June 18, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



611 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



New York TJniyeesity luas conferred the 

 doctorate of laws on Dr. William H. Nichols, 

 president of the General Chemical Company of 

 New York, and recently president of the Amer- 

 ican Chemical Society. 



The University of Maine has conferred the 

 Ph.D. on Dr. Lamson Scribner, of the United 

 States Department of Agriculture. 



The University of Arizona has conferred 

 the degree of doctor of laws on Thomas Henry 

 Kearney, of the U. S. Department of Agricul- 

 ture, in recognition of his work in the breed- 

 ing of Egyptian long-staple cotton at the Saca- 

 ton Station in Arizona. Here he and his co- 

 laborers isolated the first plant of the Pima 

 variety of cotton, so well adapted to the south- 

 western region, propagated it to the extent 

 necessary to make commercial plantings, and 

 are still occupied in producing a large amount 

 of absolutely pure seed each year. The Pima 

 cotton crop of Arizona was worth approxi- 

 mately $20,000,000 in 1919. 



The honorary degree of doctor of science was 

 conferred upon George N. HofPer, of the U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture, by Lebanon Valley 

 College, at their fifty-fourth annual com- 

 mencement exercises, in recognition of his con- 

 tribution to our knowledge of cereal diseases. 

 Dr. Hoffer graduated from Lebanon Valley in 

 1909 and is at present working at the experi- 

 ment station at Purdue University. 



During a visit to MiUbank Hospital on June 

 8, King George bestowed on Major General 

 William C. Gorgas, former surgeon general 

 of the United States army, the insignia of 

 Knight Commander of the Order of iSt. 

 Michael and St. George. General Gorgas was 

 a patient in Queen Alexandra's Nursing Home 

 for Officers'. 



The president of the Prench republic has 

 conferred the honor of Officer of the Legion 

 of Honor on Dr. Aldo CasteUani, of the Lon- 

 don School of Tropical Medicine, for his 

 method of combined typhoid-paratyphoid and 

 enteric-cholera vaccination. 



At the end of the present academic year 

 Professor Prederic S. Lee retires, at his own 



request, from the directorship of the depart- 

 ment of physiology of Columbia University, 

 and hereafter he will occupy a research pro- 

 fessorship. He sails for Europe early in July 

 and expects to spend the coming year abroad. 

 Mr. G. W. Morey, of the Geophysical Lab- 

 oratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 

 who has been on leave of absence and in charge 

 of the optical glass plant of the Spencer Lens 

 Company of Buffalo, New York, since No- 

 vemher, 1918, has returned to resume his re- 

 search work at the laboratory. 



Professor Charles Baskerville, in recog- 

 nition of his investigations on inhalation 

 anesthetics, has been elected a member of the 

 research conunittee of the National Anesthesia 

 Research Society. 



At the -St. Louis meeting of the A m erican 

 Chemical Society a communication was pre- 

 sented from Dr. W. P. Hillebrand regarding 

 the apparently organized thefts of platinum 

 ware that are taking place throughout the 

 United States, with the suggestion that a com- 

 mittee be appointed to consider whether or not 

 legislation might not be recommended to Con- 

 gress which would assist in controlling the 

 matter. The council voted that such a com- 

 mittee be appointed, and the president ap- 

 pointed E. B. Moore, of the Bureau of Mines, 

 Washington, D. C, Chas. H. Kerk, of J. P. 

 Bishop & Company, Malvern, Pa., and Geo. P. 

 Kunz, of Tiffany & Company. 



Sir Humphrey D. Rolleston, Eoyal College 

 of Physicians of London; Coltonel H. J. War- 

 ing, Eoyal College of Surgeons of London; 

 Dr. Norman Walker, Royal College of Physi- 

 cians and Royal College of Surgeons of Edin- 

 burg and the Royal Paculty of Medicine and 

 Surgery of Glasgow, and Professors Gustave 

 Roussy and E. E. Desmarest, of the Univer- 

 sity of Paris, were present at the meeting of 

 the American Medical Association at New Or- 

 leans and have been visiting the leading med- 

 ical centers of the country. They are the 

 guests of the National Board of Medical Ex- 

 aminers of the United States. 



Dr. W. C. Phalen, formerly geologist in the 

 U. S. Geological Survey and mineral technol- 



