Februakt 11, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



137 



The spring meeting of The American 

 Society of Mechanical Engineers will be held 

 in Chicago at the Congress Hotel, from May 

 23 to 26. Sessions are planned by the pro- 

 fessional sections on aeronautics, fuels, man- 

 agement, material handling, machine shop, 

 power, forest products and railroads. 



The Journal of the American Medical Asso- 

 ciation states that investigations made by the 

 Rockefeller Foundation indicate that the 

 countries of central Europe, with the possible 

 exception of Austria, suffer from a shortage 

 of physicians. Thus, in Poland less than 

 2,000 physicians are said to be available to 

 care for the 25,000,000 inhabitants, and in 

 Serbia it is stated there are less than 300 

 physicians outside of the army medical 

 officers. In its efforts to rehabilitate the med- 

 ical schools of central Europe, the Rockefeller 

 Foundation has decided to aid in the establish- 

 ment of a high grade medical school at 

 Belgrade. 



A SPECIAL committee from the Petrograd 

 Academy of Science has proposed a plan to 

 the academy, whereby a closer contact between 

 the scientific men of Russia and Western 

 Europe may be forwarded. 



On December 31 the Zoological Society at 

 Hamburg decided to close the Zoological 

 Gardens because the city can not afford to aid 

 in maintenance. 



Mrs. Eugene Silliman Bristol has given 

 $1,000 to the proposed Silliman fund, the 

 income of which will be applied to the mainte- 

 nance of the American Journal of Science. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 



NEWS 

 Dr. Wallace W. Atwood, lately professor 

 of physiography at Harvard University, was 

 inaugurated as president of Clark University, 

 on February 1. 



1 Dr. W. B. Cannon, professor of physiology, 

 and Dr. Otto Folin, professor of biological 

 chemistry, at Harvard University, were last 

 autumn, offered research positions in the Mayo 

 Olinic at Rochester, with all possible facilities 



for the conduct of research work and with sal- 

 aries approximately twice those given by the 

 university. They have, however, decided to 

 remain at Harvard. 



; Professor F. C. ]SrEwooMBE, of the depart- 

 ment of botany of Michigan University, has 

 been granted leave for the second semester of 

 the current year. His mail address wiU be 

 Palo Alto, Calif. During Professor New- 

 combe's absence Professor H. H. Bartlett will 

 be administrative head of the department. 



Dr. Earnest Albert Hooton has been ap- 

 I)ointed assistant professor of anthropology at 

 the Harvard Medical School, and Dr. William 

 Lorenzo Moss, assistant professor of pre- 

 ventive medicine and hygiene. 



Dr. G. W. a. Lucket, formerly dean of the 

 school of education of the University of Ne- 

 braska, has been appointed specialist in foreign 

 education in the U. S. Bureau of Education, 

 Washington. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



THRICE TOLD TALES 



, To the Editor of Science : Referring to the 

 letter of Professor Wood,^ I, also, have a story 

 about the Lick Observatory and to enable Pro- 

 fessor Wood to have a whack at it I hasten to 

 offer it to the public. In the summer of 1891 

 I was the guest of the then director of the ob- 

 servatory. Professor E. S. Holden, for a week 

 or ten days while making a series of gravity 

 measurements and I was greatly interested in 

 the "public nights," in the establishment and 

 maintenance of which the institution has done 

 a most admirable piece of work. 

 , On one of these occasions I was watching 

 the long line of visitors formed near the big 

 refractor, each awaiting his turn for a look 

 through that wonderful instrument. The ob- 

 ject to which it was directed at that time was 

 a star cluster and, as every one knows, when a 

 cluster is viewed through a telescope the mam- 

 ber of stars seen is increased enormously and 

 jthose visible to the naked eye are greatly en- 

 1 Science, January 14, 1921. 



