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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LI. No. 1314 



able to go to California to receive the medal 

 in person at the meeting of the society which 

 wil be held on March 27. This is the fifteenth 

 award of the Bruce Gold Medal. It will be re- 

 called that nominations for the medal are re- 

 ceived each year from the directors of six 

 great observatories of the world: the Cordoba 

 Observatory, Argentina; the Eoyal Observa- 

 tory, Greenwich, England; the Paris Observa- 

 tory, France, and the Harvard, the Lick and 

 the Terkes Observatories in America. It is 

 on the basis of these nominations that the di- 

 rectors of the society make the annual award. 



At a meeting of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia held on February 17, 

 the Hayden memorial geological medal for 

 distinguished work in geology or paleontology 

 for 1920 was awarded to Professor T. C. 

 Chamberlin, of the University of Chicago, on 

 the recommendation of a committee consisting 

 of E. A. F. Penrose, Jr., chairman, John Mason 

 Clarke, Henry F. Osborn, Charles D. Walcott 

 and Edgar T. "Wherry. 



The 'William H. Nichols medal for the year 

 1919 was presented to Dr. Irving Langmuir by 

 Dr. Nichols at a meeting of the New York 

 Section of the American Chemical Society on 

 March 5. Dr. Langmuir made an addtess on 

 " Octek theory of valence." 



E. H. Hooker has been elected president of 

 the Eoyal Meteorological Society. The vice- 

 presidents are J. Baxendell, F. Druce, Sir 

 Napier Shaw and F. J. W. Whipple. 



Arthur "W. Gilbert, Ph.D., who was pro- 

 fessor of plant breeding at the New York 

 State College of Agriculture from 1911 to 

 1917, has been appointed state commissioner 

 of agriculture for Massachusetts. 



Dr. W. a. Setchell has a sabbatical year of 

 absence from his work as head of the depart- 

 ment of botany at the University of California 

 and is visiting botanical institutions in the 

 eastern states. 



Dr. J. W. E. Glattfeld, assistant professor 

 of chemistry of the University of Chicago, has 

 been appointed temporary research associate 

 of the department of botanical research, Car- 

 negie Institution of Washington, and is 



spending January, February and March at 

 Tucson, in cooperative work with Dr. H. A. 

 Spoehr, of the staff of the Desert Laboratory. 



According to a press dispatch from Geneva 

 Burt Wolbach, of Harvard Medical School, 

 and Dr. John Todd, of McGill University, have 

 arrived there to confer with the general med- 

 ical director of the League of Eed Cross So- 

 cieties concerning inquiries the league will 

 carry on in Poland in connection with the 

 study of typhus fever. Other members of the 

 mission are proceeding to Poland. Professor 

 George C. Whipple, of Harvard University, 

 has arrived there to take up his work as chief 

 of the sanitary department of the Eed Cross 



Dr. Alonzo E. Taylor, of the University of 

 Pennsylvania, sailed for Europe, February 14, 

 to make a study of food conditions on the con- 

 tinent. 



The Journal of the American Medical Asso- 

 ciation states that Drs. William J. Mayo, 

 Eochester, Minn., and Franklin H. Martin, 

 Chicago, who have been visiting South Amer- 

 ica in the interests of a Pan-American Col- 

 lege of Surgeons, started for hom^e from San- 

 tiago, Chile, on February 14. In the course of 

 their tour they have visited Buenos Aires, 

 Montevido and Valparaiso, Chile. 



The Government of South Africa has ap- 

 pointed an advisory committee to carry out 

 and sui)ervise a botanical survey of the 

 territories included in the Union, with Dr. 

 J. B. Pole-Evans, chief of the division of 

 botany in the Department of Agriculture, as 

 director. 



The committee on Scientific Eesearch of 

 the American Medical Association has made 

 the following grants for scientific work: Pro- 

 fessor G. Carl Huber, University of Michi- 

 gan, $400, for study of nerve repair. Pro- 

 fessor H. M. Evans, University of California, 

 $400, for study of the influence of endocrine 

 glands on ovulation. Professor E. E. Le- 

 Count, Eush Medical College, $200, for study 

 of extradural hemorrhage and of the h-ion 

 content of the blood in experimental strepto- 

 coccus infections. Dr. E. E. Ecker, Western 

 Eeserve University, $200, for a study of the 



