July 14, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



37 



vantages of vitamine preparations, it is par- 

 ticularly important that investigators in nutri- 

 tion exert great care in the wording of state- 

 ments as to the practical significance of vita- 

 mines in every day life. Otherwise they may 

 become unwilling accomplices in the perpetra- 

 tion of a gigantic fraud upon the American 

 public. 



H. H. Mitchell 



College op Agkiculttjee, 

 Univeesitt op Illinois 



ANSEL AUGUSTUS TYLER 



The sudden death of Professor Tyler of 

 Millikin University (Decatur) on March 31 

 from pneumonia has taken from the institution 

 and the college circle of the state a quiet and 

 faithful worker whose place will be hard to fill. 



Ansel Augustus Tyler was born at East 

 Bridgewater, Pa., on March 7, 1869. He re- 

 ceived his A.B. at Lafayette College in 1892, 

 and won the Ph.D. at Columbia University in 

 1897. Thereafter he taught botany or biology 

 for a year each at Union College, SjTaeuse and 

 Arizona, with such success that in 1900 he was 

 called to take charge of this work at Bellevue 

 College in Omaha. At that date the prospects 

 before Bellevue were alluring and he threw 

 himself wholeheartedly into the work of build- 

 ing up not only his own department but also 

 the college itself. The high appreciation in 

 which his efforts were held was manifested by 

 his election as dean of the college in 1911, a 

 position which he held as long as he remained 

 there. But the fortunes of Bellevue suffered 

 serious reverses and, although Tyler devoted 

 himself unsparingly to its service, he found 

 the institution steadily losing ground through 

 influences which he could not control or mod- 

 ify. So in 1916 he accepted a call to take 

 charge of the department of biology at Millikin 

 University. Here again he was formed to carry 

 a heavy load of teaching during a transition 

 period, but a year ago was granted some much 

 needed aid in his department and had just 

 started to realize his cherished ambition of de- 

 veloping that work when his career was so 

 prematurely terminated. 



Tyler's ability as a college student won him 

 the Latin salutation on graduation and also 



election to Phi Beta Kappa. His later work 

 brought him in 1898 membership in Sigma Xi. 

 He was a fellow of the American Association 

 and a working member of the State Academies 

 in Nebraska and Illinois. In 1908 he was hon- 

 ored by election as president of the Nebraska 

 Academy. Although quiet and retiring in per- 

 sonality, he was always ready to carry his part 

 in enterprises of public merit. Thus in 1910 

 there was organized a movement to secure and 

 preserve for Omaha a splendid and unique 

 tract of wild forest near that city. Tyler 

 served as secretary of this organization, the 

 Pontanelle Forest Association, until he left 

 Bellevue, and did much to develop public senti- 

 ment in favor of the project, which has re- 

 cently realized much of its hopes through a 

 generous gift from a public spirited citizen of 

 Omaha. 



But Dr. Tyler's greatest work was after all 

 in his department. He inspired many college 

 generations with his own high ideals of service 

 and love of the truth. From his class room 

 went out a steady stream of students filled with 

 love of science and steadied by his calm and 

 thoughtful leadership to test the offerings of 

 life, to reject the hollow and false, and to 

 cherish the true. Such service to the college 

 and the state can not be measured in formal 

 terms but will always be held in grateful re- 

 membrance by his students and his colleagues, 

 as well as by the many other friends to whom 

 he devoted himself equally unselfishly. 



Henry B. Waed 

 University op Illinois 



SCIENTIFIC EVENTS 

 RESEARCH WORK IN COAL MINING 



Through the efforts of the coal operators of 

 western Pennsylvania, another year of exten- 

 sive research work in coal mining will be con- 

 ducted by the cooperative department of mining 

 engineering of Carnegie Institute of Technology 

 and the Pittsburgh Experimental Station of the 

 United States Bureau of Mines. The research 

 will be carried on through teaching and research 

 fellowships appointed by the Carnegie Institute 

 of Technology and supervised by senior inves- 

 tigators in the Experimental Station. 



