326 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. L. No. 1292 



armament problems of the Ordnance Depart- 

 ment as major in tlie TJ. S. Army. 



Professor Bailey Willis, who succeeded 

 Dr. Branner in the department of geology at 

 Stanford University, will hereafter be in 

 residence from January to June only, and 

 will devote the balance of the year to geologic 

 research and field work. 



Professor Daniel Starch, of the Univer- 

 sity of Wisconsin, is on leave of absence for 

 the first half of the present year. He is 

 giving a three-hour course of lectures during 

 the semester at Harvard University. 



Dr. James W. Glover, professor of mathe- 

 matics and insurance at the University of 

 Michigan, spent the month of September in 

 New York City, serving as acting president 

 of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Asso- 

 ciation of America. Professor Glover is a 

 member of the board of trustees and acted for 

 Dr. Henry S. Pritchett, who is spending the 

 summer in the west. 



Dr. E. H. Sylvester, clinical psychologist 

 at the Iowa State University, Iowa City, has 

 been selected as chief of the health center at 

 Des Moines, with headquarters in the court 

 house. 



The Pontecoulant Prize of the Paris 

 Academy of Sciences has been awarded to 

 Professor A. S. Eddington for his astronom- 

 ical researches. 



Dr. Barton Warren Evermann, director of 

 the museum of the California Academy of 

 Sciences, with Dr. John Van Denburgh, the 

 herpetologist, left San Francisco on Septem- 

 ber 11, for the Olympic Mountains in Wash- 

 ington. The party will be joined in Seattle 

 by Mr. C. J. Albrecht, director of vertebrate 

 exhibits of the Washington State Museum, 

 and a photographer, and an effort will be 

 made to obtain motion pictures of the Roose- 

 velt Elk in their native haunts in these 

 mountains. The films if successful will be 

 used to supplement the story told by the 

 habitat group of Roosevelt Elk, now being 

 installed in the Academy's Museum in Golden 

 Gate Park, through the munificence of Cap- 

 tain William C. Van Antwerp. 



We learn from Economic Geology that T. 

 Wayland Vaughan, D. Dale Condit, C. Wythe 

 Cooke and Clyde P. Ross, of the U. S. Geo- 

 logical Survey, have recently returned to 

 Washington after spending several months in 

 a reconnaissance of the Dominican Republic, 

 for the Dominican government. Dr. Vaughan 

 also visited Prince au Prince, Haiti, and 

 made arrangements with the Haitian govern- 

 ment for a preliminary geological survey of 

 Haiti. He later made a reconnaissance in 

 the Virgin Islands at the request of the 'Na.vs 

 Department. Mr. Condit, who was in charge 

 of the field work in Santo Domingo, has in 

 preparation several reports one of which, soon 

 to be published, will describe the results of 

 geologic work in Barahona and Azua Prov- 

 inces. 



The James Watt centenary celebrations in 

 Birmingham were opened with lectures by 

 Professor F. W. Burstall and Professor Hele- 

 Shaw on September 10. In the afternoon 

 there was a memorial service at Handsworth 

 Parish Church, in which Watt, Boulton and 

 Murdoch were buried, an address being de- 

 livered by Canon E. W. Barnes, Master of the 

 Temple. This was followed by a garden-party 

 at Heathfield Hall, and a reception by the Lord 

 Mayor at the Council House. The following 

 day lectures were given by Sir Oliver Lodge, 

 Professor Alex. Barr and Professor J. D. Cor- 

 mack, and in the afternoon visits were made 

 to some of Watt's engines. In the evening 

 the centenary dinner was held. The univer- 

 sity held a special Degree Congregation to 

 confer honorary degrees on the American Am- 

 bassador (the Honorable J. W. Davies), Sir 

 Charles Parsons, Vice-Admiral Goodwin, M. 

 Rateau (of Paris), Sir George Beilby, Col- 

 onel Blackett, Professor Barr and Mr. F. W. 

 Lanchester. 



The death is announced on August 5 of Mr. 

 W. D. Dallas, who was scientific assistant to 

 the meteorological reporter to the government 

 of India from 1882 to 1906. 



The Deutsche medizinische W ochenschrift 

 of May 29, as quoted by the Journal of the 

 American Medical Association, gives the total 

 losses of Germany as 6,873,415. This includes 



