1904] NEWS 499 
the south. The economic saving of this new method is enormous, Not only 
is there a great increase-in the amount of turpentine produced, but it is an 
important factor in saving the pine forests of the south. Trees from which 
turpentine has been extracted by the old method soon die from the wounds 
inflicted on them. The new system, on the other hand, is not fatal to the tree, 
and does very little damage to the timber. 
THE LAST ISSUE of Science for 1903 publishes the list of grants made by 
the Carnegie Institution. Those for botany are as follows: W. A. CANNON, 
New York Botanical Garden, for investigation of plant hybrids, $500.—H. S. 
CONARD, University of Pennsylvania, for study of types of water-lilies in 
European herbaria, $300.—DESERT BOTANICAL LABORATORY (F. V. Coville 
and D. T. MacDougal, directors), $8,o00.—E. W. OLIVE, Crawfordsville, 
Ind., researches on the cytological relations of the Amoebae, Acrasieae, and 
Myxomycetes, $1,000, — JANET PERKINS, working at the Royal Botanical 
Gardens, Berlin, for preliminary studies on the Philippine flora, $1900.—G. R. 
WIELAND, Yale University, for continuation of his researches on living and 
fossil cycads, $1,500. 
Tests to determine the strength of the principal American timbers used 
for construction purposes are now in progress at Washington, at Yale Univer- 
sity, at Purdue University, and at the University of California. The Bureau 
of Forestry, under whose direction these tests are made, plans to make tables 
of the strength of different American woods in cross bending and breaking, 
compression with and against the grain, and shearing. No complete and 
satisfactory series of tests on large sticks of timber has ever been made in 
this country. Lumber manufacturers in the south and the Pacific coast states 
are especially interested in this work, and have contributed gratis much of 
the material. The chief timbers now being tested are the southern pines and 
the red fir of the Pacific coast. In the laboratories at Washington tests are 
IN THE early morning of December II, Marsh Hall, occupied by the Yale 
Forest School, was seriously damaged by fire, which started in the basement 
and involved the entire four stories of the building. The damage was chiefly 
to the furnishings and the interior finishing of the building, though the various 
collections and the laboratory equipment of the Forest Schoo! also suffered. 
Fortunately the library, the equipment of the botanical laboratory, and the 
herbarium were but slightly damaged. A large collection of South American 
woods and a collection of west American conifers, all of which were in large 
