Septembek 1, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



243 



Announcement was made of the election of 

 Dr. E. C. Franklin, professor of chemistry, 

 Stanford University, as president of the Pacific 

 Divisioa for the ensuing year. 



A resolution was unanimously adopted es- 

 pressing appreciation and gratitude to the 

 University of Utah, the Brigham Young Uni- 

 versity, the Utah Academy of Sciences and the 

 Utah Agricultural College, who acted as hosts 

 to the convention. The great success of the 

 meeting was largely due to their very efficient 

 handling of the arrangements. 



Dr. Robert G. Aitken, astronomer of Lick 

 Observatory, was elected a member of the 

 Executive Committee in place of Dr. W. W. 

 Campbell, whose term expired. 



The thoughtful hospitality which marked the 

 reception and entertainment of visiting mem- 

 bers reached its climax on the last day of the 

 convention, when automobiles and lunches were 

 provided and the visitors who had previously 

 designated their choice of several all-day ex- 

 cursions were conveyed under the guidance of 

 scientific experts to points of interest in this 

 famous region of geological records and scenic 

 wonders. 



An organ recital in the Mormon Tabernacle 

 and a dip in Great Salt Lake in the cool of the 

 evening brought the final day of the conven- 

 tion to a close. 



There was a total regis'tration of about 400, 

 of which 110 were members of the association. 



The' publicity afforded through the' local 

 press of Salt Lake City was very gratifying. 

 Each year there is apparent a wider general 

 interest in the proceedings of 'the annual meet- 

 ing which promises well for its future useful- 

 ness. 



W. W. Sargeant 



SCIENTIFIC EVENTS 

 THE INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 

 In an article in Nature it is stated that a 

 meeting of the International Research Council 

 was held at Brussels on July 25 and the four 

 succeeding days, under the presidency of M. 

 E. Picard, secretary of the Academic des 

 Sciences, Paris. Twenty countries have now 

 joined the International Research Council, the 



following seventeen being represented at the 

 meeting: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Trance, 

 Great Britain, Greece, Holland, Italy, Japan, 

 Noi-way, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, 

 Switzerland, United States of America, and 

 Czecho-Slovakia. 



The greater part of the business of the meet- 

 ing was concerned with the organization of 

 international scientific unions additional to the 

 five for Astronomy, Geodesy and Geophysics, 

 Chemistry, Mathematics, and Scientific Radio- 

 Telegraphy, which are already in activity. As 

 a result of the meeting the formation of unions 

 for Pure and Applied Phj'sics and for Geog- 

 raphy is said to be assured. The proposed 

 union in Geology awaits the consideration of 

 the Geological Congress, and some advance has 

 been made in connection with the biological 

 sciences. 



At a previous meeting of the International 

 Research Council it had been provisionally 

 agreed to unite medical and biological sciences; 

 this decision did not find favor, and the inten- 

 tion now is to separate medicine from physi- 

 ology, zoology and botany. Proposals will be 

 submitted to the countries belonging to the 

 Research Council, and the ultimate formation 

 of this union will depend on the number of 

 countries willing to join. 



Among other matters dealt with, a proposal 

 submitted by the National Research Council of 

 the United States and accepted by the meeting 

 may prove to be an important addition to the 

 responsibilities of the Research Council, which 

 hitherto contented itself with the formation of 

 unions which became practically autonomous 

 as soon as their statutes were approved. As 

 problems in which several unions were con- 

 cerned ran a -danger of being neglected, the 

 proposal was now made by the United States 

 that the Research Council itself should take 

 such problems under its own special protection. 

 Three inquiries were mentioned as likely to 

 fall within this category. One of them had 

 already been considered by the International 

 Astronomical Union, which requested the Re- 

 search Council to make arrangements for a col- 

 laboration of several of the unions in the study 

 of the correlations between solar and terres- 

 trial phenomena. The second referred to the 



