Mat 30, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



835 



San Francisco, Cal., 



March 17, 1913. 

 To THE Members or the California Academy 

 OF Sciences: 

 Having been officially notified of your request 

 as adopted by resolution at the stated meeting of 

 the academy on March 3, that Mr. L. M. Loomis 

 be -reappointed curator of the department of orni- 

 thology at the compensation which is customary 

 for curators devoting full time to the affairs of 

 their departments, your council desires to assure 

 you that this request is receiving their earnest and 

 most serious consideration. 



For the council, 



C. E. Grdnsky, 



President 

 J. W. Hobson, 



Secretary 



At the stated meeting of April 7 the council 

 reported to the academy that it had adopted 

 the following resolution: 



Having under consideration the request of the 

 academy that the council reappoint Mr. Loomis 

 curator of the department of ornithology for the 

 current year, be it 



Sesolved, that it is the sense of the council that 

 Bueh reappointment would not be for the best 

 interests of the academy. 



Upon presentation of this report from the 

 council, the following resolution was moved 

 and was adopted by the academy : 



The academy condemns and disavows the refusal 

 of its council to reappoint L. M. Loomis curator 

 of ornithology, without any charge having been 

 brought against him after eighteen years of faith- 

 ful and efficient service, as an act of unfairness, 

 and as bringing reproach on the name and equity 

 of the academy. 



A. L. Kroeber 



UNIVERSITY LIFE IK IDAHO 



To THE Editor of Science : In reply to Pro- 

 fessor KeUogg's letter in the issue of Science, 

 May 16, 1913, regarding the reported dismissal 

 of Professor Aldrich, of the University of 

 Idaho, I may say that I have not made any 

 recommendation regarding Professor Aldrich's 

 tenure of office to the board of regents, nor to 

 any member of the board — nor have I been 

 asked to do so. I am informed that the action 



of the board was undertaken on its own re- 

 sponsibility and in fulfilment of its public 

 trust, and the action was confirmed by the new 

 board of education organized for all of the edu- 

 cational institutions of Idaho. I had no part 

 in either proceeding. Accordingly, I am not 

 entitled to share in either the credit or the 

 criticism of the result. The rest of Professor 

 Kellogg's letter is likewise unsupported in fact. 



James A. MacLean, 

 President, University of Manitoba 



THE COTTRELL PROCESS FOR DEPOSITING DUST 

 AND SMOKE 



Mr. Linn Bradley, of the Research Cor- 

 poration, recently gave a lecture on the Cot- 

 treU Process' before the Lehigh Valley Sec- 

 tion of the Aiaerican Chemical Society. It 

 was my privilege to help Mr. Bradley in his 

 experimental demonstration of the process, 

 and I suggested to Mr. Bradley a modification 

 which proved to be very satisfactory for the 

 lecture table. 



A glass tube two inches in diameter and 

 four or five feet long is supported in a hori- 

 zontal position with a heavy wire or metal rod 

 lying along the bottom of the tube and con- 

 nected to one terminal of a small Holtz ma- 

 chine. A very fine wire is stretched through 

 the tube and supported on two glass columns 

 beyond the ends of the tube, and this fine wire 

 is connected to the other terminal of the elec- 

 tric machine. The best procedure is to keep 

 the machine running continuously with its 

 terminals short-circuited. Then the tube is 

 fiUed with any kind of smoke, the short cir- 

 cuit is quickly removed, and the smoke is seen 

 to be deposited very quickly indeed. 



Those who are not familiar with the process 

 may be interested to know the action which 

 takes place, which is as follows: The voltage 

 between the fine wire and the heavy wire or 

 rod is sufiicient to cause a continuous corona 



" The Cottrell process has been placed in the 

 hands of the Besearch Corporation of New York 

 City; any proceeds which may come from the 

 practical use of the process are to go to the 

 Smithsonian Institution of Washington. 



