634 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LVI, No. 145 



In justice to the life-long labors of the late 

 Professor W. C. Sabine, now gathered into a 

 volume of Collected Papers on Acoustics (Har- 

 vard University Press), it should be said that 

 die practical ppoblem of predicting ' the acous- 

 tics of an ordinary audiltorium in advance of 

 its construction, or of correcting one ali-eady 

 built, was solved by Piofessor Sabine some 

 twenty years ago. The essential feature to be 

 considered in such a problem is the reverbera- 

 tion and Sabine's papers on this subject are 

 full and complete. Other acoustic ques,tions 

 are, of course, sometimes involved such as the 

 transmission of sound through walls, the effect 

 of resonance, etc. Several of ithese had also 

 been the subject of pirolonged experimental in- 

 vestigation by Professor Sabine at the Jeffer- 

 son Physical Laboratory ait Harvard but some 

 of the results were withheld until the work 

 could be completed. His unltimely death in- 

 tetrrupited this program, and since then the work 

 has been continued here and at tihe Acoustical 

 Ivahoa'atoiies at Riverbank, Illinois, under the 

 direobion of Dr. Paul E. Sabine, as described 

 in Mr. Munby's article in Nature, October 28, 

 1922. 



Architects in this country have 'become aware 

 of the importance of Sabine's results and scores 

 ,of eases could be cited in which the appliea- 

 iion of the principles worked out by him has 

 led to complete success. The opinion that 

 "" Architects are still unable to predict with cer- 

 :tiainty the acoustic properties of the halls and 

 ieliaml>ers ithey design" implies a lack of "re- 

 spect for Sabine's profoundly accurate and 

 thorough work which I am sure no one will 

 maintain who has taken the trouble to acquaint 

 himself with the subject. 



Theodore Ltman, 

 Director 



Jefferson Physical Labokatort, 

 Hakvakd University 



AUSTRIAN SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS 



To THE Editor op Science: The present 

 financial difficulties of scientific and technical 

 joui'nals have no doubt come to the attention of 

 many readers of Science. I am tempted to 

 call their attention to a specific case by quoting 



a recent letter from William Ford Upson, 

 American trade commissioner in Vienna : 



On a pathetic appeal of Professor Willielm 

 Exner, au eminent Austrian scientist, president 

 of the Technisches Versuchsamt, I am sending to 

 the Bureau of Standards, with my compliments, 

 the Mitteilungen des Technischen Versuchsamtes 

 for one year. The publication is in sore straits 

 for lack of funds and its ambition is to get 100 

 foreign subscriptions at $1.00 per year each, to 

 enable it to continue publication, but its efforts 

 have proved unavailing except that I am sending 

 out a few copies at my own expense. Could you 

 help in the good work in any way? 



The Bureau of Standards is already a sub- 

 scriber to this publication, but I trust that the 

 above appeal will put other research laborato- 

 ries or libraries on the subscription list. 



William F. Meggers 



Bureau of Standards 



AN APPEAL 



One hundred Russian university and profes- 

 sional men, mositlj' scientists, many of them 

 internationally famous, reeentily exiled from 

 Russia by the Soviet government, are in Ber- 

 lin in serious icircumstances. Local charity 

 is housing and feeding them, but they lack 

 sufficient clothing, shoes and pocket money 

 to get through the winter without acute dis- 

 tress. An appeal has come to the American Re- 

 lief Administration for one thousand dollars 

 to provide some relief (averaging only $10 a 

 man) for these exiles. Unfortunately all of the 

 A. R. A. funds must be spent for relief inside 

 of Russia. • The appeal has been turned over 

 to me. Will the scientific men of America help 

 these suffering scientific men of Russia? 



A generous fiiend, Princess Cantacuzene, of 

 Washington, has given me one half ($500) of 

 the sum needed. I shall be glad to be one of 

 fifty to give $10 each, or one of one hundred 

 to give $5 each, to make up the oflier half. 

 I will undertake to receive the gifts and send 

 personal receipts for them, and later obtain 

 and publish in Science a blanli;et receipt from 

 Berlin for the whole amount received and sent 

 over-seas. 



Vernon Kellogg 



National Eesearch Council, 

 Washington, D. C. 



