SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



The "United States Fixed-Nitrogen Administration" has been or- 

 ganized under the joint control of the Secretaries of War, Navy, In- 

 terior, and Agriculture. It will be a civilian organization, and is de- 

 signed to take over and operate all the federal government plants de- 

 signed for the fixation of nitrogen and the manufacture of ammonia 

 and nitric acid. 



William Bowie;, Major of Engineers, U. S. Army, was honorably 

 discharged on February 28, 1919, and has resumed his duties as Chief 

 of the Division of Geodesy, U. S. Coast and Geodetic vSurvev. 



Lieut. Paul C. Bowers, formerly with the Chemical Warfare Service 

 in Washington, is now at the laboratories of E. I. du Pont de Nemours 

 and Company, at Wilmington, Delaware. 



Dr. Keivin Burns, of the Bureau of Standards, has returned after 

 two months spent in visiting laboratories in Europe. 



Mr. F. C. Clark, of the paper and textile laboratories of the Bureau 

 of Standards, left the Bureau in March and is now with the American 

 Writing Paper Company, at Holyoke, Massachusetts. 



ISIessrs. Arthur L. Davis and H. H. Hield have been transferred 

 from the Sheffield, Alabama, plant of the Nitrate Division, Army 

 Ordnance, to the Arlington research laboratories of the Division. 



Mr. L. A. Fischer has returned to the Bureau of Standards to re- 

 sume his duties as Chief of the Division of Weights and Measures. 

 During the war he was commissioned Major in the Ordnance Depart- 

 ment and was engaged in supervising the construction and use of muni- 

 tions gages. 



Mr. E. W. Guernsey, formerly with the Chemical Warfare Service, 

 is now at the research laboratories of the Brown Company, at Berlin, 

 New Hampshire. 



Dr. John Johnston resigned as Executive vSecretary of the National 

 Research Council in March, in order to accept an appointment as 

 Professor of Chemistry in Yale University, at New Haven, Connecticut. 



Mr. J. O. Lewis, superintendent of the petroleum experiment station 

 at Bartlesville, Oklahoma, has been appointed chief petroleum technolo- 

 gist of the Bureau of Mines, to succeed Mr. Chester NaramorE, 

 who has resigned from the Bureau to join the Union Petroleum Company, 

 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 



Lieut. Gerald H. Mains has returned from active service in France 

 to resume work at the Bureau of Chemistry. 



Dr. C. Hart Merriam has been elected chairman of the U. S. Geo- 

 graphic Board, as successor to the late Andrew Braid. 



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