^136 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 770 



The committee is now engaged in the col- 

 lection of information as to the practise in 

 use by the chemists connected with the fat 

 and oil industry of this country by means of 

 letters sent to as large a number of chemists 

 who woidd be interested in this work as pos- 

 sible. As soon as this information is collected 

 it will be considered and if necessary coopera- 

 tive work undertaken to decide on the most 

 satisfactory method or mode of expression, and 

 finally when this is done the committee will be 

 in a position to make its recommendation. In 

 order to prevent needless duplication of work 

 in the various societies in this country, the 

 committee is collecting data as to all the work 

 being undertaken along this line and will try 

 to assist in whatever way it can this work of 

 bringing some order out of the present condi- 

 tions in the analysis of fats and oils which are 

 exceedingly unsatisfactory. 



The committee expects, from time to time, 

 to publish the results of its investigations and 

 if thought advisable make recommendations. 

 Any person desiring information regarding 

 the work or information along these lines 

 should address the secretary of the committee, 

 C. N. Forrest, Maurer, N. J. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 

 At the close of the second week of the cele- 

 bration of the twentieth anniversary of Clark 

 University, further honorary degrees were 

 conferred as follows: doctorate of laws on 

 Marston T. Bogert, professor of organic chem- 

 istry in Columbia University ; Arthur Michael, 

 the first professor of chemistry in Clark Uni- 

 versity, professor of chemistry in Tufts Col- 

 lege; A. A. Noyes, professor of chemistry in 

 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; 

 W. A. Noyes, professor of chemistry in the 

 University of Illinois; the degree of doctor of 

 chemistry on Theodore W. Eiehards, pro- 

 fessor of chemistry in Harvard University; of 

 doctor of science on Andre Debierne, of the 

 University of Paris, and Julius Stieglitz, pro- 

 fessor of chemistry in the University of Chi- 

 cago. 



The medical department of Stanford Uni- 

 versity, formed by amalgamation with Cooper 



Medical College, was formally opened on Sep- 

 tember 8. Dr. H. A. Christian, dean of the 

 Harvard Medical School, made the principal 

 address, the subject of which was " The Career 

 in Medicine and Present-day Preparation for 

 it." This address wiU. be published in Science. 



Professor J. Arthur Thompson, of the 

 University of Aberdeen, is giving in South 

 Africa under the auspices of the South Afri- 

 can Association for the Advancement of Sci- 

 ence a series of lectures in celebration of the 

 Darwin centenary. 



Mr. O. H. Tittman, chief of the U. S. Coast 

 and Geodetic Survey, is the member for the 

 United States of the permanent commission 

 of the International Geodetic Association, the 

 meeting of which was held in London begin- 

 ning on September 21. 



At the recent meeting of the International 

 Otologieal Congress at Budapest, Professor 

 Clarence John Blake, of Harvard University, 

 was elected president of the next congress, to 

 be held in 1912, in Boston. 



An Illuminating Engineering Society has 

 been founded in London, with Professor Syl- 

 vanus P. Thompson as the first president. 



Professor Ealph S. Tarr, Cornell Univer- 

 sity, will spend the current year in Europe on 

 sabbatical leave. 



Professor H. F. Cleland, of Williams Col- 

 lege, spent July and August in studying cer- 

 tain geological features of Wolff County, Ky., 

 and of the Forest Reserve south of Flagstaff, 

 Arizona. He also visited the Grand Canyon of 

 Arizona, the Yosemite and Canadian Rockies. 



Secretary Charles D. Walcott, of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, has returned to 

 Washington after a seven-weeks' trip in the 

 higher Canadian Rockies to the north and 

 south of the main line of the Canadian Pacific 

 Railroad. In continuation there of his geo- 

 logical work in the main range of the Rocky 

 Mountains Mr. Walcott found the base of the 

 great Cambrian System in a fossil sea-beach 

 that now forms a bed of white quartz pebble 

 conglomerate some 300 feet in thickness. Be- 

 low this, 4,000 feet of limestone of an older 

 period were measured, and above it over 12,000 



