266 
SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 
ProFessor WILDER D. Bancrort, of the de- 
partment of chemistry of Cornell University, 
who has been engaged in government work 
since our entry into the war, has been com- 
missioned a lieutenant colonel in the Chem- 
ical Warfare Service. 
TueERE has been organized at Dijon a scien- 
tific society or cercle for the purpose of amal- 
gamating Franco-American interests in this 
special territory. The presidents are Major 
W. B. Cannon, of the United States Army, 
and Professor Bataillon, dean of the faculty 
of science. Among those present at the first 
meeting were American military medical offi- 
cers, the médecin chef de la Place, the mem- 
bers of the Corps de santé franeais, the pro- 
fessors of the faculty of science and of the 
Ecole de médecine et de pharmacie de Dijon. 
Mr. Henry Griscom Parsons, supervisor of 
gardening instruction at the New York Bo- 
tanical Garden, has been commissioned with 
the rank of captain in the Quartermaster’s 
Department of the Army, and has been as- 
signed to the Conservation and Reclamation 
Division, salvage and gardening branch, being 
put in charge of the farming and gardening 
operations at the various cantonments, with 
headquarters at Washington. 
Dr. Smwon Fuexner, of the Rockefeller In- 
stitute for Medical Research, has been elected 
a foreign member of the Swedish Medical So- 
ciety at Stockholm. 
Dr. W. J. SpmuMan has resigned as chief of 
the Office of Farm Management in the United 
States Department of Agriculture to accept 
the editorship of The Farm Journal at Phila- 
delphia. Kor the present he will continue to 
reside in Washington. 
Dr. Harry S. Bernton, pathologist to the 
Pennsylvania State Board of Health, has re- 
signed to become the chief of the bureau of 
preventable diseases and director of the bio- 
logic laboratories of the Health Department 
of the District of Columbia. 
A party of agricultural experts of the bu- 
reau of plant industry of the United States 
Department of Agriculture have been sent to 
SCIENCE 
[N. 8. Vou. XLVIII. No. 1237 
Algeria, Tunis and Morocco to investigate and 
advise on the possibilities of increasing the 
agricultural output of those French colonies. 
The visit is to be made at the request of the 
French High Commission now in the United 
States. The party is composed of E. C. Chil- 
cott, in charge of the dry farming investiga- 
tions of the bureau; C. 8. Scofield, in charge 
of the bureauw’s work in development of irri- 
gation agriculture, and T. H. Kearney, in 
charge of important work with alkali and 
drought-resistant crops. 
Dr. W. A. Cannon, of the department of 
botanical research of the Carnegie Institution, 
expects to be in Australia for about twelve 
months, where he will make field studies of 
desert plants with special reference to root 
habits. : 
Henry Hinps has returned to Washington 
from Panama and Costa Rico, where he was 
acting chief geologist for the Sinclair Central 
American Oil Company. He is now serving 
as geologist for the U. S. Geological Survey 
and the Fuel Administration, in charge of 
the work of furnishing geological advice for 
the use of the Capital Issues Committee in 
considering the applications of oil and gas 
companies to issue stocks and bonds for de- 
velopment purposes. 
Dr. Kart T. Compton, formerly of the de- 
partment of physics of Reed College, is now 
in Paris as a technical assistant with the 
Research Information Committee authorized 
by joint action of the Secretaries of War and 
Navy. 
Proressor Hupson B. Hastines, of Reed 
College, has been engaged by the Food Ad- 
ministration as economic and statistical ex- 
pert in the study of problems arising in con- 
nection with the salmon and milk industries. 
Dr. S. I. Kornuwauser, associate professor 
of zoology at Northwestern University, has 
entered the Sanitary Corps of the army as a 
lieutenamt. and will report at the Brady Lab- 
oratory, New Haven. 
Assistant Proressor Asa OC. CHANDLER, ” 
Ph.D., of the department of zoology and phys- 
iology in the Oregon Agricultural College, 
