36 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLVI. No. 1176 



men who have been refused service in the 

 army or navy for minor defects may have 

 these defects cured or so remedied that they 

 will be able to enlist later. This is carrying 

 out the plan of Dr. William Duffield Eobinson, 

 which won the approval of the surgeon-gen- 

 eral. The entire equipment of the German- 

 town Hospital has been offered. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 NEWS 



The will of the late Colonel Oliver H. 

 Payne provides bequests of more than $7,000,- 

 000 to charitable and educational institutions. 

 The largest gifts are to Yale University, Lake- 

 side Hospital, Cleveland, and the New York 

 Public Library, each of which will receive 

 $1,000,000. An endowment of $500,000 is be- 

 queathed to the Cornell University Medical 

 College. Other gifts include: Phillips Acad- 

 emy, Andover, Mass., $500,000; St. Vincent's 

 Charity Hospital, Cleveland, $200,000; Cleve- 

 land Jewish Orphans Asylum, $200,000; Ham- 

 ilton College, Clinton, IST. Y., $200,000, and the 

 University of Virginia, $200,000. 



Mrs. Eeed, widow of late Dean John O. 

 Keed, has presented to the library of the de- 

 partment of physics of the University of Mich- 

 igan about 400 scientific books and bound re- 

 prints from the library of Professor Eeed, the 

 books being principally on physics and mathe- 

 matics. There was received from Mrs. Eeed, 

 also, a gift of eight prisms of special design of 

 various kinds of glass and natural crystals 

 made by Professor Eeed and used by him in 

 research work. Mrs. Guthe, widow of the late 

 Dean Karl E. Guthe, has presented to the li- 

 brary about 100 volmnes of scientific works 

 from Professor Guthe's library, together with 

 about 1,000 catalogued reprints of scientific 

 papers and a card catalogue of several thou- 

 sand references. 



Professor Egbert DeC. Ward, of Harvard 

 University, is giving instruction in meteorol- 

 ogy in the school for the preliminary training 

 of aviators, recently established at the Massa- 

 chusetts Institute of Technology, in coopera- 

 tion with the War Department. For the pur- 



poses of this work. Professor Ward has become 

 a member of the teaching staS at the Institute 

 of Technology, and, under orders from the 

 War Department, has been to Toronto to fa- 

 miliarize himself with the instruction which 

 is there being given at the Cadet School of the 

 Eoyal Flying Corps. 



The State College of Forestry at Syracuse 

 announces the appointment of Mr. Ernest G. 

 Dudley, of Leland Stanford University and 

 the Yale Forest School, as assistant professor 

 of forest extension. Mr. Dudley goes to the 

 college from the U. S. Forest Service in Cali- 

 fornia where he has recently been in charge of 

 the Forest Service Exhibit at the Panama- 

 California Exposition in San Diego. 



Dr. Milton C. Winternitz, formerly associ- 

 ate professor of pathology in Johns Hopkins 

 University, has been elected professor of 

 pathology in the school of medicine of Yale 

 University. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



A REMARKABLE COINCIDENCE 



The most remarkable coincidence known to 

 me relates to the discovery of Perrine's second 

 comet. I published the facts in the case in 

 The Olservatory, Vol. 26, pp. 293-94, 1903, 

 where they were made familiar to many as- 

 tronomers. On describing the coincidence re- 

 cently to a group of my colleagues in other 

 sciences they urged strongly that I republish 

 the facts in a journal of more general charac- 

 ter, and thus make known the occurrence to 

 students in other subjects. 



Professor Charles D. Perrine, of the Lick 

 Observatory staff, discovered the first of his 

 many comets on liovember 17, 1895. This was 

 Comet c 1895. He observed it night after 

 night until December 20, 1895, when it was lost 

 to sight in the glare of the sun's rays. The 

 orbit of the comet was accurately determined, 

 and its path for the early months of 1896 was 

 computed and published in advance. I had the 

 pleasure of assisting Mr. Perrine when he first 

 looked for its reappearance from behind the 

 sun, on the morning (just before dawn) of 

 January 30, 1896. He found it at once, in the 



