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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1125 



Recent appointments to the Office of In- 

 vestigations in Forest Pathology, Bureau of 

 Plant Industry, are as follows : Samuel B. Det- 

 wiler, formerly field superintendent of the 

 Pennsylvania Chestnut Tree Blight Commis- 

 sion, has been appointed forest inspector in 

 charge of field work on the white pine blister 

 rust. Reginald H. Colley, lately assistant pro- 

 fessor of botany in Dartmouth College, and 

 Minnie W. Taylor, lately assistant in botany 

 in Brown University, have been appointed 

 agents to assist Dr. Perley Spaulding in re- 

 search on the white pine blister rust. Paul V. 

 Siggers, lately a graduate student in botany 

 in the University of Michigan, and Gilbert T. 

 Posey, research assistant in botany at the Ore- 

 gon Experiment Station, have been appointed 

 scientific assistants to Mr. Detwiler. George 

 L. Barrus and Norton M. Goodyear, recently 

 engaged in commercial forestry, have been ap- 

 pointed agents also assisting Mr. Detwiler. In 

 addition to these more or less permanent ap- 

 pointments, about forty field agents have been 

 appointed for temporary periods to work on 

 the white pine blister rust in cooperation 

 with various state officials. Field work on the 

 white pine blister rust east of Ohio is organ- 

 ized under the general direction of Mr. Det- 

 wiler; west of and including Ohio, under the 

 general direction of Mr. Roy G. Pierce. 



Sir Ernest Shackleton, who, on returning 

 from the South Polar zone last April, left 

 twenty-two of his companions on Elephant 

 Island, sailed on July 18 from Punta Arenas, 

 Chile, on a small schooner, hoping to rescue 

 them. If conditions are favorable, Sir Ernest 

 expects to relieve the explorers and to return 

 to Chile in four weeks. 



The final meeting for the session of the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania Chapter of the Society 

 of the Sigma Xi, was held in the electrical 

 engineering department, President E. C. Kirk 

 presiding. Addresses on " Illumination " were 

 given by Professor C. L. Clewell, from the 

 engineering standpoint, illustrated, and by 

 Professor George E. de Schweinitz, from the 

 standpoint of the ophthalmologist. The fol- 

 lowing officers for 1916-17 were elected : Presi- 

 dent, Warren P. Laird, professor of architec- 



ture; Vice-president, C. E. McClung; Treas- 

 urer, J. Percy Moore; Recording Secretary, S. 

 P. Shugert; Corresponding Secretary, W. H. 

 F. Addison. 



Plans are now being completed for the 

 eighty-sixth annual meeting of the British 

 Association, this year to be held at Newcastle- 

 on-Tyne in the first week of September, as has 

 been already noted in Science. Sir Arthur 

 Evans, the archeologist, taking the chair in 

 succession to Professor Arthur Schuster, will 

 deliver his presidential address on September 

 5. This year's sectional presidents will be: 

 Mathematical and Physical Science, Professor 

 A. 1ST. Whitehead, of the Imperial College of 

 Science; Chemistry, Professor G. G. Hender- 

 son, Glasgow; Geology, Professor W. S. Boul- 

 ton, Birmingham; Zoology, Professor E. W. 

 Macbride; Geography, Mr. D. G. Hogarth, 

 keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; 

 Economic Science and Statistics, Professor A. 

 W. Kirkaldy; Engineering, Mr. G. G. Stoney, 

 Newcastle; Anthropology, Dr. R. R. Marett; 

 Physiology, Professor A. R. Cushny, Univer- 

 sity of London; Botany, Dr. A. B. Rendle, of 

 the British Museum; Educational Science, the 

 Rev. W. Temple, rector of St. James's, Pic- 

 cadilly, and formerly headmaster of Repton 

 School, and Agriculture, Dr. E. J. Russell, di- 

 rector of the Rothampsted Experimental Sta- 

 tion at Harpenden. Evening lectures will be 

 given by Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, secretary of 

 the Zoological Society, on " Evolution and the 

 War," and by Professor W. A. Bone on " In- 

 tensified Combustion." 



Major E. Tait Mackenzie, R.A.M.O, pro- 

 fessor of physical education, University of 

 Pennsylvania, opened a discussion on the ne- 

 cessity for a national scheme of physical edu- 

 cation, at a meeting of the Royal Sanitary 

 Institute, at the Municipal School of Tech- 

 nology, Manchester, on July 7. 



The collection of ethnological remains 

 brought from South America by Dr. W. C. 

 Farrabee will require more than three months 

 to arrange, and therefore will not be on ex- 

 hibition until next fall. The expedition, which 

 was headed by Dr. Farrabee, extended over a 



