August 26, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



165 



SCIENTIFIC EVENTS 



DEATHS OF GERMAN MEN OF SCIENCE" 



At our request, Professor C. Runge, of 

 Gottingen, has been good enough to send us 

 the following list of leading men of science in 

 Germany who have died since the beginning 

 of the late war. The list is not, however, com- 

 plete, and may be supplemented later. Short 

 obituary notices of some of the men will be 

 found in the Geschiiftliche Mitteilungen der 

 GoUinger Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, 

 1918-19-20 (Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 

 Berlin S.W. 68, Zimmerstr. 94) :— W. Lexis 

 mathematician and statistician, August, 1914 

 W. Hittorf, physicist, November, 1914; A 

 von Auwers, astronomer, January, 1915 ; A 

 von Konen, geologist. May, 1915 ; E. Riecke 

 physicist, June, 1915 ; P. Ehrlich, physician 

 August, 1915 ; H. Solms-Laubach, botanist. 

 November, 1915; R. Dedekind, mathematician 

 February, 1916; E. Mach, philosopher and 

 physicist, Febi'uary, 1916; K. Schwarzschild, 

 astronomer. May, 1916; R. Helmert, mathema- 

 tician and physicist, June, 1917; A. von 

 Baeyer, chemist, August, 1917; G. Frobenius, 

 mathematician, August, 1917; A. von Froriep, 

 anatomist, October, 1917; H. Vochting, botan- 

 ist, November, 1917; C. Rabl, anatomist, De- 

 cember, 1917; G. Cantor, mathematician, 

 January, 1918; L. Edinger, physician, Janu- 

 ary, 1918; E. Hering, physiologist, January, 

 1918; F. Merkel, anatomist. May, 1919; S. 

 Schwendener, botanist, June, 1919 ; E. Fischer, 

 chemist, July, 1919 ; H. Bruns, astronomer, 

 1919; Th. Reye, mathematician, July, 1919; 

 "VV. Voigt, physicist, December, 1919; P. 

 Stackel, mathematician, December, 1919; W. 

 Pfeffer, botanist, January, 1920; O. Biitschli, 

 zoologist, February, 1920; and W. Forster, as- 

 tronomer, 1920. J. Elster, physicist, and Joh. 

 Thomae, mathematician, have died recently. 

 In addition to the above, several other Ger- 

 man men of science were referred to in the 

 obituary notice of Professor von Waldeyer in 

 Nature of May 19, and news has also reached 

 us of the following deaths not previously re- 

 corded in these columns: — Professor G. A. 



1 From Nature. 



Schwalbe, Strassburg, on April 23, 1916, age 

 seventy-one years; and Professor Karl von 

 Bardeleben, editor of the Anatomischer An- 

 zeiger, on December 19, 1918, age sixty-nine 

 years. 



PROGRESS IN THE WORK OF MAPPING THE 

 UNITED STATES 



The United States Geological Survey, 

 Department of the Interior, has published 

 about 3,000 engraved topographic maps, which 

 represent nearly 43 per cent, of the area 

 of the United States. These maps are the 

 results of surveys made during a period of 34 

 years, and the results are fairly good in 

 quantity and quality for a Government bureau 

 which can go only as fast as appropriations 

 will permit. 



A fe%v geologic maps were published by 

 the Survey prior to 1886, some of them in 

 atlases accompanying reports on regions in the 

 West, and a few were published separately 

 as photolithographs ; but the 1-degree sheets 

 of northwest New Mexico and northeast 

 Arizona, known as Wingate and Mount 

 Taylor, N. Mex., and Fort Defiance, Tusayan, 

 Marsh Pass, and Canyon de Chelly, Ariz., 

 published in 1886, were the first topographic 

 maps printed by the Geological Survey from 

 engraved plates. 



Eight States — Massachusetts, Rhode Island, 

 Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Mary- 

 land, West Virginia, and Ohio — have been 

 completely mapped, and the work of mapping 

 the State of New York is more than 90 per 

 cent, completed. Several States are actively 

 cooperating with the Survey in this work 

 and in 1920 contributed to it a total of 

 nearly $200,000. 



The Bulletin of the Survey containing this 

 information continues: 



With nearly 60 per cent, of the area of the 

 country entirely unmapped and much that has 

 been mapped in need of resurveys, and with the 

 largest mapping organization in the country sur- 

 veying only about 40 per cent, of the area in 40 

 years, the logical demand is for more speed. If 

 these maps are to serve their full purpose in pro- 

 moting national development the whole country 

 must be mapped within this generation, or, even 



