Apbil 2, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



541 



The Naturwissentschaftliche Rundschau 

 aiuiouiices that Dr. J". Konigsberger, associate 

 professor of theoretical physics at Freiberg, 

 has accepted a position in the Geophysical 

 Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington. 



- De. p. Renner has been appointed curator 

 of the cryptogamie herbarium at Munich. 



Recent foreign visitors at the Bureau of 

 Plant Industry, Washington, have been Pro- 

 fessor Vittorio Peglion, of the University of 

 Bologna, Italy; Sr. Don Romulo Escobar, 

 president of the Agricultural College of Chi- 

 huahua, Mexico; Mr. Joseph A. Rosen, 

 chief of the Agricultural Bureau of the 

 Governmental Zemstvo of Ekaterinoslov, 

 Russia- 



Professor Paul Hanus, of Harvard Uni- 

 versity, was elected president of the National 

 Society of College Teachers of Education, at 

 the recent annual meeting in Chicago. 



Dr. Jan Bosscha, professor of physics at 

 the Delft Technical School and secretary of 

 the Dutch Academy of Sciences, has retired 

 from active service. 



Dr. Haven Metcalf, of the Bureau of Plant 

 Industry, returned recently from an extensive 

 trip in northern Italy, where he was engaged 

 in collecting varieties of rice resistant to the 

 disease hrusone, which he demonstrated to be 

 identical with the blast of rice in America. 



Dr. Frederik van Eeden, of Amsterdam, 

 gave two lectures on March 24 at the Univer- 

 sity of Wisconsin, on " The Mission of the 

 Poet" and "The Mind in Health and Dis- 

 ease." 



Professor W. E. Castle, of Harvard Uni- 

 versity, delivered a lecture on " Heredity," at 

 the New Hampshire College of Agriculture 

 and Mechanic Arts on March 1. 



The Colorado Chapter of the Society of the 

 Sigma Xi held a banquet on the evening of 

 March 19, after which Professor F. W. Trap- 

 hagen, of Columbia Chapter, now professor of 

 metallurgy and assaykig in the Colorado 

 School of Mines at Golden, read a paper on 

 "Expert Testimony." 



Professor John M. Coulter, of the Uni- 

 versity of Chicago, addressed the Botanical 



Society of Washington on Friday evening, 

 February 12, on " Evolution in Gymnosperms." 

 On March 25 Professor Herbert J. Webber, of 

 Cornell University, read a paper before the 

 society entitled, " Is There a Cumulative 

 Action of Selection ? " 



The first course of lectures on the Hitch- 

 cock Foundation, which provides for a series 

 of scientific lectures to be delivered annually 

 at the University of California, has just been 

 finished by Professor Julius Stieglitz, of the 

 University of Chicago, on the general subjects 

 of ionization and catalysis. The titles of the 

 lectures were : (1) " The Theories of Solu- 

 tion"; (2) "The Theory of Ionization and 

 Electric Phenomena"; (3), (4) and (5) 

 "Theory of Ionization and Chemical Phe- 

 nomena," including salt formation, etc.; (6) 

 "Complex Ions"; (7) and (8) "The Electric 

 Theory of Oxidation and Reduction"; (9) 

 and (10) " Catalysis." Professor Stieglitz's 

 lectures were attended by 200 to 300 people, 

 including a number of chemists from the sur- 

 rounding cities. 



The centenary of the birth of Oliver Wen- 

 dell Hohnes win be celebrated at Harvard 

 University, where he was professor of anat- 

 omy and physiology from 1847 to 1882, in 

 Sanders Theater on April 27. President 

 Eliot will preside, and brief addresses will be 

 made by Dr. Edward Waldo Emerson, of Con- 

 cord, by Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson^ 

 by Dr. David Williams Cheever, and by Rev. 

 Samuel M. Crothers, D.D. 



The committee in charge of a fund for & 

 memorial to the late Dr. Andrew J. McCosh 

 announces that more than $100,000 has been 

 subscribed. The fund will be devoted to- 

 some portion of the new buildings of the Pres- 

 byterian Hospital, with the surgical service- 

 of which Dr. McCosh was identified. 



We learn from the Bulletin of the Ameri- 

 can Mathematical Society that at the Vienna 

 meeting of the Astronomische Gesellschaft 

 it was voted to solicit funds for the erection 

 of a Gauss tower on Hohenhagen, the high- 

 est mountain near Gottingen, at the vertex 

 of the Brocken-Gottingen-Hohenhagen tri- 

 angle with which Gauss experimented con- 



