June 11, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



591 



Dr. Cyril S. Taylor has resig'ned from tlie 

 Bureau of Standards to accept a position in 

 the research bureau of 'the Aluminum- Com- 

 pany of America at New Kensington, Penn- 

 sylvania. 



Dr. John S. Boyce has been placed in 

 charge of a branch of the office of Forest 

 Pathology of the Bureau of Plant Industry, 

 cooperating with Distriot 6 of the Forest Serv- 

 ice, wihich has been established at Portland, 

 Oregon. 



The Oaliforniia Fruit Growers Esohange, 

 an organization of 10,000 growers of citrus 

 fruits, has established a research laiboratory 

 in Corona, California, in charge of Mr. C. P. 

 Wilson, who was for thirteen years with the 

 Bureau of Chemistry of the U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture. 



At the annual meeting of the Boston Sooiety 

 of Natural History, the following officers were 

 elected: President „ W. Cameron Forbes; Vice- 

 presidents, Nathaniel T. Kidder, William F. 

 Whitney, Theodore Lyman; Secretary, Glover 

 M. Allen; Treasurer, William A. Jeffries, 

 Councillors for eight years, Thomas Barbour, 

 Henry B. Bigelow, Gorham Brooks, S. Pres- 

 oott Fay, Robert T. Jackson, John L. Salton- 

 stall, John E. Tbayer, Charles W. Townsend. 

 The following were elected honorary menibers 

 of the society: G. A. Boulenger, Sidney F. 

 Harmer, Aubrey Strahan, of London; Em- 

 manuel de Margerie, of Paris; John Macoun, 

 of Ottawa; Elmer D. Merrill, of Manila. 



Mr. Gerard Fowke, a collaborator of the 

 Bureau of American Ethnology, left St. Louis 

 on April 1 for Honolulu. He will make an 

 archeological recx)nnaLss'ance of the Hawaiian 

 Islands with a view to future imteneive work 

 by the bureau. 



The tenth annual summer field course in 

 geology of the University of Missouri will be 

 conducted by Professor E. B. Branson and 

 Mr. E. B. Eutledge during July and August. 

 About one week will be spent in the Black 

 Hills and the rest of the time in the Big 

 Horn Mountains of Wyoming. The party 

 will be limited to sixteen students. Messrs. 

 Branson and Eutledge, who are now on leave 



of absence from the University of Missouri 

 engaged in geological investigations in Costa 

 Eica, will return to the United States late in 

 Jiuie. 



At a recent meeting of the Iota (Kansas) 

 Chapter of the Society of Sigma Xi a resolu- 

 tion of commendation and congratulation was 

 ordered to be transmitted, over the signatures 

 of the president and secretary of the society, 

 to Dr. Solomon Lefschetz for his memoir en- 

 titled " Sur Certains Nombres Invariants des 

 Varietes Algebriques avec Application aux 

 Varietes Abeliennes," for which the Bordin 

 prize of 3,000 francs was awarded in 1919. The 

 following is the resolution : " The Iota Chapter 

 of the Society of Sigma Xi (University of 

 Kansas) congratulates Dr. Solomon Lefschetz 

 on the receipt of the Bordin Prize of the Paris 

 Academy of Sciences as an appropriate ac- 

 knowledgment of his mathematical ability and 

 productive scholarship. It furthermore com- 

 mends Dr. Lefschetz in the highest terms for 

 his indefatigable industry in scientific re- 

 search, and will await with interest his future 

 contributions to mathematical science." 



At the annual general meeting of the Eoyal 

 &.stronomical Society on February 13, the 

 president. Professor A. Fowler, gave an ad- 

 dress on the foundation of the society just a 

 century before. According to an abstract in 

 Nature he said that the four men who were 

 most influential in its fonnation were the Eev- 

 erend William Pearson, Mr. Francis Baily, Sir 

 John F. Hersohel and Mr. Charles Babbage. 

 The two latter both lived until 1871, and there 

 are no fewer than fifteen surviving fellows 

 whose fellowships overlapped with theirs. One 

 of these, Mr. Inwards, said that he remembered 

 speaking to Sir John Herschel at a meeting of 

 the society. There was at first a good deal of 

 opposition to the new society on the part of the 

 Eoyal Society, and the Duke of Somerset, who 

 was elected the first president, quickly resigned 

 this office owing to the pressure brought to 

 bear upon him. He was succeeded after an 

 interval by Sir William Herschel, who was 

 then eighty- two years of age, and died in 1822. 

 Mr. Stephen Groomibridge, well known for his 



