86 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIV. No. 1387 



he was also one of the first astronomers in 

 England to use a telescope, and, like G-alileo, 

 Fabrieius, and Scheiner, was one of the early- 

 observers of the spots on the sun. Born at 

 Oxfoyd in 1560, he was a year older than 

 Henry Briggs. He graduated from St. Mary's 

 Hall, and became an ardent student of mathe- 

 matics forty years before the inauguration of 

 the first university chair of mathematics. At 

 the age of twenty-five he entered the service 

 of Sir Walter Ealeigh, by whom he was em- 

 ployed in the survey of ■ the newly founded 

 ■colony of Virginia. The greater part of Har- 

 riot's life, however, was passed in the neigh- 

 fborhood of London, where he came under the 

 :patronage of Henry Percy, Earl of ISTorthum- 

 •berland, who gave him a pension and assigned 

 ihim rooms at Sion House, which stands on 

 the banks of the Thames opposite Kew. When 

 the earl was confined to the Tower through 

 the complicity of some of his family in the 

 Gunpowder Plot, Harriot and two other mathe- 

 matical worthies, Thomas Hughes and Walter 

 Warner, often bore him company. They were 

 known as " the three magi." Harriot ap- 

 pears to have passed an uneventful life, and 

 at his death was buried in St. Christopher's 

 Church, on tlie site of which now stands the 

 Bank of England. A monument erected to 

 his memory was destroyed in the Great Fire 

 of 1666. As an algebraist Harriot is a con- 

 necting link between Vieta and Descartes. 

 His "Artis Analytics Praxis" was not pub- 

 lished until ten years after his death. The 

 revival of his fame as an astronomer was 

 due to von Zach, who, while on a visit to the 

 Earl of Egremont in 1784, discovered some 

 of Harriot's writings beneath a pile of old 

 stable accounts at Petworth Castle; while 

 the reduction of Harriot's observations of the 

 comet of 160Y formed one of the first tasks of 

 Bessel's astronomical career. Some of Har- 

 riot's manuscripts are in the British Museum. 



THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF AGRI- 

 CULTURE 



The president of the International Institute 

 of Agriculture at Eome has transmitted to 

 the Secretary of Agriculture, through the 

 State Department, a copy of resolutions 



adopted in April, 1921, by the permanent com- 

 mittee of the institute, authorizing the con- 

 ferring of the title " Donating Member " upon 

 any person who makes a gift, donation, or con- 

 tribution to the institute amounting in value 

 to 10,000 Italian lire, which at normal rates 

 of exchange is equivalent to about $2,000. 



The permanent committee wished to demon- 

 strate in a tangible manner the gratitude of 

 the International Agricultural Institute 

 toward all persons whose generous impulse 

 prompts them to make gifts to it in money or 

 in kind, thereby contributing toward the ful- 

 fillment of the mission intrusted to it. 



The permanent committee has already 

 named as a donating member Mr. Victor 

 Vermorel, member of the National Academy 

 of Agriculture of France and former senator, 

 thus testifying to him its gratitude for a gen- 

 erous gift which he made to it recently. 



The International Institute of Agriculture 

 was established as the direct result of the 

 efForts of David Lubin, a successful merchant 

 of California, with the active support of the 

 King of Italy, who foresaw the advantages 

 which would accrue to agriculture, commerce, 

 and industry from an international clearing- 

 house for systematically collecting and dis- 

 seminating official information supplied by the 

 various governments of the world on agricul- 

 tural production, consumption, movements, 

 surpluses, deficits, and prices of agricultural 

 products, transportation, plant and animal dis- 

 eases and insect pests, rural credits and insur- 

 ance, standard of living, wages and hours of 

 labor on farms, cooperative organizations of 

 farmers, legislation affecting agriculture, and 

 similar information. The international treaty 

 was drafted at Eome on June 7, 1905, and 

 has since been ratified by more than 60 gov- 

 ernments. 



The institute survived the trying period of 

 the World War and is now entering upon a 

 period of expansion and increased usefulness. 

 Its work benefits all peoples. In accordance 

 with the recent action of the permanent com- 

 mittee, which is made up of delegates from 

 the adhering governments and serves as a 

 board of directors of the International In- 



