646 SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



It is now before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Among 

 the questions to be considered are problems of wireless wave-lengths 

 and of vessel-to-shore communication. 



The Patent Office legislation, before the House Committee on 

 Patents, was divided several weeks ago so that the bills proposing an 

 independent patent and trade-mark department and a court of patent 

 appeals were to be further considered by a subcommittee, while another 

 subcommittee was to consider salaries in the Patent Office. 



Dr. C. ly. Alsberg, chief of the Bureau of Chemistry, appeared 

 in October before the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, 

 to testify concerning the properties and uses of saccharin. The Com- 

 mittee had under consideration S. Res. 209, authorizing an investiga- 

 tion and report on "the present status of saccharin under departmental 

 regulations and the feasibility of its wider use in the United States 

 for the relief of the present sugar shortage." 



Hearings were held on Mr. Myers' anti-vivisection bilP (S. 1258) 

 on November 1-4, before a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on 

 the Judiciary. Representatives of various anti-vivisection organiza- 

 tions spoke in favor of the bill. The bill was opposed by Drs. W. H. 

 Welch, Simon Feexner, C. W. Stiles, W. B. Cannon, Reid Hunt, 

 J. B. Nichols, and many others, representing the medical profession 

 of the District of Columbia and the country at large, as well as the 

 Army and Navy and the Federal bureaus. "A pubhc meeting to 

 arouse feeling favorable to the bill" was held at the Public Library 

 on October 31. 



The need of research on methods for the fixation of atmospheric 

 nitrogen is recognized in H. R. 10329 (Mr. ICahn, November i): "A 

 bill to provide further for the national defense; to establish a self- 

 sustaining Federal agency for the manufacture, production, and de- 

 velopment of the products of atmospheric nitrogen for miUtary, experi- 

 mental, and other purposes; to provide research laboratories and 

 experimental plants for the development of fixed-nitrogen production; 

 and for other purposes." 



The bill provides for the organization of the "United States Fixed 

 Nitrogen Corporation," with a preferred capital stock of $12,500,000, 

 to be subscribed by the United States. Control is placed in a board 

 of directors appointed by the Secretary of War. The Corporation is 

 given power to acquire and operate U. S. Nitrate Plants Nos. i and 2 

 (at Sheffield and Muscle Shoals, Alabama) together with accessory 

 plants, including the fixed nitrogen research laboratory now located 

 at the American University in Washington; and to act as agent of the 

 President in completing and operating the hydroelectric power plant 

 at Muscle Shoals, as specified in the National Defense Act of June 3, 

 191 6, but free from the limitations and restrictions imposed by that 

 act. The bill was referred to the Committee on Mihtary Affairs. 



3 This Journal 9: 422. 1919- 



