246 SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



Captain W. R. Birks, of Chatswood, New South Wales, Australia, 

 visited the Department of Agriculture in February. Captain Birks 

 has been absent from Australia for nearly five years, being connected 

 with the British Army on the western front in France during most of 

 this time. Since the signing of the Armistice he has been studying 

 agricultural conditions in Europe. 



Dr. Rupert Blue, of the U. S. Public Health Service, went to Eng- 

 land in March to represent the United States at the international con- 

 ference of physicians, surgeons and hygienists, which convened at Lon- 

 don on April 12. 



Mr. S. R. Capps, geologist in the Alaskan division of the U. S. Geo- 

 logical Survey, has applied for furlough and will spend several months 

 in European Turkey studying oil possibilities for the Standard Oil 

 Company. He will be accompanied by Mr. T. P. Pendleton, topog- 

 rapher in the Alaskan division. 



Mr. W. E. Chambers, microscopist and illustrator in the Bureau of 

 Plant Industry, U. S. Department of Agriculture, died on March 5, 

 1920, in his fifty -fifth year. Mr. Chambers was born at Birmingham, 

 England, in 1866. He had been with the Bureau since August i, 1908. 



Mr. Theodore Chapin, geologist of the U. S. Geological Survey 

 stationed at Anchorage, Alaska, has taken a furlough for four months 

 and will go to the Tampico oil fields, Mexico, for the Standard Oil 

 Company. 



Mr. N. H. Darton, geologist, is on furlough from the U. S. Geo- 

 logical Survey, and will conduct reconnaissance geological surveys for 

 an oil company in northern Mexico. 



Prof. Henry S. Graves, for the past ten years Chief Forester of the 

 Forest Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture, resigned from the 

 Service in March, giving as his reason for retirement his belief that 

 "the pecuniary returns afforded professional and scientific men in the 

 Government service inadequately provide against the exhaustion of 

 the working powers which must inevitably take place in time, and 

 entail sacrifices from which employment elsewhere is free." 



Mr. Paul Greeley has been appointed an assistant at the Calama, 

 Chile, station of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. He ex- 

 pected to sail from New York about March 20. 



Mr. W. B. Greeley, Assistant Forester, and recently lieutenant 

 colonel in charge of the forestry service of the American Expeditionary 

 Forces in France, has been appointed Chief Forester of the Service, to 

 succeed Prof. H. S. Graves on his retirement on May i. 



Dr. Ralph E. Hall, physical chemist at the Geophysical Laboratory, 

 Carnegie Institution of Washington, resigned in March to take charge 

 of physical researches for the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company at 

 Akron, Ohio. 



