SCIENCE 



Friday, February 1, 1918 



CONTENTS 

 The American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science: — 



The Near Future of Botany in America: 

 Dr. C. Stuart Gagee 101 



Scientific Events: — 



Mining in Alaska; Military Medical Se- 

 search in France 115 



Scientific Notes and News 117 



University and Educational News 118 



Discussion and Correspondence : — 



Vitamines and Nutrition: Dr. H. Steen- 

 BOCK. A Flood in the Valley of the Oris- 

 kany Creek: H. N. Eaton 119 



Scientific Books: — 

 Norihrup on the Laws of Physical Science: 

 Professor A. L. Kimball 120 



The Proceedings of the National Academy of 

 Sciences: Professor Edwin Bidwell Wil- 

 son 121 



Special Articles: — 



The Determination of Atomic Weights iy 

 Means of X-Bays: Dr. C. W. Kanolt 1 23 



The Mathematical Association of America: 

 Dr. W. D. Cairns 124 



MSS. iLtendod for publication and books, etc., intended for 

 review sboulc be sent to The Editor of &cieDce, Garri^OQ^a- 

 Hudron, N. Sr. 



THE NEAR FUTURE OF BOTANY IN 

 AMERICA! 



The honor of the vice-presidency and 

 chairmanship of Section 6 came to the 

 speaker following the removal, by death, in 

 1916, of Professor T. J. Burrill, who was 

 originally elected to preside at the New 

 York meeting last year. "We may fittingly 

 pause for a moment to recall to memory the 

 one who, had he been spared, would have 

 addressed us on this occasion. Older than 

 the present speaker by nearlj' thirty-five 

 years, he would have spoken out of a rich 

 experience to the profit of us all. He was, 

 as j'ou well know, a pioneer in the science 

 of phytopathology, the discoverer of the 

 first recorded bacterial disease of plants, a 

 successful teacher and scientific adminis- 

 trator, and a man whose nobility of char- 

 acter and genial disposition endeared him 

 to all who knew him. 



The title of this address was chosen and 

 the body of it completed before it had oc- 

 curred to me to consult the Proceedings of 

 the fifty-first meeting of the association to 

 see what might have been the subject of 

 the vice-presidential address at the pre- 

 ceding Pittsburgh meeting, in June-Julj', 

 1902. It is therefore doubly interesting to 

 note that Dr. Galloway's subject was "Ap- 

 plied Botany, Retrospective and Prospec- 

 tive." 



The pendulum of the Section has thus 

 completed what my professor of physics 

 used to call one complete swing-swang, 



1 Address of the vice-president and chairman of 

 Section G, Botany, of the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, Pittsburgh, December 

 29, 1917. 



