MUSEUM NOTES 



271 



The Transantarctic expedition headed by 

 Sir Ernest Shackleton, who was a frequent 

 visitor at the Museum during the outfittmg 

 of Mr. Stefansson's Arctic expedition, left 

 London in September. One section under 

 Sir Ernest Shackleton departed for South 

 America and the other half of the expedition 

 left for Ross Sea on the New Zealand side 

 of the Antarctic, by way of Tasmania. The 

 Ross Sea party wiU board the exploration 

 ship "Aurora" at Hobart, Tasmania. Sh 

 Ernest Shackleton will leave Buenos Aires by 

 the ship "Endm-ance." It is expected that 

 the two sections of the expedition will meet 

 by April of next year or faihng that, by 

 March, 1916. 



Mr. H. R. Francis, assistant professor of 

 landscape engineering in the New York 

 State College of Forestry at Syracuse Uni- 

 versity, made a street tree siu"vey of a section 

 of the Borough of Manhattan durmg the 

 summer, with an office in the Museiun as his 

 headquarters. The work was undertaken 

 by the College of Forestry in cooperation 

 with the Tree Planting Association of New 

 York City. During the whiter of 1913-14 

 a general survey was made of all the Borough 

 of Manhattan and a report was issued by 

 Professor Francis to the Tree Planting 

 Association. The work this summer was to 

 ascertain the conditions in detail of a section 

 of Manhattan that would be typical of the 

 Borough. The survey was made in the 

 portion of Manhattan east of Fifth Avenue 

 between 86th Street and 42nd, east of Sixth 

 Avenue between 40th Street and 14T;h Sti-eet 

 and east of Avenue B between 14th Street 

 and Rivington Street. A large amount of 

 valuable data was obtained which will be 

 used as a basis for an additional report to 

 the Tree Planting Association. 



Professor Francis found that there is great 

 need for more intelhgent care in the planting 

 and preservation of trees along the streets 

 of Greater New York City. The Park De- 

 partment under whose supervision the work 

 of this kind has been done since 1902, has 

 never had funds sufficient to care for trees 

 already planted or those planted from time 

 to time by private property owners, nor to 

 plant new trees along streets where trees 

 have died. In the section of the city sur- 

 veyed by Professor Francis it was found that 

 the trees were dying through lack of care, 

 and opportunities for planting trees had been 



neglected for many years. This is particu- 

 larly true of the section east of Third Avenue 

 where thousands of children have no place to 

 play other than on the streets. What New 

 York City really needs is a Bureau of Tree 

 Culture with a city forester for each bor- 

 ough and the proper support from the city 

 to do the work of planting and preservation 

 of shade trees in an effective way. 



Dr. Frederick W. True, assistant director 

 of the Smithsonian Institution and one of 

 the foremost cetologists of the present time, 

 died in Washington on June 25. 



The American Ornithologists' Union has 

 appomted Dr. J. A. AUen and Dr. Frank M. 

 Chapman of the department of mammalogy 

 and ornithology, with ten other scientists as 

 a committee on classification and nomen- 

 clature of North American birds. 



During the summer a visit was paid to the 

 Museum by Dr. Alexander G. Ruthven and 

 Mr. Frederick M. Gaige, of the Museum of 

 Zoology of the University of Michigan, 

 en route to British Guiana, where they will 

 carry on zoological field studies. 



Dr. C.-E. a. Winslow has resigned from 

 the College of the City of New York to be- 

 come director of education in the reorgan- 

 ized State Department of Health. His work 

 at the Museum will continue as heretofore. 



Dr. Herbert J. Spinden of the depart- 

 ment of anthi-opology retm-ned during the 

 summer from a seven months' archaeological 

 expedition to the Maya ruins of Central 

 America. Dr. Spinden was accompanied by 

 Mr. S. G. Morley, at the time a fellow of the 

 Archaeological Institute of America and now 

 connected with the Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington. Together they visited the 

 principal ruins of southern Yucatan including 

 Naranjo, Tikal, Ixkun, Seibal, Yaxchilan 

 and Piedras Negras and obtained valuable 

 information concerning monuments aheady 

 known and found others not previously re- 

 ported. Field work was also carried on 

 among the Carib Indians of British Hon- 

 duras. A reconnaissance of the interesting 

 archaeology of Salvador was also accomphshed. 

 A number of collections were secured m 

 different locahties, the largest and most 

 important being from Salvador. 



