Januakt 20, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



71 



when Messrs. Lovell Reeve & Co., who had 

 bought the magazine from the Curtis family in 

 1845, found themselves unable to continue the 

 publication, they offered the copyright to Kew 

 for £250. Although the botanical authorities 

 would gladly have carried on the publication, 

 the government refused to sanction the pur- 

 chase, and at one time there was considerable 

 anxiety lest the copyright should be sold and 

 cross the Atlantic. At a dinner of some lead- 

 ing horticulturists on the first night of the 

 Chelsea Show the feeling was so strong that 

 the magazine must remain in England that 

 the requisite sum was guaranteed at once and 

 the copyright was purchased on the following 

 day. The next step was to propose to allow 

 the magazine to appear as an official publica- 

 tion from Kew, but the Treasury refused to 

 sanction the conditions imposed by the new 

 owners. The latter then approached the 

 council of the Royal Horticultural Society, 

 with the result that it is hoped to resume pub- 

 lication in 1922, and an early announcement 

 will be made as soon as the negotiations and 

 arrangements are complete. 



The Elgin Observatory of the Elgin Na- 

 tional Watch Company, at Elgin, Illinois, on 

 Armistice Day, November 11, 1921, obtained its 

 first chronographic record of the French scien- 

 tific radio time signals from the LaEayette 

 Station, Bordeaux, Trance, at a distance of 

 4,400 miles. The recording apparatus devised 

 by Frank D. Urie is entirely automatic, the 

 incoming radial signals controlling the move- 

 ment of the chronographic pen. The receiving 

 aerial is a small one consisting of a single wire 

 180 feet long and 30 feet high. 



We learn from the Journal of the American 

 Medical Association that a bill has been intro- 

 duced in the Senate and House of Representa- 

 tives to "reorganize and promote the efficiency 

 of the United States Public Health Service." 

 It is known as the Watson-Dyer bill. The bill 

 provides for 550 officers of the reserve corps 

 of the Public Health Service, including 50 

 dental surgeons and 50 scientists other than 

 medical officers, who may be transferred to and 

 commissioned in the regular corps of commis- 

 sioned officers of the Public Health Service 



by the President, in the grades of assistant 

 surgeon, passed assistant surgeon, surgeon, 

 senior surgeon, and assistant surgeon-general. 

 Officers in the last grade will be known as 

 medical directors. No officer will be commis- 

 sioned or promoted until after passing an 

 examination before a board of regular com- 

 missioned officers of the Public Health Service. 

 The bill further provides that no reserve 

 officer shall be commissioned in the regular 

 corps of the Public Health Service who has 

 not had three years' satisfactory service in the 

 army, navy or Public Health Service, a part of 

 which service must have been between April 6, 

 1917, and November 11, 1918. There are only 

 200 regular commissioned officers in the Public 

 Health Service at present. They are largely 

 engaged in administration, scientific research, 

 industrial and child hygiene, neuropsychiatry, 

 domestic and foreign quarantine, immigration, 

 prevention of venereal diseases, public health 

 education, and other matters pertaining to 

 public health. There are about one thovisand 

 commissioned officers of the reserve of the 

 Public Health Service on active duty, caring 

 for ex-service men. These officers are indis- 

 pensable, yet they have no fixed tenure of 

 appointment. The Watson-Dyer bill transfers 

 at least half of them to the regular service 

 without any additional expense. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 NOTES 



Mr. George F. Baker, chairman of the 

 board of directors of the First National Bank, 

 has given $700,000 to Columbia University for 

 the purchase of an athletic field on Dyckman 

 Street. The property, which comprises 

 twenty-six acres, will be developed at a cost of 

 about $3,000,000. 



The University of North Carolina has 

 received the sum of $26,000 for the establish- 

 ment of the Graham Kenan fellowship in 

 philosophy. The gift was made by Mrs. 

 Graham Kenan in memory of her late husband. 



Professor Wm. R. Work, of the Carnegie 

 Institute of Technology, has been placed in 

 charge of the department of electrical engineer- 



