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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 729« 



Offprints of articles on genetics for notice 

 in tlie Zeitschrift fur induhtive Ahstamrmings- 

 und V ererbungslehre should be sent to Dr. E. 

 M. East, Agricultural Experiment Station, 

 New Haven, Conn. 



President-designate Taft will deliver the 

 oration at the University of Pennsylvania at 

 the annual celebration on Washington's birth- 

 day. 



Dr. Erancis G. Benedict, director of the 

 Nutrition Laboratory of the Carnegie Institu- 

 tion at Boston, will give the first of a series 

 of special lectures on hygiene to the students 

 of the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Benedict 

 will speak on " The Influence of Mental and 

 Muscular Work on the Assimilation of Food." 

 The regular meeting of the Columbia Chap- 

 ter of the Society of Sigma Xi was held on 

 December 10, when Professor William H. 

 Burr, of the department of civil engineering, 

 addressed the society on the topic " The 

 Quebec and Blackwells Island Cantilever 

 Bridges." The lecturer discussed the cause of 

 the failure of the former and the recent criti- 

 cisms of the latter and the reports of the in- 

 vestigations of that structure recently made 

 public. 



At the first meeting of the Cornell Chapter 

 of Sigma Xi for the present year, held on 

 November 21, President Edmund A. Engler, 

 of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, gave 

 an address on " The Eeign of Law." About 

 forty members of the chapter were present. 



Dr. J. Paul Goode, of the University of 

 Chicago, gave an address before the Geograph- 

 ical Society of Chicago, on December 11, on 

 the subject " The Great Seaports of Europe." 

 Professor S. A. Mitchell, of Columbia 

 University, has been delivering courses of 

 lectures on astronomy at Asbury Park, N. J., 

 Totterville, N. T., and Newark, N. J. 



The Vienna College of Physicians will cele- 

 brate the centenary of the death of Auen- 

 brugger, the inventor of percussion, on May 

 18, 1909. A marble memorial tablet will be 

 placed on the house in which he died. 



A medallion of M. Laveran has been placed 

 in the military hospital of Constantine, 



Algiers, where he discovered the parasite of 

 malaria in 1880. 



Mrs. Frederick F. Thompson has given to 

 the New York State Museum as a memorial 

 of her father, former Governor Myron H. 

 Clark, the sum of fifteen thousand dollars, for 

 a representation of the culture of the Six 

 Nations of New York, to be known as the 

 Clark Museum of Iroquois Culture. 



A press despatch from Washington, dated 

 December 8, says : " Appropriations aggre- 

 gating $636,300 were made to-day at the an- 

 nual meeting of the board of trustees of the 

 Carnegie Institution of Washington. This 

 amount is not intended to cover any new work,, 

 but will cover the operations of the institution 

 planned for 1909. Dr. Carroll D. Wright, 

 president of Clark College, presented his- 

 resignation as trustee, but indicated a desire- 

 to continue his work as director of the depart- 

 ment of economics and sociology of the in- 

 stitution. Dr. Charles W. Eliot, president of 

 Harvard University, and Mr. Martin A. 

 Eyerson, of Chicago, were elected trustees of 

 the institution to fill vacancies in the board."" 



The graduate clubs of the departments of 

 philosophy, history, political economy, poli- 

 tical science and sociology of the University 

 of Chicago have formed an interdepartmental 

 organization known as the Social Science 

 Clubs Union with Mr. L. L. Bernard, of the 

 department of sociology, as president. The 

 union plans to have during the year a number- 

 of meetings and four lectures, by distin- 

 guished men from outside the university, on- 

 topics of interest to all the departments. The 

 meeting of December 17 will be addressed by 

 Professor Roseoe Pound, of Northwestern- 

 University Law School, on " Freedom of Con- 

 tract — the notion of an inviolable right of 

 contracting as one pleases which is one of the- 

 chief legal obstacles in the way of modern 

 social legislation." The union has the finan- 

 cial backing of the university. 



Portraits, given by various persons, of the- 

 following distinguished men have been framed 

 and hung in the seminary room of the social 

 sciences and history in Linsly Hall, Yale Uni- 

 versity: Christopher Columbus, William Pat- 



