Ocroser 4, 1918] 
established by Professor O. M. Mitchell, pro- 
fessor of astronomy in the old Cincinnati Col- 
lege. Through the generosity of Nicholas 
Longworth a site for the observatory was se- 
cured and telescopes were mounted in 1845. 
In 1873 the observatory was made the astro- 
nomical department of the University of Cin- 
cinnati, and the present site on Mt. Lookout 
was donated by John Kilgour. Professor 
Mitchell was an innovator, publishing the first 
American magazine devoted to popular as- 
tronomy, and applying the principles now em- 
bodied in the chronograph to the recording of 
time. The scientific achievements of the ob- 
servatory are well known, among them being 
the detection of double stars, orbits of comets, 
prediction of the weather and the study of 
nebule. For years the problem worked on by 
Dr. Porter and his assistants has been the 
proper motions of the stars. The few thou- 
sands of stars which show sufficient motion to 
be perceptible, in the interval during which 
astronomers have had them under observation, 
have been reobserved at Cincinnati and their 
motions carefully investigated. 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
NEWS 
StonyHursT CoLLece, Blackburn, England, 
has planned to raise £20,000 as a war memorial 
to be devoted chiefly to the erection of new 
science laboratories. 
Cotumpia University, at the request of the 
War Department, is starting an emergency 
course in engineering for students entering 
from high schools. This emergency course, 
embracing civil, electrical, mechanical, metal- 
lurgical and chemical engineering, will extend 
over two years of four quarters each. The first 
four quarters of the course will be devoted 
largely to fundamental scientific training in 
mathematics, physics and chemistry. The 
strictly engineering subjects will come in the 
second year. The War Department does not 
guarantee that any man entering on this course 
can remain to finish it, but those who do well 
will be continued in it as long as the needs of 
the army permit. 
SCIENCE 
343 
Lieutenant Cotonet CHarves F. Craic, who 
until recently has been stationed at Fort Leay- 
enworth, Kans., has been placed in charge of 
the Yale Army Laboratory School, the new 
school for bacteriologists and chemists which 
is to be conducted at Yale University during 
the period of the war. 
Dr. R. M. Srrone, professor of anatomy at 
Vanderbilt University, has been appointed 
professor and head of the department of anat- 
omy at the Chicago College of Medicine and 
Surgery. 
Dr. JosepH C. Bock, Chem. Eng. (Vienna), 
Ph.D. (Cornell), for five years instructor at 
Cornell University Medical School, has been 
appointed professor of physiological chemis- 
try in the school of medicine of Marquette 
University at Milwaukee. 
E. J. Quinn, who for the past four years 
has been a research chemist on the chemistry 
staff of the Montana Experiment Station has 
accepted an appointment as assistant professor 
in the department of chemistry of the State 
College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts of 
the University of Montana. He will have 
charge of the courses in analytical and agri- 
cultural chemistry. 
Mr. S. H. Stroup, formerly demonstrator in 
chemistry in the School of Pharmacy, 
Bloomsbury Square, has been appointed lec- 
turer in pharmacy and chemistry in the Uni- 
versity of Sydney, N. S. W. 
DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 
THE FOUNDATIONS OF MECHANICS 
In Scrence of August 2, Messrs. Franklin 
and MacNutt attempt to make it “ clearly evi- 
dent that Professor Huntington’s statement 
(that variation in acceleration from body to 
body for a given force is logically derivable 
from the variation from force to foree for a 
given body) is not true.” “Logically de- 
rivable” is scarcely a clear phrase in this 
connection. The quid of the matter is found, 
of course, in the fact that in the table of 
Messrs. Franklin and McNutt, these authors 
