March 12, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



269 



Yale University has recently received from 

 Bayard Dominick, of the class of 1894, Tale 

 College, gifts amounting to $40,000 for sci- 

 entific exploration in the Southern Pacific 

 Ocean. Professor Herbert E. Gregory, of 

 Yale, is the active head of the expedition, 

 and the funds vcill be disbursed by the Bishop 

 Museum of Honolulu. It is expected that the 

 work of the expedition will extend over a 

 period of two years and that it will be carried 

 on by a group of distinguished men of science. 

 Professor Gregory has been granted leave of 

 absence for the balance of the year by Yale 

 and is now in Honolulu. 



A NEW museiun has been opened at Yellow- 

 stone Park, Wyoming, for the preservation 

 and exhibition of natural liistory specimens of 

 the region. 



The fortieth annual report of the United 

 States Geological Survey, made public, com- 

 pares the present scope of the work with that 

 of the work done during- the first year of this 

 organization. The growth of the survey is 

 suggested by a comparison of the appropria- 

 tions for the present year, which comprise 

 items amounting to $1,437,745, with the total 

 appropriation of $106,000 for the first year, 

 1879-80. During the 40 years the number 

 of employees has been increased from 39 to 

 967. 



The arrangements for the amalgamation of 

 the four existing British meteorological serv- 

 ices are practically completed, and it is ex- 

 pected that at an early date the reorganiza- 

 tion, which will combine the Meteorological 

 Ofiice with the weather services of the Air 

 Ministry, the Navy, and the Royal Engineers, 

 will be effected under the Department of the 

 Controller-General of Civil Aviation, and will 

 be directed by Sir Napier- Shaw, the present 

 Director of the Meteorological Office at South 

 Kensington. The headquarters of the amal- 

 gamated services will be at the Air Ministry, 

 Canada House, Kingsway. It is understood 

 that the forecasting department and other de- 

 partments of the Meteorological Office will be 

 transferred from South Kensington to the 

 Air Ministry, while the statistical department 

 and the library will remain at the present 



office in Exhibition Eoad. The British Rain- 

 fall Association, which was founded in 1860, 

 and which has been a very successful private 

 enterprise, will come under the director of 

 the Meteorological Office, but it is expected 

 that its special work will continue to be 

 carried on at Camden-square. The combined 

 services will be in close touch with all the 

 colonial and foreign observatories and the Air 

 Minister will assume Parliamentary responsi- 

 bility for the new combined department. 



The Advisory Committee at the American 

 Chemical Society, on recommendation of 

 Editor E. J. Crane, has passed the following 

 vote: 



That Chemical Abstracts be empowered to loan to 

 members in good standing of the American Chem- 

 ical Society, copies of current publications upon re- 

 quest; that each suclh request must be accom- 

 panied by twenty-five (25) cents for each issue 

 requested to cover cost of packing, mailing and 

 correspondence, and must further be accompanied 

 by an undertaking on the part of the requesting 

 member to replace such issue or issues, should they 

 not be returned to Chemical Abstracts in good 

 order, less reasonable wear and tear; Chemical 

 Abstracts to notify the loaning member of receipt 

 in good or bad order, as the ease may be, of the 

 loaned issue and then to close the transaction ac- 

 cordingly. 



The Oberlin College Research Committee, 

 affiliated with the National Research Council, 

 met recently for dinner and the transaction 

 of business at the Faculty Club. The present 

 committee consists of men engaged in ex- 

 perimental scientific work, but a recommen- 

 dation was adopted to include those from the 

 mathematics department. Discussion centered 

 around possible methods of stimulating and 

 financing research in those departments which 

 care to do such work, and also the develop- 

 ment of research spirit as a definite college 

 policy. It was definitely expressed as the 

 opinion of those present that a college of the 

 standing of Oberlin must abandon the policy 

 that teaching is the sole business of the 

 faculty members, and that productive work 

 must be given the prominence it merits. 



The United States Committee on the 

 Ramsay Memorial Fund has transmitted 



