, in his fifty- 

 fifth year. Mr. Voorhees was born at Springfield, Ohio, January 15, 1867. 

 During the first fifteen years of his professional work he was chemist or en- 

 gineer of tests for several of the eastern railroad companies. From 1901 to 

 1908 he was with the supervising Architect's Office of the U. S. Treasury, 

 and then went into chemical work at the U. S. Geological Survey. Since 

 1910 he had been in the chemical division of the Bureau of Standards, in charge 

 of the chemical work on structural materials. He was a member of the Acad- 

 emy, a past president of the Chemical Society, and a member of the Bio- 

 logical Society. 



