April 30, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



.697 



maintenance. This laboratory will be fortu- 

 nately situated for the study of many inter- 

 esting ecological and physiological problems, 

 inasmuch as Devil's Lake is a large body of 

 brackish water with no outlet and represents 

 the collected water supply of a large interior 

 drainage basin. The direction of this labora- 

 tory will be under the charge of the biological 

 department of the State University, of which 

 Professor Melvin A. Brannon is head. 



The fifteenth general meeting of the Amer- 

 ican Electrochemical Society will be held at 

 Niagara Falls, Canada, on May 6, 7 and 8. 

 The retiring president, Mr. E. G. Acheson, 

 has chosen as the subject of his address " The 

 Eleetrochemist and the Conservation of Our 

 National Resources." The program includes 

 a symposium on " The Electrometallurgy of 

 Iron and Steel," to include eleven papers. 



The New York Botanical Garden offers the 

 following prizes for essays not exceeding 5,000 

 words, from the income of the Caroline and 

 Olivia E. Stokes Eund for the Preservation of 

 Native Plants: (1) $40, (2) $25, (3) $15. 

 Essays must be typewritten in duplicate and 

 must reach the garden not later than June 20, 

 1909. 



King Leopold, of Belgium, has decided to 

 grant a prize of $5,000 to the author of the 

 best work answering the following question: 

 "Describe the progress of aerial navigation 

 and the best means to encourage it." All 

 essays or works relative to the subject and 

 competing for the prize must be sent to the 

 minister of science and arts in Brussels before 

 March 1, 1911. The competition is open to all 

 nationalities. No new edition of any work 

 already in print will be admitted to this com- 

 petition unless it comprises thorough changes 

 and considerable additions. In case certain 

 sections of any work or essay on the subject 

 have already been published, such work or 

 essay may still be able to enter in this com- 

 petition providing the last part is published 

 during the time allotted for the competition. 

 The jury will comprize three Belgians and 

 four foreign members. No member of the 

 jury will be allowed to send any work or essay 

 to the competition. The manuscript, work or 



essay winning the prize must be published 

 during the year following the one in which the 

 prize will be awarded. Competitors may use 

 French, English, Flemish, German, Italian, 

 Spanish or Portuguese. 



The Hampstead Scientific Society has 

 under consideration a proposal to establish an 

 astronomical observatory and meteorological 

 station on the reservoir near the summit of 

 Hampstead Heath, London. It is proposed to 

 rent, at a nominal charge, a portion of the 

 top of the reservoir near the Whitestone Pond, 

 to build there an observatory house, and to 

 erect the eight-inch reflecting telescope, equa- 

 torially mounted, by Grubb, presented to the 

 society some two years ago by Dr. F. Womack ; 

 and to establish on the same area a meteorolog- 

 ical station, equipped as a " Normal Climato- 

 logical Station" under the regulations of the 

 Meteorological Office. 



Aerangements have been made by Professor 

 Foerster, of the University of Berlin, to re- 

 publish in German an abstract of the docu- 

 ments of the American Association for Inter- 

 national Conciliation. Separate articles by 

 Mr. Elihu Eoot, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, Pro- 

 fessor Ladd, of Yale, and Professor Howe, of 

 the University of Pennsylvania, have be6n 

 translated into foreign languages, but this is 

 the first arrangement for a general translation 

 and republication. 



The Appalachian Engineering Association 

 wiU meet in Eoanoke, Va., on Saturday, May 

 8, when the following papers will be read: 



" Lead and Zinc Ores in Wythe and Pulaski 

 Counties," by Mr. M. M. Caldwell, of Roanoke. 



"Organization and Engineering Difficulties of 

 the Virginian Railway," by Major William N. 

 Page, of Washington, D. C. 



" The Virgilina Copper District," by Dr. Thomas 

 L. Watson, State Geologist of Virginia, and Pro- 

 fessor of Economic Geology, University of Vir- 

 ginia. 



" Geologic Engineering Cod© of Ethics," by 

 Captain Baird Halberstadt, of Pottsville, Pa. 



" Properties and Uses of Mineral Gypsum," by 

 Dr. Frank A. Wilder, of North Holston, Va., 

 ex-State Geologist of Iowa. 



The meeting wiU. be followed on Saturday 

 evening by a banquet for the association 



