532 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIII. No. 1380 



reduction. Previously Mme. Curie had spent 

 two hours at the plant of the Welsbach Com- 

 pany, Gloucester, N. J., and the company pre- 

 sented her with 50 milligrams of mesothorium. 

 Mme. Curie, accompanied by her daughters, is 

 now visiting the Grand Canyon and the Yel- 

 lowstone Park. 



The Rockefeller Foundation gave a dinner 

 in honor of Dr. Carlos Chagas, head of the 

 department of health in the Republic of Brazil, 

 at the Waldorf-Astoria, on May 20. Dr. 

 George E. Vincent presided as toastmaster, 

 and addresses of welcome were made by John 

 D. Rockefeller, Jr., Dr. Hermann M. Biggs, 

 Dr. Paulo de Proenca and the Brazilian am- 

 bassador to the United States. Dr. Chagas, 

 director of the Institute Oswaldo Cruz, Rio 

 de Janeiro, gave a series of three lectures on 

 " American trypanosomiasis " at the Harvard 

 Medical School, May 26 and 2Y. 



We learn from Nature that the presentation 

 of the first award of the Kelvin medal was made 

 by the Right Hon. A. J. Balfour in the hall 

 of the Institution of Civil Engineers to Dr. 

 W. C. Unwin on May 4. The medal was 

 founded in 1914, principally by British and 

 American engineers, to commemorate the 

 achievements of Lord Kelvin in those branches 

 of science which are especially applicable to 

 engineering. 



A COMMISSION of five engineers has been ap- 

 pointed to visit England in June to present the 

 John Fritz medal to Sir John Hadfield, in 

 recognition of his scientific research work. 

 The members of the commission are as fol- 

 lows: Dr. Ira !N. Hollis, president of Wor- 

 cester Polytechnic Institute; Charles T. Main, 

 of Boston, representing the American Society 

 of Civil Engineers; Col. Arthur S. Dwight, 

 of "New York, representing the American In- 

 stitute of Mining and Metallurgical Engi- 

 neers; Ambrose Swasey, of Cleveland, of the 

 John Fritz medal award board and the Ameri- 

 can Society of Mechanical Engineers, and Dr. 

 F. B. Jewett, of New York, of the American 

 Institute of Electrical Engineers. 



President Hakdino, on June 3, designated 

 Major Lawrence Martin as the representative 



of the Department of State on the United 

 States Geographic Board. 



Mr. Frank C. Baker, curator of the Museum 

 of Natural History, University of Illinois, 

 will spend the summer in Wisconsin, continu- 

 ing his study of the molluscan fauna under the 

 auspices of the Wisconsin Geological and Nat- 

 ural History Survey. 



Akthur D. Little, Inc., announce that 

 Chester M. Clark, formerly head of the cor- 

 poration department of Stone & Webster, has 

 been elected treasurer. Merton R. Sumner has 

 been appointed chief engineer. Mr. Sumner 

 was formerly chief engineer for New England 

 of Fred T. Ley & Company, and more recently 

 of the Fuller Industrial Engineering Corpora- 

 tion. 



The centenary o| Bloomingdale Hospital at 

 White Plains, N. Y., for the treatment of 

 nervous and mental disorders, was celebrated 

 on May 26. A special program of addresses 

 had been arranged by Dr. William L. Russell, 

 medical superintendent, for the morning ses- 

 sion, and in the afternoon there were tableaux 

 showing the origin of the asylum, its growth 

 and the development of science in the treat- 

 ment of the insane. Addresses were made 

 by Dr. Pierre Janet, professor in the College 

 of France, Paris; Dr. Richard G. Rowe, di- 

 rector of the Neuro-psychiatric Hospital, Lon- 

 don; Dr. Llewellys F. Barker, of the Johns 

 Hopkins Medical School, and Dr. Adolf 

 Meyer, professor of psychiatry in the Johns 

 Hopkins Medical School. 



Professor William Crocker, in charge of 

 the plant physiology department of the Univer- 

 sity of Chicago and director of the Thompson 

 Institute for Plant Research at Yonkers, New 

 York, gave an address on " The physiology of 

 seed germination " before the biology club 

 of the University of Minnesota at University 

 Farm on May 16. The following afternoon 

 Professor Crocker spoke on an " Effective at- 

 tack on plant physiological problems " before 

 the experiment station staff and other faculty 

 men. 



A LECTURE entitled " The study of organic 

 reactions occurring in living matter " was de- 



