542 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIV. No. 1405. 



SCIENTIFIC EVENTS 

 THE HIGH ALTITUDE EXPEDITION TO PERU 



As lias boen already noted in Science, tlie 

 Eoyal Society High Altitude Expedition to 

 Peru sailed in the third week of November 

 on the Santa Teresa. The expedition pro- 

 poses to study the adaptation of man to life 

 at or above the altitude of 14,000 ft. As 

 compared with other localities in which this 

 type of work has been carried out, Peru pos- 

 sesses certain advantages: (1) Being near 

 the equator, the effects of altitude are less 

 complicated by those of cold than in higher 

 latitudes. (2) The Central Railway of Peru, 

 the highest standard-guage railway in the 

 world, ascends the Andes to an altitude of 

 15,885 ft. (3) A mining population lives 

 and works in localities situated above 14,000 

 and 16,000 ft., or even higher. It is alleged, 

 for example, that the porters at the town of 

 Cerro de Pasco, in the Andes, raise the ores 

 600 ft. from the mines by carrying loads of 

 160 lb. of mineral many times in the day. 

 There is probably no other population which 

 carries on such heavy work in so rare an 

 atmosphere. Experimental methods for the 

 study of the circulatory and respiratory 

 systems have advanced so much within the 

 last ten or twenty years that the time seems 

 ripe for their application to the extraordi- 

 narily interesting problems which life at high 

 altitudes presents. Donations towards the ex- 

 penses of the expedition have been received 

 from the folowing: The Eoyal Society, the 

 Harvard Medical School, the Carnegie Fund, 

 the Moray Fund, the University of Toronto, 

 the Rockefeller Institute, the Presbyterian 

 Hospital, New York, Sir Peter Mackie, and 

 Sir Robert Hadfield. 



Members of the party are Alfred 0. Red- 

 field, assistant professor of physiology at the 

 Harvard Medical School; Arlie V. Bock, 

 M.D., of the Massachusetts General Hospital; 

 Henry S. Forbes, M.D., now engaged in re- 

 search work in industrial medicine at Har- 

 vard University; 0. A. L. Binger, of the 

 Rockefeller Institute, New York; and George 

 A. Harrop, of the Presbyterian Hospital, 

 New York. The expedition was organized 



by Joseph Bancroft of Cambridge Univer- 

 sity, England; he is accompanied also by 

 Professor J. G. Meakins, of Edinburgh Uni- 

 versity, and Dr. Doggart of King's College, 

 Cambridge, England. They carry with them 

 an X-ray machine and a large amount of 

 other medical apparatus. 



After completing the studies at CerrD de 

 Pasco, the investigators expect to spend a 

 short time at Ticleo, on the watershed of the 

 Andes. Ticleo, nearly 16,000 feet high, is 

 the highest standard-gauge railroad station 

 in the world. They will return by February 

 first, and later in the year Mr. Bancroft will 

 give a series of lectures at the Lowell Insti- 

 tute in Boston. 



THE JOSEPH HENRY FUND OF THE NATIONAL 

 ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



In the year 1878 a tripartite agreement 

 was made between (1) Certain citizens of 

 Philadelphia, (2) A Pennsylvania Insurance 

 and Annuity Company and (3) the National 

 Academy of Sciences, by the terms of which 

 a fund of $40,000 face value was placed in 

 trust with the Company, the income from 

 which was to be paid to Professor Joseph 

 Henry during his life and after his death 

 to his wife and three daughters and after the 

 death of the last survivor of these four, it 

 was provided that the same gross sum shall 

 be transferred to the National Academy of 

 Sciences to be forever held in trust and the 

 income from which shall be from time to 

 time applied to assist " meritorious investiga- 

 tions in natural science especially in the di- 

 rection of original research." 



By the death on November 10, 1920, of the 

 last survivor of the original beneficiaries, the 

 capital sum passes, as of that date, into the 

 hands of the National Academy of Sciences 

 for purposes as indicated. 



At the recent fall meeting of the Academy 

 in Chicago, the following statement of policy 

 of administration, submitted by the special 

 Committee on this fund, was approved by the 

 Academy : 



Under the terms of the trust deed there is im- 



