December 25, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



921 



It is stated in The Condor that Mr. Austin 

 Paul Smith has returned from Mexico and is 

 now working with the birds on the United 

 States side of the lower Eio Grande in the 

 vicinity of Brownsville, Texas. 



Dr. Vernon L. Kellogg, professor of ento- 

 mology at Stanford University, is spending 

 the present year abroad. He will be in Paris 

 until May, and may be addressed care of the 

 American Express Company, 11 rue Scribe, 

 Paris. 



Professor C. V. Tower, of the University 

 of Vermont, has gone abroad for graduate 

 study and travel. 



Professor Edward B. Titchener, of Cornell 

 University, will give at the University of 

 Illinois, a series of lectures in psychology, 

 probably during the latter part of March. 



Dr. Albrecht Pence, professor of geog- 

 raphy in the University of Berlin, and Kaiser 

 Willielm professor in Columbia University for 

 1909, has lectured before the Geographical So- 

 ciety of Philadelphia, on " The Origin of the 

 Alps." 



It is planned to collect $7,500 with which 

 to purchase the valuable chemical library of 

 the late Professor W. O. Atwater, and present 

 it to Wesleyan University. The library con- 

 tains more than 5,000 volumes, including about 

 2,500 volumes of periodicals. 



Mr. Joseph H. Painter, assistant in the 

 division of botany, National Museum, Wash- 

 ington, D. C, was drowned in the rapids of 

 the Potomac on December 6, 1908, near the 

 headquarters of the Washington Biologists' 

 Field Club, of which he was a member. The 

 evidence tends to show that he was overturned 

 in a canoe with a boy companion, Robert S. 

 Wallis, and lost his life in the vain endeavor 

 to rescue his friend, who was unable to swim. 

 The Field Club has added to the efforts and 

 incentives to recover the bodies and has 

 adopted the following memorial: "Resolved, 

 That the Washington Biologists' Field Club 

 has suffered a profound loss in the death of 

 Mr. Joseph H. Painter. That the club has 

 the highest admiration and respect for the 

 noble character and heroic sacrifice for a 



younger companion, which appears to have led 

 to Mr. Painter's untimely end. That the club 

 extends its sincerest sympathy to the bereaved 

 relatives." 



M. Charles E. Stuivaert, associate astron- 

 omer in the Royal Observatory of Belgium, 

 died on November 18, at the age of fifty-seven 

 years. 



The deaths are also announced of Dr. Hugo 

 Hertzer, formerly professor of mathematics in 

 the Berlin Institute of Technology, and of 

 M. Charles Ballet, the French horticulturist. 



The ficfth and sixth stories of the building 

 in Washington in which the Geological Survey 

 is housed were swept by fire on December 16, 

 and serious loss by fii'e and water was suffered 

 by collections, books, maps and field notes. 

 This building is rented by the government; 

 the need of a fireproof building for the Geo- 

 logical Survey has each year been pointed out 

 by the director. 



Mr. J. 0. Campbell, president of the Na- 

 tional Bank of Commerce, Columbus, Ohio, 

 has provided a fund for lectures on scientific 

 subjects to be delivered under the auspices of 

 the Omega Chapter of the Society of Sigma 

 Xi in Ohio State University. 



The Naples Table Association for promo- 

 ting laboratory research by women announces 

 that applications for the table at the Naples 

 Zoological Station should be made by March 

 1, 1909. A prize of $1,000 for the best thesis 

 written by a woman, on a scientific subject, 

 embodying new observations and new conclu- 

 sions based on an independent laboratory re- 

 search in biological, chemical or physical sci- 

 ence will be awarded for the third time in 

 April, 1909. Further information may be 

 obtained from the secretary, Mrs. A. D. Mead, 

 283 Wayland Avenue, Providence, R. I. 



THE RESIGNATION OF PRESIDENT ELIOT 

 In accepting with reluctance and keen re- 

 gret the resignation of President Charles W. 

 Eliot, of Harvard University, the overseers of 

 Harvard College make this record of admira- 

 tion and esteem : 



Called to the presidency in early manhood, he 

 has administered the affairs of tliis university for 



