20 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIII. No. 1358 



Virginia on the morning of December 24. The 

 loss is largely, if not entirely, covered by in- 

 surance and there will be little interruption to 

 the regular laboratory work. 



The inauguration of President Wallace D. 

 Atwood, of Clark CoUege, will take place on 

 February 1. Presidents and representatives 

 from more than two hundred colleges have 

 signified their intention of being present at the 

 exercises. 



Dr. Henry Eand Hatfield, professor of ac- 

 counting on the Flood Foundation in the Uni- 

 versity of California, has been appointed dean 

 of the faculties of the State University of Cali- 

 fornia to succeed Professor John C. Merriam, 

 who resigned to accept the presidency of the 

 Carnegie Institution in "Washington. 



At the College of the City of New York, 

 Professor Herbert K. Moody has been ap- 

 pointed professor of chemical engineering 

 within the department of chemistry; Assistant 

 Professor "W. L. Prager has been promoted to 

 an associate professorship, and Mr. Joseph A. 

 Babor has been promoted to an instructorship. 



Dr. Aedrey W. Downs, formerly assistant 

 professor of physiology at McGill University, 

 has been appointed to the chair of physiology 

 in the University of Alberta. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



ANTHROPOMETRIC MEASUREMENTS 



During the sessions of two International 

 Congresses of Anthropology, in 1906 at 

 Monaco, and in 1912 at Geneva, rules were 

 drawn up for the standardizing of the more 

 usual anthropometric measurements. The 

 work was undertaken in each case by a com- 

 mittee, and the official reports were published 

 by certain members to whom this duty was 

 assigned. 



The prescription of 1906 included measure- 

 ments of the skull and of the head and facial 

 features of the living. It was published in 

 the French language by Dr. Papillault and 

 appeared in the pages of L'Anthropologie 

 (Vol. 17, 1906, pp. 559-572). The prescrip- 

 tion of 1912 was the work of a larger and 

 more representative committee, which aside 



from French, German and Italian members, 

 included representatives of Great Britain, the 

 United States, Eussia, and Switzerland, coun- 

 tries not included in the former reixjrt. The 

 official reporters of this prescription, which 

 included measurements of the living body, ex- 

 clusive of those of the head and face, were 

 Drs. Rivet, Schlaginhaufen and Duckworth, 

 who published their reports in French, Ger- 

 man and English, respectively. 



Having these data in mind I was led to 

 state, in the preface to my recent " Manual of 

 Anthropometry," that the official reports of 

 the prescription of 1912 were published only 

 on the other side of the Atlantic, and ap- 

 peared in an American journal for the first 

 time in 1919, when Dr. Duckworth's official 

 report was reprinted by Dr. Hrdlicka in his 

 new American Journal of Physical Anthro- 

 pology. 



While this statement, concerning the three 

 official reports only, is strictly true, I should 

 have mentioned that equally accurate and 

 trustworthy reports were published in other 

 countries, and especially should I have cited 

 that of Dr. MacCurdy, also a member of 

 the committee. His report in full of the pre- 

 scription of 1912 was translated at the time 

 of the Congress for .Dr. Rivet's official copy, 

 and appeared, later in the same year, in 

 both Science and the American Anthropolo- 

 gist. Had I noticed this earlier, I should 

 certainly have brought it to the attention of 

 the readers of my book, and wish to take this 

 opportunity to rectify my vmintentional 

 neglect. 



The citations referred to are the following: 



Science: N. S., Vol. 36, No. 931, Nov. 1, 

 1912, pp. 603-608. 



Amer. Anthropol., Vol. 14, No. 4, Oct.-Dec,, 

 1912, pp. 621-631. 



Harris Hawthorne Wilder 

 Smith College, 

 Northampton, Mass., 

 December 17, 1920 



A NEW DIKE NEAR ITHACA, N. Y. 



Considerable attention has been given by 

 geologists to the dikes of central New York. 



