980 
London, Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris, abroad, 
as well as in Buffalo, St. Louis and Boston, 
here, and that this institution. has the advan- 
tage of having an organization of men thor- 
oughly trained in cancer research work, which 
it has taken ten years to develop and bring 
together. 
The problem of cancer is the most serious 
vt all the problems that confront the medical 
profession to-day. The steady increase of the 
disease baffling all efforts to discover the 
cause or a means of controlling it has at- 
tracted the leading minds in medicine to the 
field of cancer research. The only hope of a 
solution of this great problem is by bringing 
to bear upon the problem, the combined ef- 
forts of every department of medical science 
and by having the closest affiliation between 
the cancer wards and the scientifie labora- 
tories of a great university. W. B. C. 
THE NATIONAL ARGENTINE 
OBSERV ATORY 
Upon the recommendation of the Minister 
of Public Instruction the Argentine Con- 
gress has provided in its budget for 1912 a 
5 foot reflecting telescope for the National 
Observatory at Cérdoba. 
Tt is expected to locate this telescope in the 
mountains to the west of and close to Cér- 
doba where preliminary investigations have 
already been made and the meteorological 
conditions found to be good. 
The program of work for this telescope 
comprises photographs and other investiga- 
tions of the nebulz and clusters of the south- 
ern sky, in continuation of similar work in 
the northern sky; photographie observations 
of comets, faint satellites, ete.; stellar para- 
lax; observations of special regions of the 
sky; spectrographic observations with high 
and low dispersion and in the line of sight. 
C. D. Perrin 
OBSERVATORIO NACIONAL ARGENTINO, 
CérDOBA, May 11, 1912 
AN INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF 
ANTHROPOLOGY 
Ar an International Conference called by 
the Royal Anthropological Institute and held 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Von. XXXV. No. 913 
June 4 in the rooms of the institute, London, 
immediately following the sessions of the In- 
ternational Congress of Americanists, it was 
voted to organize an international congress of 
the anthropological sciences, which shall either 
include several existing congresses or work in 
affiliation with them. The congresses which 
it is hoped may become a part of the projected 
congress are Congrés International d’Anthro- 
pologie et d’Archéologie Préhistoriques, Inter- 
national Congress of Anthropology, Congrés 
Internationaux d’Ethnographie, International 
Folk-Lore Congresses and International Con- 
gress of Americanists. The organizing com- 
mittee appointed by Dr. A. P. Maudslay, 
president of the conference, consists of the 
following: Maudslay (ex officio), chairman, 
R. R. Marrett (Oxford), secretary, Hrdlitka, 
Boas, Kramer, Capitan, Heger, Duckworth, 
Waxweiler, Lafone Quevedo, van Panhuys. 
This committee met at the close of the con- 
ference and decided that a congress should not 
be held before 1915 (if then). In the mean- 
time a general committee is being constituted 
by gradually adding names to the organizing 
committee; and sub-committees are being 
formed to establish harmonious relations with 
the various existing international congresses. 
GrEoRGE Grant MacOurpy 
HONORARY DEGREES IN SCIENCE 
THE degrees conferred by Harvard Univer- 
sity at its recent commencement on men of 
science and words used by President Lowell 
are as follows: 
Master of arts: Charles Francis Stokes, surgeon 
for sailors in peace and war, on sea and land, on 
battleships in the west and the east and around the 
world; professor of surgery, director of hospitals, 
Surgeon-General of the Navy. Doctor of sci- 
ence: Frederick Forchheimer, who in his practise, 
by his teaching, and with his pen, has contributed 
to the marvellous advance of medicine in our day; 
a man in the judgment of his peers worthy to pre- 
side over the Association of American Physicians; 
Carlos de la Torre y Huerta, statesman and nat- 
uralist; first in his knowledge of the molluscs of 
the Gulf; discoverer of fossils who has revolution- 
ized the geologic history of Cuba; Frederick 
Cheever Shattuck, a teacher of medicine, pungent 
