Febkuart 18, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



163 



) We learn from Nature that the British Air 

 Ministry announces that the cahinet has ap- 

 proved, subject to parliamentary sanction, the 

 grant of a sum for the direct assistance of civil 

 aviation. During the financial year 1921-22 

 payments under this grant will he limited to a 

 maximum sum of £60,000, and will be made 

 to British companies operating on ajpproved 

 aerial routes. The routes at present approved 

 are London to Paris, London to Brussels, and 

 London to Amsterdam. Extensions to these 

 routes and additional routes, such as England- 

 .Scandinavia, on which the possibilities of a 

 service employing flying boats or amphibian 

 machines or a mixed service of sea and land 

 aircraft can be demonstrated, may be approved. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 NEWS 



Announcement has been made at Brown 

 University of tthe completion of the Nathaniel 

 French Davis Fund in honor of Professor 

 Davis, now emeritus, who was for forty-one 

 years a teacher of mathematics in the univer- 

 sity. The fund amounts to ten thousand dol- 

 lars and the income is to supplement the reg- 

 ular library appropriations in purchasing 

 mathematical books and periodicals for the 

 mathematical seminary. 



, Dr. Victor C. Vaughan, for thirty years 

 dean of the University of Michigan Medical 

 School, has resigned. Dr. Vaughan has been 

 professor of hygiene and physiological chem- 

 istry since 1884. 



, At Colgate University, Associate Professor 

 A. W. Smith has been made full professor and 

 head of the department of mathematics as 

 successor to Professor J. M. Taylor. Pro- 

 fessor T. R. Aude, of the Carnegie Institute 

 of Technology, has been appointed associate 

 professor of mathematics. 

 , Dr. Solon Marx White, Minneapolis, pro- 

 fessor of medicine at the University of Min- 

 nesota, has been appointed chief of the de- 

 partment of medicine to succeed Dr. Leonard 

 G. Rowntree, now associated with the Mayo 

 Clinic. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



ON THE OCCURRENCE OF AEDES SOLLICITANS 



IN FRESH WATER POLLUTED BY ACID 



WASTE 



It is believed to be of interest to students 

 of mosquitoes to report the occurrence of 

 Aedes sollicitans, a salt marsh mosquito, in 

 fresh water polluted by acid waste from a 

 " guano factory." During October, 1920, while 

 making investigations concerning fishes in 

 relation to mosquito control at Savannah, 

 Georgia, in cooperation with the U. S. Public 

 Health Service and the city of Savannah, the 

 writer found mosquito larvse in ditches which 

 were so strongly polluted that all other animal 

 life appeared to be extinct. The larvse were 

 collected from time to time and reared to 

 the adult stage. Dr. Bassett, bacteriologist 

 for the city of Savannah, identified the species 

 as Aedes sollicitans and this determination 

 later was verified by Dr. Dyar, of the U. S. 

 Bureau of Entomology. 



The acid content of the water in the ditches 

 where the pollution was greatest was not 

 determined but a water sample taken down- 

 stream where the pollution had become greatly 

 diluted and where Aedes sollicitans was re- 

 placed by Anopheles crucians and Culex sp. 

 was titrated by Dr. Bassett and found to con- 

 tain 2.08 per cent, of free acid and a large 

 amount of iron. It is quite probable that the 

 water in portions of the ditches in which the 

 larvse of Aedes sollicitans were common had 

 an acid content of fully 3 -per cent. 



The larvBB occurred most frequently along 

 the edges of the ditches among decaying vege- 

 tation and they displayed a stronger resistance 

 to the toxicity of oil than Culex and Anopheles 

 larvse occurring in the more weakly polluted 

 portions of the same ditches. 



Samuel F. Hildebrand 



IT. S. BtTBEAtr or Fisheries, 

 ■Washington, D. C. 



the history of science and the ameri- 

 can association for the advance- 

 MENT OF SCIENCE 



The application made to the council of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science for the organization of a new Section 

 to be devoted to the History of Science was de- 



