November 24, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



743 



nents, especially North. America," in the geo- 

 logical lecture room of Harvard University 

 on November 15. 



The lecture course of the Washington Uni- 

 versity Association for 1916-17 opened this 

 year with an illustrated lecture by Dx. H. M. 

 Payne, of New York, formerly dean of the 

 Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy, on 

 " The Gold Fields of Alaska and Siberia." 



The Worcester Polytechnic Institute held 

 a memorial service for the late Dr. Levi L. 

 Conant, professor of mathematics, in Central 

 Church, on November 19. The faculty and 

 students attended in a body. The speakers 

 were Hon. Charles G. Washburn, president of 

 the board of trustees ; Professor Z. W. Coombs, 

 representing the faculty; Mr. C. H. Dwinnell, 

 vice-president of the First National Bank of 

 Boston, representing the alumni, and partic- 

 ularly the class of '94, with which Professor 

 Conant began his work at the institute; and 

 Dr. Homer P. Lewis, superintendent of the 

 Worcester schools, representing the school 

 board, of which Dr. Conant was a member for 

 nine years. 



The late Professor Clinton DeWitt Smith 

 was the organizer and first director of the 

 Agricultural College of Brazil, the first of its 

 kind in that country. The present director 

 writes that in token of grief for Professor 

 Smith's death the college was closed for two 

 days and the flag was draped in mourning 

 and hoisted at half-mast. 



We learn from Nature that Lord Rayleigh 

 presided at the meeting held at University 

 College, London, on October 31, to take steps 

 to establish a memorial to the late Sir William 

 Eamsay. Mr. J. A. Pease, MP., postmaster- 

 general, in moving that a memorial fund 

 should be raised, to be utilized in promoting 

 chemical teaching and research, under a 

 scheme to be approved hereafter, said he was 

 glad on behalf of the government to pay a 

 tribute to the memory of Sir William Ramsay 

 and to take part in the great object of the 

 meeting. The memorial should be not merely 

 national, but international. Sir J. J. Thomson 

 seconded the motion, which was supported by 

 the Belgian Minister, who wished to convey 



the respectful homage of Brussels University, 

 and by Mr. W. H. Buckler, who testified to the 

 interest of the American Ambassador and his 

 countrymen in the movement. The resolution 

 was carried. It was also agreed that the 

 meeting should resolve itself into a general 

 committee, with Lord Rayleigh as chairman, 

 to raise the necessary fund, and an executive 

 co mm ittee was appointed to circulate an 



Dr. Percival Lowell, director of the 

 Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff, Arizona, 

 which he established in 1894, died of apoplexy 

 on November 12, aged sixty-one years. 



Dr. Walter S. Sutton, professor of surgery 

 at the University of Kansas, died at his home 

 in Kansas City, Kansas, on November 10. 

 He was known to biologists for his service in 

 pointing out the mechanism in the germ cells 

 for Mendelian inheritance. 



Charles Ellery Avery, at one time instruc- 

 tor in the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 

 nology and later professor in the Massachu- 

 setts College of Pharmacy, known for his in- 

 vention of the process of manufacturing lactic 

 acid, has died, aged sixty-eight years. 



Charles Francis Roper, to whom was due 

 important inventions on automatic screws and 

 in other directions, died on November 14, at 

 the age of sixty-seven years. 



S. B. MacLaren, professor of mathematics 

 in University College, Reading, died on Au- 

 gust 14, from wounds received in battle. 



The death is also announced, at the age of 

 fifty-two years, of Dr. David Maron, a Rus- 

 sian research chemist who had been resident in 

 England for many years, as the result of an ex- 

 plosion in a munition factory in London, 

 where he was carrying on experiments in the 

 manufacture of high explosive shells. 



Mr. M. W. Dominick has arranged to equip 

 and endow the new medical library of the 

 New York Medical College and Hospital for 

 Women. Mr. Dominick offers this library as 

 a memorial to his son, Dr. George Carleton 

 Dominick, who recently died at sea. Dr. Dom- 

 inick served the college for several years as 

 lecturer and instructor. 



