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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 955 



books depended largely upon the almost inces- 

 sant travel in whicli tis summer vacations 

 and sabbatical years were spent. In every 

 state in the union, in most of the countries of 

 Europe, in the West Indies and Central Amer- 

 ica, in Greenland, in Spitzenbergen, in 

 Alaska, Professor Tarr studied. For he 

 traveled not as a sightseer but as a student, as 

 one who would learn the secrets of nature that 

 he might impart them to others. Work and 

 service. These were the keynotes of his life. 



The window which has just been unveiled 

 on the south side of Sage Chapel is typical of 

 Professor Tarr's life of work and service. It 

 represents the valley of a river. In the back- 

 ground rise the mountains, capped by the 

 eternal snows, perhaps containing, in their 

 valleys, glaciers such as Professor Tarr made 

 his especial study. Here is the source of the 

 river, which flows steadily because it is fed by 

 the rain and by the melting snow of the moun- 

 tains, the pure snow which typifies the inno- 

 cence of youth. 



In the middle distance the river is flowing 

 through a broad, open valley, a valley which 

 has been made by the river itself, a valley 

 which, by the erosive action of the stream, is 

 being made broader and therefore more suit- 

 able for habitation by man. The river must 

 widen and deepen its valley, it must carry 

 away the material which is here an encum- 

 brance, but which the river will later deposit 

 on the lower land where it will be of most use 

 to man. 



In the foreground the river is in a narrow 

 gorge. This stream has encountered a tem- 

 porary obstacle in its course. To remove this 

 it uses the very material which it is carrying 

 forward to the sea. Soon it will widen the 

 gorge into an open valley like that of the 

 middle distance. Work is necessary in ac- 

 complishing this, hard work in order that the 

 valley may have gently-sloping walls upon 

 which man may plant his fields and in order 

 that the stream bed may slope gently so that 

 the river may do its service in carrying the 

 products of the fields to the markets and 

 towns. 



Now most rivers also have lower courses, 



places where there are broad floodplains and 

 deltas, where the river has deposited rich soil, 

 carried down from the mountains, where the 

 river flows slowly, its hard work nearly done. 

 As in the life of rivers with hurried course 

 and hardest tasks in the youthful section near 

 the mountains, and leisurely current and little 

 work near the mouth, where the river termi- 

 nates in the all-embracing ocean, so with man. 

 Only in the case of Professor Tarr the river 

 which typifies his life shows no leisurely old 

 age. You will recall that he died on March 

 21, 1912, at the age of forty-eight. His was a 

 life of hard work, of toil and service. But al- 

 though he was not permitted to enjoy the 

 years of less strenuous labor, the effort was 

 not in vain. We, his relatives and friends and 

 students, will profit largely, throughout the 

 years to come, by the work which he has 

 placed at our service. 



May this memorial window which I now, on 

 behalf of Mrs. Tarr, present to Cornell Uni- 

 versity ever recall the memory of the work and 

 service to others that was performed here by 

 Ralph Stockman Tarr. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 

 At the semi-centennial celebration of the 

 National Academy of Sciences to be held next 

 week, the medals and prizes of the academy 

 will be presented by the president of the 

 United States. The first award of the Com- 

 stock prize, of the value of $1,500, will be to 

 Professor R. A. Millikan, of the University of 

 Chicago, for his researches on the charge of 

 the electron, the ratio of electric charge to 

 mass and gaseous ionization. The Henry 

 Draper medal has been awarded to M. Henri 

 Deslandres, director of the Astrophysical Ob- 

 servatory at Meudon, for his researches in 

 solar and stellar physics. 



The Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic, of 

 the Johns Hopkins Hospital, established and 

 erected by Mr. Henry Phipps, of New York, 

 to promote the study of mental disease and its- 

 early treatment, was dedicated on April 16, 

 and the exercises will continue during the two 

 following days. Addresses were announced 



