308 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LVI, No. 1446 



Bertuch, $750,000 to public purposes. Among 

 these bequests are $100,000 to Columbia Uni- 

 versity for poor students and $50,000 to 

 Cooper Union. 



The Journal of .the American Medical Asso- 

 ciation reports that the Medical School of the 

 University of Rochester is making progress. 

 A research laboratory will be completed in 

 about three months. An affiliation is being 

 brought about between the city authorities and 

 the university for the building of a municipal 

 hospital on or near the university campus, and, 

 in accordance with the arrangements, the uni- 

 versity medical school will furnish the profes- 

 sional training and nursing staffs, and the 

 medical teaching will be carried on in the hos- 

 pital. Walter R. Bloor, Ph.D., of the Univer- 

 sity of California Medical School, has accepted 

 the chair of biochemistry, and will begin his 

 work this fall. Dr. George W. Corner, now at 

 Johns Hopkins University, is to be .the pro- 

 fessor of anatomy. He will assume his duties 

 at Rochester early in 1924. Dr. Nathaniel W. 

 Faxon, now of the Massachusetts General Hos- 

 pital, will assume the position of director of 

 the University Hospital on October 15. The 

 school will be ready to receive students in the 

 fall of 1924 or 1925. 



De. Richard M. Smith, instructor in pedia- 

 trics, Medical School of Harvard University, 

 has been appointed assistant professor of child 

 hygiene in the new school of public health. 



Dr. Charles P. Alexander, of the Illinois 

 Natural History Survey, has been elected 

 assistant professor of entomology at the Massa- 

 chusetts Agricultural College, to fill the 

 vacancy caused by the resignation of Dr. W. S. 

 Regan last autumn. 



Dr. Alex. McTaggaet, formerly) agricul- 

 turist of the Department of Agriculture Mu- 

 seum at Wellington, New Zealand, has been 

 appointed assistant professor of agronomy at 

 Macdonald College, Canada. He will be in 

 charge of plant breeding work, with special 

 reference to grasses and clovers. 



Dr. J. W. McLeod, lecturer in bacteriology 

 at the University of Leeds, has been appointed 

 the first occupant of the Sir Edward Brother- 

 ton chair of baoteriology in that university. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPOND- 

 ENCE 

 THE ZODIACAL LIGHT 



The most brilliant display of the zodiacal 

 light that I have observed occurred on the 

 night of April 8, 1922. My point of observa- 

 tion was Poulan, Worth County, Georgia (lati- 

 tude 31-30 north; longitude 83-45 west). The 

 light covered more of the heavens than shown 

 as a zone of zodiacal light in any of the sev- 

 eral hundred charts made of it by an observer 

 with Commodore Perry's expedition to Japan 

 in 1853-1856, and printed in a huge tomed 

 report by the United States government as a 

 part of the reports of that historic occurrence. 

 One great volume of the Perry reports is given 

 over entirely to the zodiacal light, forming the 

 most massive single piece of literature upon 

 the subject. I have observed the zodiacal 

 light from the Straits of Magellan to 46 north 

 latitude without having seen such a display as 

 the one here alluded to. It dulled the near full 

 moon. There was not a cloud in the sky. In 

 the brilliant moonlight the zodiacal light made 

 the spots in the heavens unilluminated by it 

 looks like coal sacks, so great was the contrast. 

 I have seen the aurora borealis above the Arctic 

 circle and the aurora australis below the Ant- 

 arctic line, and seldom were these exhibitions 

 more brilliant and effective than the display 

 that was neither on the night of April 8 last. 

 It must be true that observers in southern 

 latitudes are often confused by the zodiacal 

 light and take it for an auroral burst. The 

 zodiacal light is usually most noticeable in 

 the western sky. This one covered more than 

 half the heavens irregularly. It continued 

 from 9 P.M. until 3 A.M. with varying bril- 

 liancy. Judge Roberts P. Hudson, of Sault 

 Ste. Marie, Michigan, was my companion ob- 

 server on the night of April 8. 



Chase S. Osborn 

 Sault Ste. Maeie, Michigan 



THE MEALY-BUG CALLED PSEUDOCOCCUS 

 BROMELI/E, AND OTHER COCCIDS 



In my recent review of Wheeler on Tachi- 

 galia insects, I gave a footnote questioning the 

 validity of the name Psettdococcus bromelue 

 (Bouehe), as applied to the species of mealy- 

 bug found on Tachigalia. This has brought 



