Septembeb 3, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



307 



House of Commons that he would ask the 

 house to vote $100,000 for that purpose. 

 Previously Mr. Shackleton had issued a state- 

 ment in which he said : 



When, after great difficulty, I had secured suffi- 

 cient promises of support to enable me to an- 

 nounce the expedition on February 12, 1907, I 

 proceeded to make my preparations with a view 

 to leaving England in July of that year. My sup- 

 porters were various relatives and friends in this 

 country — not in the United States as has been 

 declared — but, owing to the American financial 

 crisis and the resulting financial stringency in 

 this country, some of the money promised to me 

 did not become available. When I found that the 

 promises of support could not be carried out, I 

 went to several rich men, and they very gener- 

 ously guaranteed me at the bank to the extent of 

 £20,000, on the understanding that the guarantees 

 were to be paid off by me not later than July, 

 1910. The arrangement was that the bank should 

 advance the money on the guarantees and that I 

 should pay interest. I can not thank too warmly 

 those who had faith in me when comparatively 

 unknown. When I arrived in Australia on my 

 way south, I made application to the Common- 

 wealth government for assistance, and I was at 

 once given a sum of £5,000 for the purposes of the 

 expedition. The New Zealand government further 

 gave me £1,000, paid half the cost of towing the 

 Nimrod to the Antarctic, and assisted me in 

 various other directions. This sum of £6,000 

 enabled me to increase my staff and to secure 

 additional stores and scientific equipment. The 

 position now is that the guarantees to the extent 

 of £20,000 have to be released, and this, I hope, 

 will be done by the sale of my book and by my 

 lectures and the money that my wife's relatives 

 and myself and friends have contributed. Apart 

 from this, of course, the cost of the expedition 

 was far in excess of £20,000. I should like it 

 clearly understood that since my return I have 

 not approached his majesty's government in the 

 matter and it can not justly be said, therefore, 

 that they have declined to contribute. 



VNIVER8ITT AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS 



Illinois Wesleyan TJniveesity has received 

 $30,000 from Mr. Andrew Carnegie for a new 

 science building. 



Mr. Neil MacNeil, of Boston, has pre- 

 sented to St. Francis Xavier's College, Nova 



Scotia, for the use of its professors, a seaside 

 resort — a block of land with a completely 

 equipped summer home — at Mahanny's Beach, 

 on the shore of Bay St. George. 



Mrs. Elizabeth Murdock, the widow of a 

 Liverpool shipowner, has bequeathed £2,000 to 

 the University of Liverpool to found engineer- 

 ing scholarships. 



The College of Physicians and Surgeons of 

 Los Angeles has consolidated with the College 

 of Medicine of the University of Southern 

 California. The name of the consolidated 

 school will be College of Physicians and Sur- 

 geons, Medical Department of the University 

 of Southern California. 



The Hong-kong and Shanghai Bank has 

 made a donation of £4,500 for the Hong-kong 

 University. 



The governor of Madras opened on July 14 

 a new agricultural college and research in- 

 stitute at Coimbatore. Rooms are provided 

 for chemistry, physics, botany, entomology 

 and mycology. 



Edinburgh University has decided to send 

 its scholarship men to the Iowa State College 

 to pursue graduate work in animal husbandry. 

 Two of these men are now on their way from 

 Scotland. 



Dr. J. H. Kastle, chief of the division of 

 chemistry of the Hygienic Laboratory of the 

 U. S. Public Health and Marine Hospital 

 Service, will at the opening of the academic 

 year assume the duties of professor of chem- 

 istry at, the University of Virginia. Dr. J. W. 

 MaUet, professor of chemistry since 1885, who 

 will celebrate his seventy-seventh birthday on 

 October 10, has been made professor emeritus 

 under the Carnegie Foundation. 



Mr. Melvin E. Sherwin, instructor in as- 

 tronomy in the University of California, has 

 been appointed assistant professor of astron- 

 omy in the University of Maine. 



Mr. W. H. Hadow, fellow and tutor of 

 Worcester College, Oxford, has been appointed 

 principal of Armstrong College of Durham 

 University at Newcastle-on-Tyne, in succes- 

 sion to Sir Isambard Owen, who has accepted 

 the vice-chanceUorship of Bristol University. 



