Decembee 11, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



837 



The Drapers' Company has granted £500, to 

 be paid in five annual instalments of £100, to 

 the Middlesex Hospital cancer research fund 

 to assist the governors in maintaining the 

 investigations which are being pursued into 

 the cause of cancer and its cure. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS 



The legislature of Vermont has acted favor- 

 ably upon the proposition to establish at 

 Middlebury College a department of pedagogy 

 for the training of high school teachers. The 

 bill, which has been signed by Governor 

 Prouty, carries an annual appropriation of 

 $6,000. 



EiCHMOND College, at Eichmond, Va., con- 

 trolled by the Baptists of that state, has col- 

 lected $350,000, required to secure a condi- 

 tional gift of $150,000 from Mr. John D, 

 Eockefeller. 



Eighteen months have now elapsed since 

 the Chancellor's Fund for the further endow- 

 ment of Oxford University was inaugurated. 

 The committee then appointed under the 

 chairmanship of Lord Curzon to organize the 

 appeal has so far been successful in its efforts 

 to raise the required sum of £250,000 that it 

 has now received gifts or promises of a total 

 value of more than £133,000. Eecent sub- 

 scribers have been: Sir Julius Wemher, 

 £2,000; Mrs. Craig-SeUar, £1,000; Mr. Otto 

 Beit, £500; the Merchant Tailors' Company, 

 £500; Mr. J. Hamilton Beattie, £300; Mr. 

 Gerard Craig-Sellar, £300; the Skinners' Com- 

 pany, £250. Mr. Henry Phipps has added 

 £200 to his original gift of £1,000, and Lord 

 Brassey has given £200 for the School of 

 Geography in addition to the £1,000 promised 

 by him for the School of Engineering. 



The board of managers of Haverford Col- 

 lege and the faculty held recently their annual 

 joint meeting. The topics for discussion were 

 the advisability of increasing the number of 

 dormitories, and as to whether it would be well 

 to limit the number of students by raising the 

 entrance requirement. 



The Central Association of Science and 

 Mathematics Teachers, at its meeting held in 

 Chicago on November 28, unanimously passed 



the following resolutions as embodying the 

 conclusions of the association with regard to 

 two important matters of interest to all 

 teachers of science: 



Resolved, That we believe in the recognition 

 and inclusion within our courses of the practical 

 and applied aspects that make possible an appre- 

 ciable significance and belief in the worthwhileness 

 in practical life of the various subjects studied; 

 and 



Resolved, That we believe that tne formulation 

 of secondary school courses should be made en- 

 tirely from the point of view of the needs of the 

 majority of secondary school pupils; and, further, 

 that any course that is best for the majority of 

 secondary school pupils is best for college entrance. 



Professor Walter S. Graffam, of Howard 

 University, Washington, D. C, has accepted 

 the instructorship in mechanic arts at Smith's 

 Agricultural School and Northampton School 

 of Technology. He will be placed at the head 

 of the mechanic arts department, and will take 

 up his new duties September 1, 1909. 



Deans of faculties at the University of 

 London have been elected as follows : For 

 medicine. Professor S. H. C. Martin, F.E.S. ; 

 for science. Professor J. M. Thomson, F.E.S. ; 

 for engineering. Professor W. E. Dalby. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



AN ELECTRIC STORM ON THE WASHAKIE NEEDLES 



To the issue of Science of November 6, 

 1908, Professor J. E. Church, Jr., contributes 

 an article entitled, " Electric Disturbances and 

 Perils on Mountain Tops." The exceedingly 

 interesting phenomena there described recall 

 a personal experience, vivid and unpleasant, 

 and of like character, but differing enough 

 in detail to render it possibly worthy of being 

 recorded. It has remained until now un- 

 published, because I feared that as it came 

 from one who had no pretensions to scientific 

 education, it might not meet with credence. 

 What follows happened near the top of some 

 mountains in Wyoming, to the southeast of 

 the Yellowstone Park, generally known on 

 local maps as the Washakie Needles. Visible 

 from a long distance, these sharp gray peaks 

 are somewhat higher than the surrounding 

 range, and two well-known streams. Owl Creek 



