Mat 3, 1918] 



SCIENCE 



437 



Attention is called in the American Mu- 

 seum Journal to the fact that Dr. Frank M. 

 Chapman, curator of ornithology, who is sec- 

 ond in point of seniority on the scientific staff 

 of the American Museum of Natural Historj-, 

 completed on March 1, 1918, his thirtieth year 

 of connection with the institution. He joined 

 as assistant curator of vertebrate zoology in 

 1888. " He has, from the first, devoted him- 

 self chiefls' to ornithology, attaining preemi- 

 nence in educational and scientific work in 

 that branch. The effectiveness and high eco- 

 logical value of the large series of habitat bird 

 groups in the museum, which it is said by 

 competent observers are second to no exhibits 

 of birds in the world, are based on the careful 

 observations made during his extensive field 

 studies." 



LiEUTEN.4NT Peter K. Outsky, Medical 

 Corps, U. S. A., and of the scientific staff of 

 The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Re- 

 search, upon permission granted him by the 

 surgeon-general, sailed from Vancouver on 

 April 11, for China, in response to a cabled re- 

 quest received by the institute from the colon- 

 ial secretary at Hong Kong for assistance in a 

 local outbreak of epidemic meningitis. Dr. 

 Olitsky is to advise the Hong Kong govern- 

 ment concerning the control of the disease, 

 and especially in the preparation of an effec- 

 tive serum and the institution of other thera- 

 peutic and prophylactic measures. 



At the request of the South African Insti- 

 tute for Medical Research, The Rockefeller In- 

 stitute for Medical Research has arranged 

 with the Vermont State Department of Health 

 to release Dr. Edward Taylor for temporary 

 service in Johannesburg to advise the govern- 

 ment there in respect to an epidemic of polio- 

 myelitis prevailing in that region. Dr. Taylor 

 sailed from New York on April 20. 



Dr. Herbert J. Spinden, assistant curator in 

 the department of anthropology at the Ameri- 

 can Museum, is on his way to Colombia, South 

 America, to make a general archeological sur- 

 vey. 



BRrKGiNO an appeal for a doctor by Vilhjal- 

 mur Stefanson, the Arctic explorer, who lies 



dangerously ill on Horschel Island, a messenger 

 reached Fort Yukon, Alaska, on April 25, 

 after a record-bre^iking trip from the north. 

 In a message carried by the courier Stefans- 

 son told of being ill fifty days, after being 

 stricken with typhoid and pneumonia, fol- 

 lowed by complications. A Northwest mounted 

 I>oliceman and two Eskimos have died of ty- 

 phoid, while several others are iU. A doctor 

 already is on his way to Herschel Island. 



Dr. H. C. Cowles, of the department of bot- 

 any of the University of Chicago, visited the 

 Iowa State College on April 12 and gave the 

 annual address for the national honorary so- 

 cieties Phi Kappa Phi and Gamma Sigma 

 Delta. 



Professor S. W. Parr, professor of chem- 

 ical engineering at the University of Illinois, 

 recently gave an address at the Iowa State 

 College before the Ames Section of the Amer- 

 ican Chemical Society. 



The annual oration of the Medical Society 

 of London will be delivered by Dr. T. S. Hyslop 

 on May 13, upon the subject of " Degeneration 

 in Art, Science and Medicine." 



A KNOLL on the University of Wisconsin 

 Campus on which John Muir, the naturalist and 

 explorer, received his first lesson in botany 

 under a locust tree while a student at the uni- 

 versity, is to be officially dedicated and named 

 " Muir Knoll." The ceremony will be held on 

 alumni day, June 18, during commencement 

 week. 



The deaths are announced of R. S. Trevor, 

 lecturer on pathologj- and dean of St. George's 

 Medical School, London, aged forty-six years 

 and of G. A. Petrone, lecturer in pathology 

 and pediatrics at the University of Naples, 

 aged forty-four years. 



Charles Keene Dodge, of Port Hiiron, 

 Michigan, died at Ann Arbor on March 22. in 

 his seventy -fourth year. A correspondent 

 writes : " For forty years he had been inter- 

 ested in the botany of eastern Michigan and 

 adjacent portions of Canada, and for the last 

 decade was unquestionably the foremost stu- 

 dent of higher plants in these regions. He 

 published many regional lists of plants. His 



