148 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LV, No. 1415 



officers respectable honorary stipends. In the 

 American Mathematical Society and the Math- 

 ematical Association of America there are four 

 such officers to whom honorary stipends of at 

 least $1,000 each should be given annually. 

 For this purpose an endowment of $80,000 is 

 needed. In this case again farsighted and 

 loyal individuals are contemplating bequests, 

 and one or two such wills with liberal pro- 

 visions are known to be already made. Also a 

 special gift toward this end has just been 

 promised to the association for the coming 

 year. 



It will be found that the totals of the above 

 ten items, as estimated, are as follows : For 

 lump simis $134,000; and for annual subsidies 

 $51,700, or, if capitalized at five per cent., an 

 endowment of $1,034,000. As stated under 

 (6) the provision for mathematical mono- 

 graphs is already made, and under (9) and 

 (10) beginnings have been made by bequests 

 provided for in wills or by special cash gifts. 

 Also in connection with (2) it should be said 

 that the proposition is under favorable con- 

 sideration by a prospective donor. A donation 

 of this magnitude would, indeed, be a monu- 

 ment worthy of great honor to the donor, and 

 would render a service of untold value to the 

 cause of education. The same may be said in 

 varying degrees of all the items enumerated. 

 It is believed that when information concerning 

 these needs becomes sufficiently widespread 

 there will be liberal responses in supplying 

 the funds.^ 



1 As this article goes to the printer a donor 

 offers to provide the items of $4,000 mentioned 

 in (4). Also a report in Science for January 13 

 of grants made by the Heekseher Eesearch Foun- 

 dation contains three items amounting to $2,600 

 for mathematics. Possibly this latter amount is 

 the one quoted in the same issue of Science (page 

 52) where grants for researcli in twelve sciences 

 range from $352,000 for biology down to $2,600 

 for mathematics. The compiler seems not sur- 

 prised that ' ' mathematics brings up the rear, ' ' 

 since he says that "it would probably appear to 

 most of us to be the subject farthest removed 

 from practical interests. ' ' His surprise will 

 doubtless be great when he contemplates a pro- 

 posal for a million dollar endowment fund for 

 mathematics. 



In this connection, attention may be called 

 to the fact that an important and urgent need 

 of mathematics has already been recognized 

 and met by the General Education Board of 

 the Rockefeller Foundation in financing the 

 work of the National Committee on Mathe- 

 matical Requirements, a committee working 

 under the auspices of the Mathematical Asso- 

 ciation of America. This work has extended 

 over a period of three years and the funds 

 supplied will total over $65,000 when the 

 exhaustive report of the committee is pub- 

 lished in a volume of five or sis hundred pages. 



H. E. Slaught 

 Chicago, January 2, 1922 



SCIENTIFIC EVENTS 

 BRITISH RESEARCH ON CEMENT 



In order to discover some means of increas- 

 ing and cheapening the supply of Portland 

 cement, experiments are being made by a panel 

 of experts associated wath the British Engi- 

 neering Standards Association. The object of 

 the research is to ascertain whether cement 

 made from blast-furnace slag can not be made 

 according to a recognized specification which 

 would enable it to be used for work in which 

 Portland cement, manufactured according to 

 the British standard specification, has hither- 

 to been employed. 



Mr. H. 0. Weller, of the Department of 

 Scientific and Industrial Research, who is a 

 member of the panel, explains in the London 

 Times that the British standard specification 

 for Portland cement is recognized all over the 

 world, and has done more than anything else 

 to make Portland cement recognized as a safe 

 material to use. But it is beginning to be 

 recogiuzed that the specification is rather too 

 narrow, and that there is need for a standard 

 specification for iron Portland cement — i. e., 

 cement to which a small portion of blast-fur- 

 nace slag has been added after ehnkering. 

 Cement of this character was first tested in 

 Germany in 1902, and by decree of the Prus- 

 sian Ministry of Public Works, in 1909, was 

 sanctioned for use in the erection of German 

 public buildings. This cement has come into 

 England in fairly large quantities in recent 



