26 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 731 



operations, the making of wood pulp from 

 various kinds of timber, the distillation of tur- 

 pentine and other products of wood waste, and 

 similar problems are to be included in the 

 forestry work. The United States govern- 

 ment will equip the proposed building at a 

 cost of $14,000, and will provide the entire 

 staff of investigators, whose salaries will 

 aggregate $28,000 a year. The laboratory is 

 to be available for advanced university stu- 

 dents and instructors in forestry and chemical 

 engineering. The scientific men provided by 

 the forestry service for the laboratory are to 

 give lectures in the university. 



The University of Chicago gives the first 

 two years of the medical curriculum of Rush 

 Medical College, which is affiliated with the 

 university. In order to encourage the spirit 

 and method of investigation among students 

 preparing to study medicine, the university 

 ofPers three scholarships for the session of 

 1909-10, to be awarded to applicants present- 

 ing the best theses embodying the results of 

 independent investigation in any of the sci- 

 ences fundamental to medicine — physics, 

 chemistry, or any of the biological sciences. 

 The first prize will be a scholarship for three 

 quarters ($180), the second prize a scholarship 

 for two quarters ($120), and the third prize a 

 scholarship for one quarter ($60). This com- 

 petition is open to members of the graduating 

 class or graduate students of this college. 

 Theses must be sent to the dean of medical 

 courses. The University of Chicago, on or 

 before April 1, 1909. 



Arrangements have been made at Lehigh 

 University to keep the conference department 

 open during the Christmas recess. This de- 

 partment, composed of instructors of the uni- 

 versity under the direction of one of the 

 professors, is designed to assist students who 

 find difficulty with their current work. It is 

 an innovation in college policy, which is said 

 to have proved a great help since its establish- 

 ment last September. 



By a resolution of the senate of the Uni- 

 versity of London, it has been decided to ask 

 the government to appoint a royal commission 

 with a view to the introduction of a bill to 



secure incorporation of the Imperial College 

 of Science and Technology with the Uni- 

 versity. 



We are informed that the note given promi- 

 nence by the New York papers and reprinted 

 in Science to the effect that Governor Johnson 

 had asked President Roosevelt to accept the 

 presidency of the University of Minnesota is 

 incorrect. 



Dr. Adam Sedgwick, professor of zoology 

 at Cambridge, and fellow at Trinity College, 

 has accepted a professorship of zoology at the 

 Imperial College of Science and Technology, 

 London. 



At the University of Glasgow, Dr. Cecil H. 

 Desch, of University College, London, has 

 been appointed to the Graham Young lecture- 

 ship in metallurgical chemistry to succeed Dr. 

 C. E. Fawsitt, who resigned to accept the 

 newly-established chair of chemistry in the 

 University of Sidney, N. S. W. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



THE " PINCH-EFPECT " IN UNIDIKECTIONAL 

 ELECTRIC SPARKS 



Professor Niphek has recently described* 

 some interesting experiments on momentum 

 effects in electric discharge, and writes as 

 follows concerning the unidirectional sparks 

 obtained by the insertion into the circuit of 

 strips of cloth moistened with a saline solu- 

 tion: 



. . . the sparks are large and brilliant at the 

 negative end in both positive and negative lines, 

 and thin out towards the positive end. The nega- 

 tive terminals are large spheres of about 10 cm. 

 diameter. The positive ter:^inals are small knobs, 

 of t^bout 1 cm. diameter. While on the large 

 sphere the electrons repel each other. But when 

 they start into motion across the spark-gap, they 

 attract each other eleotromagnetically. This ap- 

 pears to be the reason why the spark thins out as 

 the electrons proceed in their motion across the 

 spark-gap. [The italics are mine.] 



According to theory, two like charges repel- 

 ling each other when at rest, begin to develop 

 an electromagnetic attraction for each other 

 as soon as they are put in motion in the same 

 direction. But this attraction does not be- 



'ScDLNCE, December 4, 1908, p. 807. 



