SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



Dr. C. Wythe Cooke has returned to the Geological Survey from 

 private work in Colombia. 



Mr. a. E. Fath, geologist in the oil and gas section of the U. S. Geo- 

 logical Survey, has taken furlough for three months to engage in private 

 work in foreign lands. 



Mr. Charles S. Howard, formerly instructor in electrical engineering 

 and physics at the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, has been ap- 

 pointed junior chemist in the quality -of-water division, of the Water 

 Resources Branch, U. S. Geological Surv^ey. 



Dr. Joseph Paxson Iddings, formerly professor of petrology at the 

 University of Cliicago, and until recent years geologist with the U. S. 

 Geological Survey, died at his home at Brinklow, Maryland, on Sep- 

 tember 8, 1920, in his sixty-fourth year. Professor Iddings was born 

 at Baltimore, Maryland, January 21, 1857. He entered the Geological 

 Survey as assistant geologist in 1880, shortly after its foundation, and 

 retained his connection therewith while professor at Chicago in the 

 years 1892 to 1908. Since 1908 he had devoted his attention entirely 

 to independent petrologic and geologic work. He was the author of 

 two text-books and many papers on the mineralogy and petrology of 

 the igneous rocks. He was a member of the Academy and of the 

 Geological Society of Washington. 



Mr. Paul Moore, Director of the Information Bureau of the War 

 Trade Board, has been appointed Secretary of the Division of Research 

 Extension of the National Research Council. 



Dr. F. Hastings Smyth, formerly captain in the Chemical Warfare 

 Service, joined the staff of the Geophysical Laboratory^ Carnegie 

 Institution of Washington, in September. 



Dr. Samuel Mills Tr.\cy, agronomist with the U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture, died on vSeptember 5, 1920, in his seventy-fourth year. 

 Dr. Tracy was born at Hartford, Vermont, April 30, 1847. He was 

 professor of botany and agriculture at the University of Missouri from 

 1877 to 1887, director of the Mississippi Agricultural Experimental Sta- 

 tion from 1887 to 1897, and was appointed special agent in forage crop 

 investigations with the U. S. Department of Agriculture in 1897. His 

 research work was specially directed to the botany of the Southern States. 



A new "division of non-ferrous metallurgy" has been created in the 

 Bureau of Mines. Mr. A. E. Wells, of the Bureau's staff, has been 

 placed in charge. The headquarters of the division will be at Salt 

 Lake City, Utah. 



Mr. R. M. WiLHELM, chief of the thermometer laboratory of the 

 Bureau of Standards, resigned in September to accept a position with 

 the C. J. Tagliabue Manufacturing Company, of Brooklyn, New York, 

 manufacturers of thermometric apparatus. 



Mr. W. p. Woodring and a party from the U. S. Geological Survey 

 have left for Haiti to conduct a reconnaissance geologic examination of 

 the Republic of Haiti at the request of that government. 



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