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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 957 



Db. Frank K. Cameron, of the IT. S. Bu- 

 reau of Soils, visited the Pacific coast during 

 April in the interests of the fertilizer investi- 

 gation. In Seattle he delivered before the 

 local society of Sigma Xi an address on " A 

 Dynamic View of Soil Fertility." He was 

 accompanied on the trip by Dr. J. W. Tur- 

 rentine, who will remain on the coast during 

 the summer, investigating fertilizer re- 

 sources. 



Professor William Herbert Hobbs, who 

 has been abroad on leave of absence since 

 June, 1912, has now returned to the Univer- 

 sity of Michigan. In the summer of 1912 Dr. 

 Hobbs carried out tectonic and glacial studies 

 in the Swiss and French Alps, and in the fol- 

 lowing winter visited the deserts of Egypt 

 and the Soudan. 



Dr. N. L. Britton and Dr. J. N. Eose, who 

 left New York City on January 25, for the 

 purpose of making a special study of the Cac- 

 tacete of the West Indies have returned. Al- 

 though they went especially in the interest of 

 the cactus investigation of the Carnegie Insti- 

 tution of Washington, yet a general botanical 

 survey was made, and they have brought back 

 a very large collection of living plants and 

 about 13,000 herbarium specimens. They 

 went first to St. Thomas, where the party was 

 divided. Dr. and Mrs. Britton, Dr. J. A. 

 Shafer and Miss Delia W. Marble, explored 

 the Virgin Islands, Porto Rico and Curagao, 

 while Dr. Rose, accompanied by Wm. E. 

 Fitch and Paul G. Russell, visited St. Croix, 

 St. Kitts and Antigua, and, after returning 

 to St. Thomas, made extensive collections in 

 Santo Domingo along the southern side and 

 eastern end of the island. 



Henry H. Norris, professor of electrical 

 engineering in Cornell University and sec- 

 retary of the Society for the Promotion of 

 Engineering Education, is devoting a leave 

 of absence to a special investigation for the 

 McGraw-Hill Book Company of engineering 

 books in all fields. He will cover both col- 

 lege text-books and general reference books. 

 His work is practically a scientific investiga- 

 tion of these texts. On the basis of this in- 



vestigation and the suggestions which Pro- 

 fessor Norris will collect, a broad series of 

 new books will be planned and undertaken 

 for all fields of engineering, with a view to a 

 new and more useful technical literature. 



The following lectures have been arranged 

 by the department of chemistry of the Col- 

 lege of the City of New York: 



April 11 — Professor Alexander Smith, professor 

 of chemistry and director of the laboratory, Co- 

 lumbia University: "Forms of Sulphur and their 

 Eelations. ' ' 



April 25 — Dr. Charles F. McKenna, past presi- 

 dent Institute of Chemical Engineers : ' ' Chemical 

 Engineering, Present and Future." 



May 9 — Mr. A. D. Little, president American 

 Chemical Society: "Manufacture of Wood Pulp 

 and Paper. ' ' 



May 23 — Dr. M. W. Franklin, General Electric 

 Co.: "Ozone." 



George C. Whipple, professor of sanitary 

 engineering at Harvard University, is giving 

 a course of lectures on " Applications of 

 Water Analysis " at the Polytechnic Institute 

 of Brooklyn. 



Dr. Theobold Smith, of Harvard Univer- 

 sity, delivered an address to the Pathological 

 Society of Philadelphia, April 24, on " An At- 

 tempt to Interpret Present-day Uses of Vac- 

 cines." 



On April 7 Dr. D. T. MacDougal, of the 

 Carnegie Desert Laboratory, lectured before 

 the Southern California Academy of Sciences 

 in Los Angeles, on " Some Physical and Bio- 

 logical Problems of American Deserts." 



The life and services of Dr. John Shaw 

 Billings, late director of the New York Public 

 Library, who died on March 11, were commem- 

 orated, before a notable gathering in the 

 Stuart gallery of the Public Library on 

 April 26. Mr. Jolui L. Cadwalader, president 

 of the New York Public Library, presided, 

 and first introduced Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, as 

 one of Dr. Billings's oldest and closest friends, 

 who told of the arduous services rendered by 

 him in his early years in the civil war. Sir 

 William Osier described his great contribution 

 to bibliography. Dr. William H. Welch paid 



