OCTOBEE 30, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



603 



in the evening at which less foirmal speeches 

 will be made. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



Professor H. F. Osborn will deliver the 

 third series of the " Norman W. Harris 

 Lectures " before Northwestern University, 

 from December 3 to 11. The subject of the 

 course is " The Age ©f Mammals in Europe 

 and America." The lectures treat of the 

 Casnozoic period faunistically and from the 

 standpoint of migrations between the old and 

 the new worlds. According to the conditions 

 of the lectureship they will be published sub- 

 sequently in book form. 



Dr. Theobald Smith, professor of compara- 

 tive pathology in the Harvard Medical School, 

 will give a course of eight Lowell lectures on 

 " Our Defenses against the Microorganisms 

 of Disease." These lectures, beginning March 

 16, will be given on Tuesdays and Fridays. 



The non-resident lecturer in mathematical 

 physics at Columbia University for the year 

 1908-9 is Professor Max Planck, of Berlin. 

 In the latter part of April and the early part 

 of May, 1909, he will deliver a course of 

 lectures upon " The Present System of Theo- 

 retical Physics," dealing particularly with the 

 questions of reversibility, heat-radiation, and 

 the principle of relativity. Details of the 

 dates and subjects of the individual lectures 

 will be published early in March. 



Professor Bateson delivered an inaugural 

 lecture at Cambridge University on October 

 23, on " The Methods and Scope of Genetics." 



Dr. William P. Mason, professor of chem- 

 istry at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 

 of Troy, N. T., gave the annual Founders' 

 Day address at Lafayette College, on October 

 21, his subject being " A Plea for a wider and 

 better Extension of the Knowledge of Sanitary 

 Science. The degree of LL.D. was conferred 

 upon Professor Mason. 



In connection with the visit of the members 

 of the Congress of Electrical Units to Cam- 

 bridge University, degrees of doctor of science 

 were conferred on Dr. S. W. Stratton, Pro- 

 fessor Svante A. Arrhenius, Professor G. 

 Lippmann and Dr. E. G. Warburg. 



Mr. W. H. Holmes, chief of the Bureau of 

 American Ethnology, sailed for South Amer- 

 ica on October 28, as delegate of the United 

 States to the Pan-American Scientific Con- 

 gress. He will return in February. During 

 his absence Mr. F. W. Hodge will be in charge 

 of the bureau. 



In accordance with the current federal agri- 

 cultural appropriation act, authorizing the es- 

 tablishment of an experiment station in the 

 Island of Guam, Dr. W. H. Evans, of the 

 Office of Experiment Stations, has visited the 

 island and selected a site for the station at 

 Agana. The station will be conducted under 

 the immediate supervision of the office, with 

 H. L. V. Costenoble as agent in charge. 



Sir Daniel Morris, Imperial Commissioner, 

 West Indian Agricultural Department, has 

 resigned. 



Mr. Eoswell H. Johnson has resigned his 

 position as investigator at the Station for 

 Experimental Evolution of the Carnegie Insti- 

 tution at Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y., to be- 

 come a consulting geologist. His manuscript 

 on " Determinate Evolution in the Color Pat- 

 tern of the Lady Beetles " is now in press. 



Dr. I. F. Lewis has returned from Europe, 

 where he has been studying at Naples and 

 Bonn, and has resumed his duties as professor 

 of biology at Randolph-Macon CoUege, Ash- 

 land, Va. 



Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose, M.D. (Cantab.), 

 D.Sc. (Lond.), professor of the Presidency 

 College, Calcutta, addressed the Biological 

 Club of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 

 nology on October 22. His subject was " The 

 Plant as a Living Machine," and the lecture 

 was followed by a demonstration of plant 

 responses, mechanical and electrical. 



The 34Yth regular meeting of the Middle- 

 town Scientific Association was held in the 

 Scott Laboratory of Physics, Wesleyan Uni- 

 versity, on October 27, when Professor Her- 

 bert William Conn delivered an address on 

 " The Fight against Tuberculosis." 



A meeting of the Columbia Chapter of the 

 Society of Sigma Xi was held with the de- 

 partment of physics, on October 29. The 



