300 SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



Rear x\dmiral John E. Pillsbury, U. S. N., Retired, was elected 

 President of the National Geographic Society on April 17, as successor 

 to Mr. Otto H. Tittmann, who retired from the office on account of 

 ill health. Rear Admiral Robert E. Peary, U. S. N., Retired, was 

 elected a member of the Board of Managers to fill the vacancy caused 

 by the death of the late Brig. Gen. John M. Wilson, U. S. A. 



Dr. C. G. Abbot, of the Astrophysical Observatory, Smithsonian 

 Institution, sailed for South America on May i to inspect the Smith- 

 sonian solar constant observing station at Calama, Chile, and to ob- 

 serve the total solar eclipse at La Paz, Bolivia. He expects to return 

 to Washington in August. 



Prof. J. M. Aldrich has been appointed Associate Curator of the 

 Division of Insects in the National Museum. Prof. Aldrich was for- 

 merly with the University of Idaho, but more recently has been working 

 with the Bureau of Entomology. He is one of the best-known Dip- 

 terists in North America and is the author of our most recent catalogue 

 of these insects. 



Dr. George Ferdinand Becker, geologist in charge of the division 

 of physics and chemistry, U. S. Geological Survey, and a charter mem- 

 ber of the Academy, died on April 20, 191 9, in his seventy-third year. 

 Dr. Becker was born in New York City on January 5, 1847. He began 

 work as a constructing engineer, with the Joliet Iron and Steel Company, 

 then after a few years became instructor in mining and metallurgy at 

 the University of California. He was appointed geologist in the U. S. 

 Geological Survey in 1879, and was thus associated with the develop- 

 ment of the vSurvey almost from its beginning. He approached geologic 

 problems from the viewpoint of the mathematical physicist and engi- 

 neer, and made many contributions to geophysics, as well as to special 

 fields in both physics and geology. The establishment of the Geophys- 

 ical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution grew out of investigations 

 begun by him under a grant from that Institution. He was a member 

 of the National Academy of Sciences, the Geological »Society of Wash- 

 ington, and other American geological and engineering societies, including 

 the Geological Society of America of which he was president in 1914. 



Dr. F. Russell v. Bichowsky, of the Geophysical Laboratory, has 

 been granted by the National Research Fellowship Board a research 

 fellowship in chemistry at the University of California. 



E. D. Bromley, of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, has been 

 engaged in a triangulation in the northern half of Chesapeake Bay, to 

 determine the geographic positions of certain points used in testing 

 the long-range artillery at Aberdeen, Maryland. 



Dr. Keivin Burns, of the division of optics, Bureau of Standards, 

 resigned from the Bureau on May i. He will spend a year on the 

 Pacific Coast and will devote his attention to the use of dicyanin in 

 astrophysical research. 



]Mr. J. C. Crawford, formerly Associate Curator of the Division of 

 Insects of the National Museum, has resigned and accepted a position 

 in the Bureau of Entomology. 



