172 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 710 



PRESS BVLLLETINS OF THE FOREST 

 SERVICE 



A CLAUSE in the Agricultural Appropriation 

 Bill afiecting the Forest Service has been the 

 subject of a recent opinion by the Attorney 

 General. The clause provided that no part of 

 the appropriation for the Forest Service 

 " shall be paid or used for the purpose of pay- 

 ing for in whole or in part the preparation or 

 publication of any newspaper or magazine 

 article, but this shall not prevent the giving 

 out to all persons without discrimination, in- 

 cluding newspaper and magazine writers and 

 publishers, of any facts or official informa- 

 tion of value to the public." 



The question was submitted to the Attorney 

 General by the Secretary of Agriculture, 

 whether this provision of the law prohibited 

 the sending to newspapers, writers, and others 

 of such statements as it has been distributing 

 in the past. To this inquiry the Attorney 

 General replied : " You express the view that 

 in distributing such information as is com- 

 piled and sent out by the Forest Service, espe- 

 cially to persons engaged in the practise or 

 study of Forestry, and generally to the public 

 at large through the newspapers and maga- 

 zines, you are fulfilling the primary and 

 fundamental duty imposed upon the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture by section 520 of the 

 Revised Statutes. Information thus given 

 out will be accompanied by a notice that it is 

 sent in accordance with the proviso to the 

 appropriation act of 1908. There will there- 

 fore be no discrimination; and you say, 

 further, that no money will be paid on this 

 account to any newspaper or magazine or to 

 any newspaper or magazine writer or pub- 

 lisher, or to any person not regularly employed 

 in the Forest Service. Obviously, such in- 

 formation as has been collated and distributed 

 heretofore and will continue to be sent out 

 is of value to the public, and certainly your 

 determination that it is so, as head of the 

 Department of Agriculture, is conclusive. 

 Under this state of facts I can see no reason 

 to doubt that your conception of your official 

 duty in this respect is legally correct, and 

 that the Forester may lawfully distribute in- 



formation as proposed; and I am also of 

 opinion that information requested by a news- 

 paper or magazine writer or publisher may 

 lawfully be sent in the form of a letter." 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 

 Professob George E. Hale, director of the 

 Solar Observatory of the Carnegie Institution, 

 has been elected a foreign correspondent of 

 the Paris Academy of Sciences in the place 

 of the late Asaph Hall. 



The Chemical Society of the Netherlands 

 has elected as honorary members Professor J. 

 H. van't Hofi, of Berlin, and Professor J. van 

 Bemmelen, of Leiden. 



The Vienna Academy of Sciences has 

 awarded its Lieben prize of 2,000 crowns to 

 Professor P. Friedlander, of Vienna, for his 

 work on thioindigo, and its Heidinger prize 

 of 2,500 crowns to Professor M. Smoluchowski 

 von Smolan, of Lemberg, for his work on the 

 kinetic theory of molecular movements in 

 liquids and gases. 



Count Zeppelin, on the occasion of his 

 seventieth birthday, has been awared an hon- 

 orary doctorate of science by the University 

 of Tubingen. He has also been made an 

 honorary citizen of the cities of Constance 

 and Stuttgart, and has been given the gold 

 medal for art and science by the King of 

 Wittemberg. 



Professor A. Stodola, of the Ziirich Poly- 

 technic College, has been awared the Grashof 

 gold medal of the Society of German Engi- 

 neers. 



M. Bouchard has been elected president of 

 the Paris Academy of Sciences to fill the 

 vacancy caused by the resignation of M. Bec- 

 querel to become permanent secretary. M. 

 Picard succeeds M. Bouchard in the vice- 

 presidency. 



At the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 

 nology Mr. Waldemar Lindgren, of the United 

 States Geological Survey, has been appointed 

 lecturer in economic geology, to succeed Pro- 

 fessor James F. Kemp, of Columbia Uni- 

 versity. 



