146 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 761 



We learn from Nature that the first Gus- 

 tave Canet lecture was delivered by Lieutenant 

 Trevor Dawson at the twenty-fifth anniversary 

 meeting of the Junior Institution of Engi- 

 neers on June 30. The lecturer is the re- 

 cipient of the first gold medal, which is to be 

 awarded every fourth year by Madame Canet 

 in memory of her husband, the award being 

 made through the council of the institution. 



Mr. a. R. Brown, M.A., fellow of Trinity 

 College, Cambridge, has been appointed Mar- 

 tin White lecturer in ethnology in the Univer- 

 sity of London for the session of 1909-10. 



A BRONZE memorial tablet in honor of the 

 late Dr. George W. Hough has been unveiled 

 with appropriate exercises in Dearborn Ob- 

 servatory of Northwestern University. 



We learn from the British Medical Journal 

 that Sir Hector Cameron, on behalf of the 

 committee of subscribers to the fund in mem- 

 ory of the late Dr. James Finlayson, of Glas- 

 grow, has presented a deed of gift to the 

 council of the faculty of Physicians and Sur- 

 geons, Glasgow, conveying to the council the 

 future management of the fund. The income 

 from the fund is to be held and applied as 

 the endowment of a lectureship to be called 

 the " Finlayson Memorial Lectureship." The 

 lectures are to deal with pathology, or the 

 practise or history of medicine. 



Dr. T. H. Lorenz, docent for mineralogy at 

 Marburg, has died at the age of thirty-four 

 years. 



The international committee formed to cele- 

 brate the centenary of the publication of 

 Avogadro's memoir on the molecular consti- 

 tution of gases consists of eminent chemists 

 and physicists throughout the world. The 

 numbers from the different countries having 

 more than one representative, and not inclu- 

 ding Italy, are: Germany, 23; France, 19; 

 Great Britain, 17; United States, 10; Austria, 

 8; Holland, 8; Eussia, 7; Switzerland, 6; 

 Sweden, 4; Belgium, 3; Demnark, 2, and 

 Norway, 2. 



A meteorological and astronomical obser- 

 vation station at an altitude of about 14,000 

 feet is to be erected on Mount Whitney, Cali- 

 fornia, by the Smithsonian Institution. The 



work of preparing the trail up the mountain 

 over which the material will be transported by 

 pack mules is already under way. It is ex- 

 pected that the station, which will be tem- 

 porary, will be completed by the first of Sep- 

 tember. 



The next international congress of mining 

 and metallurgy is to be held in June, 1910, at 

 Dusseldorf. The last congress was at Liege 

 in 1905. 



The south, with twenty-seven per cent, of 

 the total area of the United States, contains 

 about forty-two per cent, of the total forest 

 area of the country. The forest area by states 

 is as follows: Alabama, 20,000,000 acres 

 Arkansas, 24,200,000; Florida, 20,000,000 

 Georgia, 22,300,000; Kentucky, 10,000,000 

 Louisiana, 16,500,000; Maryland, 2,200,000 

 Mississippi, 17,500,000; North Carolina, 19,- 

 600,000; South Carolina, 12,000,000; Tennes- 

 see, 15,000,000; Texas, 30,000,000; Virginia, 

 14,000,000 and West Virginia, 9,100,000. The 

 south, it will be seen, has still much of the 

 virgin forest of the country. This forest 

 must be used, of course, in order to meet the 

 steadily expanding wants of this section. It 

 must be used in such a manner, however, that 

 the very most may be made from its annual 

 cut, while at the same time this cut is being 

 replaced by new growth. In this way its tim- 

 ber will remain a source of perpetual wealth. 

 The importance of forest conservation to 

 southern interests is clearly understood by the 

 people of the south. The future of the south 

 is more nearly bound up in the plan of forest 

 preservation, with its accompanying protec- 

 tion to watersheds, power-streams and wood- 

 working industries, than is anything now be- 

 fore the people of this part of the country. 

 Not only is the protection of the watersheds, 

 which will some day furnish the power to run 

 all manufacturing establishments in the entire 

 south, an important matter to the south, but 

 the industries depending upon the forest prod- 

 ucts will also be benefited by the protection 

 thrown about the remaining timbered area. 



The Glohe and Commercial Advertiser, New 

 York City, contained recently a truly remark- 

 able article by Mr. E. F. Naulty, the character 



